Taxispalais (Innsbruck)

The Palais Fugger-Taxis stands in the heart of Innsbruck on Maria-Theresien-Straße. Built between 1679 and 1680 for Count Hans Otto Fugger, it was the city’s first baroque palace. Designed by Johann Martin Gumpp the Elder, the three-winged building originally enclosed an inner courtyard and a formal garden to the east. After damage from an earthquake in 1689, the structure was restored within a year. The Fugger family later sold the palace in 1784 to Joseph Sebastian von Thurn und Taxis, who used part of it as a post station.

The palace’s most notable interior space is the Paris-Saal on the first floor. Created in 1785–86 by Martin Knoller, its ceiling fresco depicts the Judgement of Paris. The room spans two storeys and is capped by a mirror vault. Below, rococo wall paintings from about 1750 were uncovered in 1921 after being overpainted during the Empire period. Two black-and-white stucco-marble fireplaces and a classical frieze by Knoller and Franz Altmutter add to the grandeur.

Today the building houses provincial government offices and the Taxispalais – Kunsthalle Tirol. The art hall opened in 1964 on 75 square metres and now occupies 500 square metres after expansion in 1998–99. The exterior shows a rusticated ground floor with a central portal flanked by two Tuscan columns and lion consoles. Above, strong cornices separate the floors, and the former main piano nobile is marked by tall windows with richly decorated stucco frames.