Karlsplatz (Charles’ Square) is a town square on the border of the first and fourth districts of Vienna. It is one of the most frequented and best connected transportation hubs in Vienna. The Karlskirche is located here.
The largest area of the square on the south side, Resselpark, is named after the inventor Josef Ressel. To the east is St. Charles Church, located in front of a water pool with a sculpture by Henry Moore with the building of the Vienna Museum (formerly the Historical Museum of Vienna) and the Winterthur Insurance building. On the west side of it is the main building of the Technische Universität Wien (Vienna Technical University) and the Protestant school. In Resselpark, monuments and busts are of famous people such as the inventor Siegfried Marcus and Josef Madersperger, as well as the composer Johannes Brahms. On the north side of the Otto Wagner in Art Nouveau style building erected inclusion of the former station Karlsplatz the Vienna Stadtbahn.
Separated from the plaza to the north are the buildings of the Wiener Musikverein (Vienna Music Society), the Künstlerhaus (art house), and the Handelsakademie (business school).
Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station
Is a former station of the Viennese Stadtbahn. The buildings above ground on Karlsplatz are a well-known example of Jugendstil architecture. These buildings were included in The Vienna Secession, as they followed many of the artistic styles of that movement. They were designed by Otto Wagner (1841-1918), adviser to the Transport Commission in Vienna, and Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867-1908) and are, unlike the other Stadtbahn stations, made of a steel framework with marble slabs mounted on the exterior. These stations allowed Otto Wagner to achieve his goal of creating two modern axes of architecture in a city that was becoming one of the most modern cities of its time. These buildings went on to become the most modern monument of the modern city. Architectural critic and poet Friedrich Achleitner commented on the Stadtbahn stations as follows “…In these two station buildings Wagner reached a highpoint of his dialectic (in his planning of the Stadtbahn) between function and poetry, construction and decoration, whereby a severe rationalism engages in competition with an almost Secessionist kind of decoration.”
The station was opened as Akademiestraße in 1899.
