Römermuseum Wien

The Römermuseum Wien stands on the Hohen Markt in the city centre. It occupies a narrow, long building first raised in 1956 opposite the Ankeruhr clock tower. The museum’s special subject is Vienna during the Roman period, when the settlement was called Vindobona. The building was once a restaurant with a cramped basement stair leading to Roman ruins. After 1948 archaeologists found the remains of two tribunes’ houses from the legionary fortress. By 2007 the space above the ruins became free, allowing the Wien Museum to create a modern exhibition. The conversion added a sweeping staircase whose walls carry glass cases and painted reconstructions. The new façade uses silver metal panels shaped like building blocks, some of which are windows inviting passers-by to peer inside. Visitors enter on the ground floor with displays on the pre-Roman period. A reconstructed hand-mill lets children feel the labour of grinding grain. Upstairs the focus shifts to civilian life: imported pottery, inscriptions and clothing show a multicultural community. The basement holds the excavated tribunes’ houses, their phases marked on the floor. Touchable replicas of a Mars statuette and a gravestone let visitors handle history. Changing exhibitions on current digs appear on a small upper platform, while a computer game lets players command a Roman cohort across a miniature fort.