The Redouten Halls at the Hofburg

Rooms with a history

The history of the Redouten Halls goes back to the first half of the 17th century. In 1629 Emperor Ferdinand II’s second wife, Eleonora Gonzaga, had a ballroom built in the north west side of what is now Josefsplatz.

The new space was completed in 1631 and inaugurated with a banquet. The occasion was the wedding of Ferdinand’s son from his first marriage (who would later become Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor) to Maria Anna of Bavaria. The ballroom was later converted and used as a theatre.

In the 1770s Nicolaus Pacassi (1716-1790) was entrusted with the development of the Hofburg. The theatre was converted and extended. The newly created tract of one larger and one smaller hall was now to be used for masquerade balls, so-called Redouten. When Pacassi left the court building department in 1772 the project was completed by Franz Anton Hillebrand (1719-1797).

In 1973 the Redouten Halls were converted into a conference centre. The delicate negotiations for the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) were held here, and from 1986 the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, to name a couple. In 1992 a devastating fire destroyed much of the Redouten Halls; between 1993 and 1997 the Redouten Wing was rebuilt as a congress centre. The smaller Redouten Hall suffered less damage and could be restored to its original state, the larger Redouten Hall was remodelled with oil paintings by Josef Mikl.