Sommerarena Baden & Stadttheater

in the historic Kurpark & Theaterplatz 7

Sommerarena, in the Kurpark

Since 1841 there had been a roofless wooden summer theatre building on the Arena square. In order to make this high-maintenance small stage which was susceptible to weathering, independent of the weather, the municipal council decided to realise the project of the architect Rudolf Krausz on 7 December 1905. The Grindl company took over the iron construction work and in the record time from February 20 to June 15, 1906, the construction was fully completed. After closure during the Second World War and the turmoil of the post-war period, the renovated arena was reopened on June 29, 1957 and still today, with its glass roof that can be opened or closed, as required, it is a unique exemplar of an "open-air theatre".

City Theatre, Theaterplatz 7

Today's municipal theatre stands partly on the foundations of the old, long gone Baden Castle. Baden's theatre tradition can be traced back to the year 1716. The present building had already had two predecessors on the same site. They had been built in 1775 and 1812. In 1775 the architect Condini built the first building. (one year before the Vienna Burgtheater!) After the demolition of the first municipal theatre, the second one was built according to the plans of the famous architect Josef Kornhäusel, which went down in theatre history as ‘the court theatre on the Schwechat’. It was from 1812 and was not to last even a hundred years before it had to make way for the Emperor’s Jubilee Town Theatre which was built by the famous theatre architects Fellner and Hellmer and opened on 2 October 1909.

In the course of this new build, the ugly facade of the school building was also "made to disappear" and the Batzenhäusl inn was adapted[L1] . It is still a popular theatre restaurant today.

In the course of the creation of a pedestrian zone, a fountain was created in front of the theatre, in the centre of which stands the "Erato" muse created in 1912 by the sculptor Josef Kassin. This muse figure was donated to the city by the former mayor Rudolf Zöllner, who was also a ‘son of the muses’ in his youth.