The Volksgarten is located on an area that used to be primarily fortresses. From 1596 to 1597 a curtain wall was built on the eastern side of today's park, and the castle hill on the southern side in 1639. This was blown up by the French in 1809 and later removed. With the construction of the Hornwerkskurtine from 1817 to 1821 on the side of today's Ringstrasse, the area came to lie within the city. A park was created in it, which was originally intended as a private garden for the archdukes, but at the suggestion of the court garden administration, the first public park owned by the court was opened and was ceremoniously opened on March 1, 1823. From 1825 the name Volksgarten was in use.
Ludwig von Remy was responsible for the concept of the garden, the gardening design was carried out by the court gardener Franz Antoine the Elder. The strictly geometric shape of the paths also made it easier to monitor visitors.
In the middle of the complex, the Theseus temple was built from 1819 to 1823 based on designs by Peter von Nobile. After a curtain wall was razed around 1860, the Volksgarten was extended by Franz Antoine the Younger as part of the building of the Ringstrasse in the French Baroque style and in 1864 it was fenced off by Moritz Löhr. The original plan to build a row of houses along Löwelstrasse was rejected by Mayor Cajetan Felder.
As part of the Hofburg, the Volksgarten belonged to the imperial state and was the first park in Vienna to be opened to the public in 1823 by the highest resolution and was looked after by the Hofärar (the building and latifundia administration of the Austrian crown).
A renaissance fountain was built in the middle of the complex. The designing artist can no longer be determined. Master stonemason Joseph Haslauer from Salzburg was obliged on July 15, 1865 to make the fountain bowl from a piece of reddish Untersberg marble. Master Anton Wasserburger took care of the substructure, while Eduard Kitschelt carried out the bronze work. [1]
In 1872 the curtain wall at the former Paradeisgartl was removed and the original splendid gate was moved to Schönbrunn. From 1883 to 1884 the Volksgarten was expanded, again by Franz Antoine the Younger, this time on the other side. This part of the facility was redesigned by Friedrich Ohmann from 1903 to 1907. The Burgtheater's ventilation system also flows into the Volksgarten, to which an underground corridor connects it.
Actually the Volksgarten should have given way to the Kaiserforum; the mirror wing of the New Hofburg would have stood here. This building became obsolete with the First World War and the collapse of Austria-Hungary. As a result, Heldenplatz is now lined with magnificent monarchical architecture on one side, and symbols of bourgeois-republican Austria, the Volksgarten and parliament on the other.