Dedicated to all people

For centuries this park was the private hunting ground and ornamental garden of the court, and in 1775 Joseph the Second, the Habsburg emperor, decided it should be open to everyone.

 

Above the main gate he had an inscription placed that dedicates the garden to all people. In those years that was a political statement, because an imperial garden where a day labourer was free to stroll was an unusual thing in Europe, and the nobility duly protested.

 

The avenues you see here still run as they were laid out in the seventeenth century, in straight bands with clipped hedges, though the trees have grown a good deal heavier since. This ground was destroyed too in 1683 when the suburbs burned, and the layout you walk through now dates from after that.

 

The park then became the place where Vienna went on a Sunday, with concerts in the morning, among them performances by Mozart and Beethoven.

 

Deeper into the park stand two buildings that today make music and porcelain.