Theseus Temple

A temple with no deity

The Theseus Temple, built between 1820 and 1823 by Pietro Nobile, is a smaller version of the Theseion, the ancient Theseus Temple in Athens.

Emperor Francis I of Austria pays a visit to the workshop of famed sculptor Antonio Canova on a trip to Rome, where he purchases one of the most significant monumental sculptures of Neoclassicism, the statue group “Theseus and the Centaur”. It is thought to be Canova himself who suggests the Emperor build a site worthy of displaying the group.

The statues remains in the Theseus Temple for nearly seventy years before being transferred in 1890 to the stairwell of the newly-erected Kunsthistorisches Museum, which is opened a year later. This major neoclassical work of art can still be seen there today.

After the planning phase, which begins in 1817, the catacombs are laid first in 1820, before the building above is completed in 1823. The roundhouse is over 10m high and rests on a three-tier structure. Inside, the temple consists of three rooms (cella, pronaos, opisthodomos) which one can access via a bronze door. The Imperial Antiquity Collection is initially stored in the catacombs, which one cannot get to from the cella or main room but rather via an outlying access which has not been preserved.

The Theseus Temple is occasionally used for art exhibitions at the beginning of the 20th century. Its main purpose, however, is to display finds from Ephesus. From 1895, Austrian archaeologists carry out systematic excavations in the famous ancient city near Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, making a valuable contribution to the preservation of ancient heritage, for instance through the reconstruction of the famed Celsus library. In later years, the Theseus Temple is used, among other things, for exhibitions by the Academy of Fine Arts, and from 1992 by the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

When general renovations are made between 2008 and 2011 by the Burghauptmannschaft Österreich, in cooperation with the Federal Chancellery, it is not only the copper roof of the Theseus Temple and the vaulted cellar that are restored. The building has since shone like new in its original white tone.