Palais Strozzi

Palais Strozzi in Vienna's 8th District, Josefstadt, is a historic building on Josefstädter Straße that was originally built as a modest summer residence for Countess Maria Katharina Strozzi. The architect is not known for certain, but may have come from the circle of Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt. After several changes of ownership, including the Archbishop of Valencia and Emperor Charles VI, the property passed to Empress Maria Theresa, who gave it to her court chancellor as a gift. In the 19th century, the palace briefly served as a cholera hospital before the state acquired it and converted it into a girls' boarding school, which required adding a story to the building. Later, it housed the tax office for several districts, among other uses. Today, the building is home to the research center of the Institute for Advanced Studies as well as the Complexity Science Hub Vienna. The pink-and-white palace sits behind a plain Gründerzeit building. You can admire the open staircase on the garden side. During a renovation, frescoes from around 1740 were uncovered on the ground floor, showing grotto architecture with shells and coral. The original interior furnishings, however, have not survived.