Messepalast
The building complex of the Vienna court stables was used and named as the trade fair palace from 1921 to the 1970s. After the concentration of the Wiener Messe on the location in the Prater and long-term discussions about the subsequent use, the Museum Quarter is located here today .
history
Due to the downfall of the Danube monarchy and the technical development (motorization), the function of the extensive building complex of the imperial stable and wagon castle, essentially built by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and his son Joseph Emanuel, became obsolete. It was used by Wiener Messe AG from 1921 . Larger renovations took place mainly after partial war destruction in the Second World War, so after 1945 the large courtyard was reduced in size and the hall area was considerably expanded behind adapted, seemingly ocular facades.
In addition to the regular trade fair events, popular special exhibitions were held in the centrally located, easily accessible trade fair palace, for example the exhibition "Vienna and the Viennese" (1927), the Franz Schubert centennial exhibition in 1928, a show: "250 Years of the Viennese Coffee House" (1933) , an anniversary culinary art exhibition (1935), the hygiene exhibition from 1937 and political propaganda exhibitions from the Nazi era, such as the “Large Exhibition 1918” in February 1944, which promoted perseverance. This use of the building complex continued after 1945. Mention should be made of a show about London organized by the British Information Service in 1947 or, in 1950, the exhibition: “The Woman and Her Apartment”. During the occupation, the USFA basketball hall was built in the Messepalast by the American occupying forces ( United States Forces in Austria ), which gave basketball a great boost in Austria. The tradition of special exhibitions was continued into the 1980s, including the Vienna International Postage Stamp Exhibition in 1965, the exhibition "Opening up the Cosmos through the USSR" in 1968 (at which the first Soviet spacecraft Vostok was shown) and various antiques fairs and Exhibitions as part of the Wiener Festwochen (1985–1997), for example “de Sculptura” (1986), “Wunderblock” (1989) or “From nature in art” (1990).
From the end of the 1970s, there were discussions about the conversion of the building complex, then generally known as the Messepalast , for the purposes of federal museums or as a conference center, for example. In the end, it was not until 1995 that Wiener Messe AG finally moved to the premises and, at the turn of the millennium, the current Museum Quarter was built.