Graz Museum Schlossberg

The GrazMuseum Schlossberg opens the door to the history of the city hill of Graz. Open all year round and partly open-air museum, it is to become the first point of contact for all visitors of the Schlossberg. The GrazMuseum Schlossberg provides visitors with information and orientation with regard to history and topography. This new, family-friendly museum presents the history of the Schlossberg and its significance for Graz in a contemporary way. Together with the GrazMuseum in Sackstraße, the GrazMuseum Schlossberg forms a bracket between the hill and the city.

Our GrazMuseum branch on top of the Schlossberg, which has been conceived by Otto Hochreiter and is curated by Martina Zerovnik and Ingrid Holzschuh, embraces the needs of a strolling public and offers deceleration in tamed nature. The GrazMuseum Schlossberg is fully accessible and offers attractive additional services also for blind and visually impaired people.

Arcitecture and design of the Graz Museums Schlossberg
The design by the architecture studio WG3 impresses with its inviting attitude and develops an atmospheric quality of stay in the new GrazMuseum Schlossberg. The foyer area—partly roofed, partly under trees—opens the historic courtyard of the Stable or Cannon Bastion towards the public strolling past: With its modern architectural layer, the ring-shaped paving and planting overcome the historical barrier to the former “barracks yard”.
Although the architectural concept of WG3 refers to the old fortification and defence community of the 16th to 19th centuries, it creates a new, open framework for today’s community of recreation seekers coming to the Schloßberg. In addition, the contemporary exhibition and graphic design of BUERO41A emphasises that the past centuries of the Schlossberg’s history are presented exclusively from a contemporary European perspective.

Garden of Wonders
The “Garden of Wonders”, dominated by shady hornbeams, is the place of arrival at the GrazMuseum Schlossberg. Children can embark on a journey of discovery and explore the stories of the mythical creatures that are at home on the Schlossberg. What is behind the mythical figures of the heraldic panther, the stone dog, the elephant and the lion are hidden wishes, fears and fantasies of their respective times: male claim to power, Hungarian supremacy, Ottoman threat and proud defence of the Schlossberg.

View of Graz
The Cannon Hall of the Stable or Cannon Bastion offers the most beautiful and widest panoramic view of Graz and its environs. In addition, the GrazMuseum Schlossberg can interpret the city historically as a kind of model of the city: On a large, interactive screen, the wheel of time is turned back from key year to key year and one is immersed in the respective historical cityscape. In the “View of Graz”, changes of the cityscape over the centuries can be traced in the fast-forward mode.

Historical Trail
Significant buildings and monuments of the Schlossberg, which you may just have passed by, reappear in the GrazMuseum Schlossberg. On the “Historical Trail” of the former Cannon House, visitors stroll past two dozen such déjà-vu experiences. There the Schlossberg monuments are presented in their historical context with fascinating exhibits. The trail leads from the seat of power and bulwark of the past through Napoleon’s siege of Graz up to the landscape garden and nature and leisure experience of today.

Schlossberg Story
The casemate under the Stable or Cannon Bastion—a gigantic space protected by walls several metres thick—is accessible to people with disabilities for the first time in the GrazMuseum Schlossberg thanks to the installation of a lift. There, inside the bulwark, the audio-visual Schlossberg Story around a spectacular new transparent Schlossberg model illustrates the history of the hill. The multimedia show also provides views into the interior of the mountain with the Turkish Well and the more than six-kilometre-long tunnel system.