Rotunde

The Rotunde stood in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district as the centrepiece of the 1873 World’s Fair. Designed by Baron Karl von Hasenauer, it was a circular iron structure eighty-four metres tall with a dome one hundred and seven metres wide. The dome was then the largest in the world, surpassing even the Pantheon in Rome. Construction was led by German engineer Johann Caspar Harkort VI, while the dome itself was the work of Scottish engineer John Scott Russell. The completed Rotunde weighed about four thousand tonnes, supported by wrought iron ribs and glass panels. Visitors came to see the Rotunde long after the fair closed. In 1885 the singer Alexander Girardi performed there, introducing Gustav Pick’s Fiakerlied for the first time. Twelve years later Emperor Franz Joseph opened the Jubilee Exhibition inside the same building. Among the exhibits were four early automobiles, including the first car built in Austria-Hungary by Siegfried Marcus. The Rotunde also hosted trade fairs and public shows until it was destroyed by fire in 1937. Today the site belongs to the Vienna University of Economics and Messe Wien. No trace of the Rotunde remains above ground, but its former circle is marked by modern university buildings. Nearby paths follow the route of the old exhibition railway that once circled the fairgrounds. The area still hosts trade events, continuing the tradition begun by the Rotunde over a century ago.