
St. Stephen's Cathedral
Gothic cathedral with a soaring steeple and a glazed-tile roof rebuilt tile by tile after wartime fire.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna opens in April 1945, when looters ransacking shops nearby accidentally set the scaffolding wrapped around the north tower alight, as Soviet and German troops still fought across the Danube Canal below. Inside that tower hung the Pummerin, an eighteen-ton bell cast two centuries earlier from cannons seized from a defeated Ottoman army at the gates of Vienna. Listen for how the fire moved through the roof and choir stalls above you as you stand in the square.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Votive Church
Twin-spired neo-Gothic basilica built by public subscription after an emperor survived an assassin's knife.
Catholic Church Maria am Gestade
Slender Gothic riverside church whose openwork spire and misaligned nave still trace a vanished branch of the Danube.
St. Charles's Church
Baroque domed church built as a plague-vow, with a soaring fresco reachable by glass elevator.
Augustinian Church, Vienna
Gothic court church holding a Canova marble cenotaph and a crypt of Habsburg hearts sealed in silver urns.
Jesuit Church (University church)
Baroque university church with a flat ceiling painted to trick the eye into seeing a soaring dome.
Capuchin Church, llc
Baroque crypt beneath a Capuchin church holding the tombs of Habsburg emperors and empresses since the sixteen hundreds.