Location
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The Arnold Schönberg Center Private Foundation is situated on the first floor of Palais Fanto on Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna. The palace is believed to be one of the latest edifices reflecting the style of Vienna’s Ring district. It was built in 1917–1918 by the architects Ernst von Gotthilf-Miskolczy and Alexander Neumann upon commission of the industrialist David Fanto, from whom it later took its name. For decades this neoclassical corner house served as headquarters for the Austrian Liquor Monopoly.
The location of the Center on Zaunergasse, at the edge xof Schwarzenbergplatz opposite the grand fountain, made possible the establishment of a Schönberg archive with library, exhibition and concert facilities covering an area of 1300 m2 in the immediate vicinity of Vienna’s most important musical education and performance centers, some 100 meters from the Konzerthaus and Musikverein, less than a ten-minute walk to the Staatsoper or to most of the buildings of the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts on Lothringerstraße, Seilerstätte and Rennweg. Other neighbors of our Foundation round and about Schwarzenbergplatz are the Academy Theater, the casino on Schwarzenbergplatz, the City Cinema and Belvedere in the direction of Rennweg, and, in direct view of the library of the Schönberg Center, the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna and the most prominent Viennese publishing house of the master, Universal Editio
On his way to concerts of the society he founded to support private musical performances – initially given in the Festival Hall of the Mercantile Union (Johannesgasse 4) and in the small Concert Hall of the Musikverein, but later primarily in the small Concert Hall (today Schubert Hall) of the Konzerthaus – Arnold Schönberg would leave his house in Hietzing and, later, Mödling and eventually cross Schwarzenbergplatz, where he could watch the construction of Palais Fanto and note its progress.
A touch of authenticity is added to the Center by the reconstruction of Arnold Schönberg’s study using not only original furnishings from his homes in Mödling, Berlin and California, but also including personal tools and implements, some of which he created and fashioned himself. The study is on permanent display in the Arnold Schönberg Center.
