At the Arsenal for the Habsburgs and the new Photo Arsenal

To understand how extensive and extraordinary the history of the Habsburgs was, one has to reach the Arsenal and cross the threshold of the Military History Museum built between 1850 and 1856 to the design of architects Ludwig Förster and Theophil Hansen in a harmony of neo-Gothic, Byzantine and Moorish elements. Between cars and personal belongings of the emperors, one is then catapulted into the lesser-known maritime epic of the Habsburgs themselves. Just inside this complex of imposing buildings, in a former warehouse, Foto Arsenal, the new Museum of Photography, has recently opened. In a hangar space of one thousand square metres, retrospectives are currently dedicated to Daido Moriyama and Michelle Piergoelam, while Science/Fiction - A Non-History of Plants investigates the iconographic power of science.