Upper Belvedere, Lower Belvedere or Belvedere 21: three venues, one museum

The short answer

The Belvedere is one museum, the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, spread over three venues in Vienna. The Upper Belvedere holds the permanent collection, with highlights from Viennese Modernism and Gustav Klimt's The Kiss; the Lower Belvedere shows special exhibitions; Belvedere 21 is the venue for contemporary art.[1] Which one to visit depends on what you want to see, and the museum's tickets are built around that choice: a single ticket per venue, or a day ticket for two or three of them.[3]

On the time-slot question, the Belvedere's own pages do not quite agree. Its ticket page says time slots are required at all venues; its FAQ and its visit page say that for Belvedere 21 you choose only the day.[2][4][3] Both are set out below.

The Upper Belvedere

The Upper Belvedere is the Baroque palace on Prinz-Eugen-Straße, which the museum's visit page describes as "800 years of art history" with masterpieces by Klimt, Schiele, Funke, Messerschmidt and van Gogh.[2] On 9 October 2026 its current-exhibitions list showed the collection presentation "Picture this! The Belvedere Collection from Cranach to Lassnig" as ongoing there.[2]

The building has been a museum longer than most. According to the Belvedere's history page, Prince Eugene of Savoy had Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt build the complex as a summer residence; the Upper Belvedere was begun in 1717 and completed in 1723; and in 1777, after Maria Theresa had acquired the estates, the Imperial Picture Gallery opened there to the public. When the imperial collections moved to the new Kunsthistorisches Museum, which opened in 1891, the palaces were for a time not used as a museum. The same page records that the Austrian State Treaty was signed at the Upper Belvedere on 15 May 1955.[5]

The Lower Belvedere

The Lower Belvedere, on Rennweg, was Prince Eugene's residence; building began there in 1712, five years before the upper palace.[5] Today the museum uses it, with the Orangery, for exhibitions "from all periods", and shows medieval works in the Palace Stables. On 9 October 2026 the Belvedere listed two dated exhibitions there, on Erika Giovanna Klien and on Erna Rosenstein, and an ongoing medieval and Renaissance gallery.[2] Exhibitions change; the list on the day of booking is the reference.

The Lower Belvedere is also where the modern collection began. The Modern Gallery opened there in 1903 as a state museum, and Klimt's The Kiss was acquired for it in 1908, according to the history page.[5]

Belvedere 21

Belvedere 21, on Arsenalstraße, is a different kind of building. The history page says Karl Schwanzer designed it as Austria's pavilion for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels; it was rebuilt in Vienna and opened in 1962 as the Museum of the Twentieth Century, the "20er Haus". The Museum of Modern Art, today's mumok, used it until moving to the MuseumsQuartier, after which it passed to the Belvedere in 2002, reopened in 2011 as the 21er Haus and took the name Belvedere 21 in 2018.[5] (The page dates mumok's move to 2001 in its timeline and 2002 in its narrative.) mumok and the MuseumsQuartier are covered in the KHM and MuseumsQuartier guide.

Autumn 2026 exhibition setup. The Belvedere's visit page carried the notice "Belvedere 21 will be closed through 4 November for exhibition setup" on 9 October 2026, while the Belvedere 21 ticket block on the same page still read "Closed through 9 July for exhibition setup".[2] XTOUR reads the 4 November banner as the current notice and the July line as out of date, but it is the museum's page, not XTOUR, that governs.

Time slots and combination tickets

What a time slot is: the Belvedere's FAQ defines it as the set time of admission, chosen online or at the ticket office, with no limit on how long you stay. For the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the FAQ says, a slot is chosen when buying.[4]

The disagreement is about Belvedere 21. The ticket page says "Time slots are required at all venues"; the FAQ says that for Belvedere 21 you choose the day of your visit but no fixed admission time, and the visit page likewise says that for Belvedere 21 you need to choose the day of your visit.[2][4][3] Two pages against one is not a resolution; XTOUR has not checked which the booking system applies.

Combination tickets are day tickets. According to the Belvedere's ticket page, the 2 in 1 day ticket covers the Upper and Lower Belvedere and the 3 in 1 day ticket adds Belvedere 21; the slot you book applies to the Upper Belvedere, and the other venues may be visited the same day, before or after that slot, during opening hours.[3] The FAQ gives the reason as the Upper Belvedere being the most visited of the three; that is the museum's statement.[4]

Some cards bypass the slot. According to the Belvedere's ticket page, holders of the Gold Pass, Friends membership, the Bundesmuseen Card, the Vienna or Flexi Pass and the ICOM card enter directly.[3] The FAQ adds that the last admission is 30 minutes before the indicated closing time and that luggage storage is not permitted.[4]

Choosing a venue

XTOUR's reading is that the choice follows the collection, not the building. Someone who has come for Klimt and the Belvedere's collection is asking the Upper Belvedere's question; someone following a current exhibition should check which venue it is in; Belvedere 21 is for contemporary art; the museum's visit page lists any closure for exhibition setup.[2][1] XTOUR does not rank the venues or suggest an order beyond what the combination ticket itself fixes.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR publishes no prices, opening hours or accessibility details for the Belvedere's venues; the museum's pages carry them. It does not know whether a particular painting is on view on a given day, since collection hangs change, and it does not sell Belvedere tickets. The garden between the two palaces is part of the complex, but XTOUR has no verified information on its access. How the Belvedere's operator differs from those of Schönbrunn and the Hofburg is set out in who runs Austria's imperial palaces and collections, and Vienna's World Heritage inscriptions in Austria's World Heritage sites. For the city, see the Vienna destination page and Austria.