Conception

About three years ago, in 2021, the idea of establishing a Johann Strauss Museum in Vienna began to take shape, as his 200th birthday will be celebrated in 2025. The fact that there had not yet been such a museum in Vienna fueled the decision to use modern technologies to present Strauss’s life, works, and the emotions associated with them in an innovative way.

The result of this idea is the Art & Tech Exhibition “Johann Strauss – New Dimensions”, which opened in Vienna on November 7. This exhibition aims to chronologically depict the life and works of Johann Strauss, embedded in a comprehensive panorama of the times that illustrates the political and social events of his era.

My deep personal connection to Johann Strauss’s music has significantly shaped this project. As a trained musician, I played a lot of Strauss’s music in the early 1990s and traveled around the world with it. I consistently witnessed the great enthusiasm and deep impression that his cheerful, lively, and often sentimental music made on people of all cultures. This timeless impact of his music, which conveyed joy and lightness despite the political and social concerns of his time, has captivated people worldwide for decades.

As a former musician and as a Viennese, I am proud to present the world’s first pop star – who was also Viennese – through this exhibition! As the initiator of this extraordinary exhibition, together with my co-partners Paul Blaguss, Kurt Stocker, Wolfgang Maderthaner, Robert Neumüller, and Gilbert Leeb as well as the creative agency media apparat, we were able to bring this remarkable project to life.

What started as a strongly motivated dream, shaped by personal experiences, has become a reality and I would like to warmly invite you to experience its uniqueness. I have curated each individual station of our museum with great passion and attention to detail to bring Johann Strauss’s story to life. The result is an impressive overall experience that is not only worth visiting for Strauss fans.