MuseumsQuartier (Museum Quarter)

MuseumsQuartier (Museum Quarter) Review

New and old, past and present, Baroque and Modernism collide in this headline-making, vast culture center that opened in 2001. Claiming to be among the 10 largest of its kind in the world, the MuseumsQuartier—or MQ as many now call it—is housed in what was once the Imperial Court Stables, the 260-year-old Baroque complex designed by Fischer von Erlach, and is situated between the great Old Master treasures of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Spittelberg neighborhood, today one of Vienna's hippest enclaves. Where once 900 cavalry horses were housed, now thousands of artistic masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries are exhibited, all in a complex that is architecturally an expert and subtle blending of historic and cutting-edge—the original structure (adorned with pastry-white stuccoed ceilings and rococo flourishes) was retained, while ultramodern wings were added to house five museums, most of which showcase modern art at its best.

The Quartier21 showcase up-and-coming artists and musicians in the huge Fischer von Erlach wing facing the Museumsplatz. Planned are artist studios that will be open to the public. The annual Wiener Festwochen (theater-arts festival) and the International Tanzwochen (dance festival) are held every year in the former Winter Riding Hall. Modern-art lovers will find it easy to spend at least an entire day at MuseumsQuartier, and with several cafés, restaurants, gift shops, and bookstores, won't even need to venture outside.

The Leopold Museum comprises the holdings amassed by Rudolf and Elizabeth Leopold and contains one of the greatest collections of Egon Schiele in the world, as well as impressive works by Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka. Other artists worth noting are Josef Dobrowsky, Anton Faistauer, and Richard Gerstl. Emil Jakob Schindler's landscapes are well represented, as are those by Biedermeier artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. Center stage is held by Schiele (1890-1918), who died young, along with his wife and young baby, in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. His colorful, appealing landscapes are here, but all eyes are invariably drawn to the artist's tortured depictions of nude mistresses, orgiastic self-portraits, and provocatively sexual couples, all elbows and organs. 01/525-700. www.leopoldmuseum.org. €10. Mon., Wed., Fri.-Sun. 10-6, Thurs. 10-9.

Adjacent, in a modernistic, dark-stone edifice, is MUMOK, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, which houses the national collection of 20th-century art (once ensconced in the Palais Liechtenstein) on eight floors, mainly a bequest of Herr Ludwig, a billionaire industrialist who collected the cream 20th-century art. Top works here are of the American Pop Art school, but all the trends of the last century—Nouveau Réalisme, Radical Realism, and Hyperrealism of the '60s and '70s, Fluxus, Viennese Actionism, Conceptual Art and Minimal Art, Land Art and Arte Povera, as well as installation art vie for your attention. Names run from René Magritte and Max Ernst to Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Cy Twombly, Nam June Paik, and the very latest superstars of contemporary art. Kids will make a beeline for Claes Oldenburg's walk-in sculpture in the shape of Mickey Mouse. www.mumok.at. €9. Daily 10-6, Thurs. 10-9.

Nearby, the Kunsthalle has gigantic halls used for temporary exhibitions of avant-avant-garde art. www.kunsthallewien.at. €8.50. Daily 10-7, Thurs. 10-10.

The Architekturzentrum holds, besides the permanent show of Austrian architecture in the 20th and 21st centuries, major exhibitions presenting the breadth of architecture history and visions of what is to come. www.azw.at. €7. Daily 10-7.

A change of pace is offered by the ZOOM Kinder Museum, which caters to children. In the ZOOM lab, kids ages 7 and up can experience the fine line between the real and virtual worlds, making screenplays come to life by becoming directors, sound technicians, authors, and actors. For the little ones there's the ZOOM Ozean (ocean), where kids and parents enter a play area inhabited by magical underwater creatures, featuring a ship with a captain's quarters and lighthouse. 01/524-7908. www.kindermuseum.at. €5; Zoom Ozean, child with one adult €4. By reservation at least 24 hrs in advance.