Hermesvilla opens rarely seen rooms during restoration days

Vienna’s Hermesvilla is opening normally restricted rooms to visitors during the Vienna Museum’s Restoration Days on October 16 and 17, ORF reports. The palace, which Emperor Franz Joseph had built as a retreat for his wife Sisi, is undergoing restoration.

On Friday, visitors can join accessible tours, including tactile tours and tours in plain language and Austrian Sign Language. A symposium for specialists is also scheduled. On Saturday, adults, children and families can explore areas including rooms used by Sisi’s daughter Marie Valerie, servants’ corridors, the attic and the basement. Some tours still have places available, and visitors can also arrive without booking.

The building’s facade is being restored for the first time since the 1970s. The work is expected to continue for at least two more years. Inside, restorers and students from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna are documenting the condition of the rooms.

Ultraviolet light is helping specialists assess the wall paintings and identify original sections and later repairs. Visitors will also see a bust of painter August Eisenmenger that was found in storage. A hole left by a grenade passing through it reveals the bust’s casting technique.

The event also highlights the villa’s materials. Its original flooring survives only in the bedroom; flooring in other rooms disappeared after the Second World War. A professor of wood conservation said the Russian army had been quartered in the villa and may have removed some of the panelling for firewood.

The Vienna Museum is holding the event as part of the European Day of Conservation-Restoration, which takes place on October 18. Admission to the Hermesvilla is free during the special opening hours, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.