Hoher Markt: Vienna’s Oldest Square

The Hoher Markt is the oldest square in Vienna and one of the most historically layered public spaces in the city, though it receives far less visitor attention than its age and significance warrant. Located in the northern part of the First District, a short walk from the Graben and the Stephansplatz, the square sits directly above the remains of the Roman military camp Vindobona, the settlement from which Vienna grew, and the visible Roman ruins beneath the square, accessible through a small underground museum, constitute the most direct encounter available with Vienna’s two-thousand-year-old origins.

The Hoher Markt is also the site of two of the First District’s more distinctive landmarks: the Anker Clock, a large Art Nouveau mechanical clock mounted between two buildings on the eastern side of the square, and the Vermaehlungsbrunnen, the Marriage Fountain at the centre of the square, a Baroque column fountain erected by Emperor Joseph I in fulfilment of a vow made during the War of the Spanish Succession. These elements, combined with the Roman ruins beneath the square’s surface, give the Hoher Markt a density of historical reference unusual even by the standards of a city as historically rich as Vienna.

The Roman Origins: Vindobona

Vienna began as a Roman military installation. The Roman legionary fortress Vindobona was established in the late 1st century AD on a terrace above the Danube, as part of the frontier defence system for the Danubian provinces. The fortress occupied approximately the same area as the northern part of the modern First District, and the street pattern of that area still reflects the Roman grid in several places, with the Hoher Markt sitting at or near the site of the Roman forum: the administrative and commercial centre of the fortress settlement.

The Roman period of Vienna’s history is not as extensively documented above ground as in some other Roman frontier towns, because the continuous occupation of the site across two millennia has overlaid and removed most of the Roman fabric. What survives is fragmentary and largely below the modern street level, revealed by construction work over the centuries and, in the 20th century, by systematic archaeological investigation.

The Roman Museum (Roemer Museum)

The remains visible beneath the Hoher Markt are accessible through the Roemer Museum, a small underground museum entered from the southeast corner of the square. The museum was established to present and protect the excavated remains of the Roman officers’ quarters discovered beneath the square in the 1940s during construction work. The underground rooms preserve the foundations, floor levels, and in some places the lower wall courses of Roman structures dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, the period of the fortress’s greatest development.

The Roman remains visible in the museum include the heating system (hypocaust) of a bath complex, the foundations of several rooms that formed part of the commanding officers’ quarters (praetorium), and a range of smaller finds including ceramics, coins, architectural fragments, and objects of daily military life. The museum also holds a number of Roman inscriptions found in the Hoher Markt area, including funerary monuments and dedications that record the names of individual soldiers and civilians who lived and died at Vindobona.

The Anker Clock (Ankeruhr)

The Anker Clock on the eastern side of the Hoher Markt is one of Vienna’s most characteristic Art Nouveau landmarks and one of the more unusual mechanical clocks in the world. Commissioned by the Anker insurance company and designed by the painter and architect Franz Matsch, the clock was built between 1911 and 1914 and installed between two buildings of the Anker company on the Hoher Markt, spanning the gap between them on an ornamental bridge.

The clock face, approximately four metres in diameter, is set into the bridge structure, and the time is indicated not by hands but by the movement of a series of historical figures across the clock’s face over the course of each day. Twelve figures, representing significant moments and individuals in Viennese history from Marcus Aurelius through Charlemagne, Rudolf von Habsburg, Walther von der Vogelweide, Hans Puchsbaum, Maximilian I, and Maria Theresa to Joseph Haydn, march across the face over the twelve hours of the day, each appearing at a different hour position. At noon, all twelve figures parade across the clock simultaneously, accompanied by organ music appropriate to each figure’s period.

The noon parade is the most popular moment to observe the Anker Clock, and a small crowd typically gathers in the Hoher Markt around midday to watch the full sequence. The clock mechanism is original and in continuous operation.

The Marriage Fountain (Vermaehlungsbrunnen)

At the centre of the Hoher Markt stands the Vermaehlungsbrunnen, the Marriage Fountain, a Baroque column fountain erected in 1732 to a design by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach (son of the great Baroque architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach) and the sculptor Antonio Corradini. The fountain was commissioned to fulfil a vow made by Emperor Joseph I during the War of the Spanish Succession, when he promised to erect a monument to the Holy Trinity if he and the city survived the conflict. The column is topped by gilded figures representing the marriage of the Virgin Mary and Joseph, from which the fountain takes its name.

The Vermaehlungsbrunnen is a relatively modest piece by the standards of Vienna’s great Baroque monuments, but it has considerable charm and occupies the centre of the square with an appropriate sense of civic purpose.

The Square’s Later History

The Hoher Markt served as Vienna’s principal market square and the centre of civic life throughout the medieval and early modern period. It was the site of public executions and punishments: the pillory stood in the square from medieval times through the 18th century. The Viennese baker’s guilds held their market in the square from medieval times, and the Hoher Markt remained a commercial centre through the 17th and 18th centuries before the development of the Graben and Kohlmarkt shifted the city’s retail geography toward the south.

The current appearance of the square is primarily the result of 19th and 20th-century development that replaced the medieval and early modern buildings with the commercial and institutional structures that now surround it. The square suffered bomb damage in the Second World War and was rebuilt in the postwar decades.

Visiting the Hoher Markt

The Hoher Markt is freely accessible at all times as a public square. The Roman Museum in the underground space beneath the square is open on most days and charges a modest admission. The Anker Clock is visible from the square at all times; the best viewing of the full figure parade is at noon daily.

The square is a natural stopping point on a walking route through the northern First District that might include the Ruprechtskirche, Maria am Gestade, the Judenplatz, and the Am Hof square. All of these are within ten minutes on foot.