Karlskirche

Karlskirche, standing at the edge of Karlsplatz, is Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach's masterpiece and the apex of Austrian High Baroque. Emperor Karl VI vowed its construction in 1713 as a thanksgiving offering for the end of Vienna's last major plague epidemic, though he died in 1726 — eleven years before the church was consecrated. Its facade is architecturally unprecedented: a Greek columned portico flanked by two freestanding triumphal columns modeled on Trajan's Column in Rome, their spiraling reliefs depicting scenes from the life of Saint Charles Borromeo. A modern panoramic lift inside carries visitors to within arm's reach of Johann Michael Rottmayr's ceiling fresco, an unusually intimate encounter with a Baroque painting program that would otherwise be illegible from the floor. A shallow reflecting pool added in the late 20th century mirrors the entire facade and anchors the church within the surrounding public square.

High-Baroque dome church with twin column reliefs, plague church from 1737, lift up into the dome.