Palais Kaiserstein

The Palais Kaiserstein stands in Vienna’s first district, the Innere Stadt, on Weihburggasse. A house occupied by a shoemaker in 1375 later passed to the Freiherr von Kaiserstein family in 1631. The present building began as a Renaissance structure in the mid-16th century before Franz Joseph von Krapf added a four-storey corner tower around 1700. In 1839 Leopold Mayr raised the building for Countess Anna von Fuchs and gave it a new façade. A single-storey extension was added on Seilerstätte in 1924. The façade shows a two-storey rusticated base with flat diamond rustication. A central segmental-arched doorway in Weihburggasse carries the Fuchs family coat of arms above it. Ground-floor shop entrances are framed by round-arched quoin blocks or a 1913 porch structure. Above the string course runs a plain late-Classical front with evenly spaced windows topped by a small cornice and dentil frieze. The former tower’s sharp edges were softened and a first-floor balcony with iron railings inserted. Inside, enclosed wooden galleries run round three sides of the courtyard. A stone staircase from 1664–68, possibly the oldest in Vienna, was heightened in 1839. The courtyard itself is paved and surrounded by the galleries on three sides, creating a quiet space away from the street.