Neue Residenz - Salzburg Museum

The Neue Residenz in Salzburg's Old Town, once also called the New Palace, was built by Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau east of the Salzburg Cathedral. The ecclesiastical prince, then the richest of the entire Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, started this first building project in 1588 after the demolition of the town houses and the canons present there. Construction was suspended between about 1592 and 1597. The sections around the northern courtyard were then completed around 1602.

Initially, the first wings of the New Residence served as the residence of the brothers of the Prince Archbishop. Perhaps this building was also intended as a subsequent permanent private accommodation for the prince himself. In 1600 the regent moved his brothers to this house despite the ongoing construction work. When two of the archbishop's brothers left the city after 1600 - probably following a previous dispute within the family - the intended use also changed. The building has now been used for public purposes. It was probably intended as a representative hostel for foreign princes.

Today the Neue Residenz - the "New Residential Building" - is one of the six exhibition venues of the Salzburg Museum. It opened its doors to the public on May 30, 2007 after several years of reconstruction and being equipped with a modern museum installation. Since then, the Salzburg Museum's aspiration has been to present the artistic and cultural history of the city and region of Salzburg in its collections on the museum's approximately 3000 m² exhibition area. Modern, exciting, interactive, fun and complete: these are the slogans that characterize the constantly evolving exhibitions and the permanent exhibition "The Myth of Salzburg". The purpose of "The Myth of Salzburg" is to show the progress of Salzburg towards becoming a Baroque city and also how urban structures have developed since the end of the archbishopric after 1800, how tourism has begun to develop. role and how these factors have generated the "myth" that surrounds this city.

Alongside this agenda are the changing temporary exhibitions in the Kunsthalle, in the Sala delle Colonne on the ground floor and in the sequence of rooms on the first floor; these provide a stage for participations as both monographic and cultural history presentations, as well as loaner works dealing with Salzburg and the people who live and work here. “Having a broader vision” is made possible by international cooperation. It opens the doors of the museum to a dialogue with contemporary art and a springboard into the 21st century.

The Salzburg Museum in the beautifully renovated Neue Residenz on Mozartplatz offers a harmonious and integrated environment for valuable artefacts, aesthetic presentations, fascinating content and multimedia installations. The Salzburg Museum is living proof that a modern museum can inform and entertain its visitors at the same time. For this successful concept, the Salzburg Museum was awarded the 2009 European Museum Award and the 2007 Austrian Museum Award.