History of the Parliament Building

Theophil Hansen created the parliament building, constructed from 1873 to 1883 in the style of the Greek Revival. He also created the Pallas Athena Fountain in front of it; this 15-foot figure of the Greek goddess of wisdom is by Karl Kundmann.

Until 1918, the elected representatives serving in the Council of the Empire met here in legislative session for the Austrian half of the dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy which extended from Galicia (now Polish and Ukrainian territory) all the way to Dalmatia (the Adriatic coast of modern-day Croatia).

In modern Austria, this is the seat of both the National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament whose representatives are elected by popular vote, and the Federal Council, whose members are chosen by the various states to serve in the upper house. To the left of Parliament is the Monument of the Republic, with statues of the prominent Social Democrats Jakob Reumann (mayor of Vienna from 1919 to 1923), Viktor Adler (one of the ideological fathers of the Austrian republic and its foreign minister in 1918) and Ferdinand Hanusch (minister of social affairs from 1918 to 1920).

To the right of Parliament is the Renner Memorial, dedicated to Dr. Karl Renner, Austria's chancellor at the establishment of the republic in 1918 and at its re-establishment in 1945 and president from 1945 to 1950.

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