Votive Church

This guide to the Votive Church in Vienna opens on February eighteenth, 1853, when a young tailor's apprentice named Janos Libenyi lunged at Emperor Franz Joseph with a dagger on a quiet Vienna street. You'll hear how the city responded with a public fund for a memorial church, and how a twenty-six-year-old architect named Heinrich von Ferstel spent twenty-three years turning that promise into the twin-spired basilica standing before you. Look up at the two spires, still the second tallest in the city center.