SIGMUND FREUD MUSEUM

This museum has existed since 1971. After a year and a half of renovation work, one of Vienna's most famous addresses reopened to the public in 2020. The new museum spaces of the Sigmund Freud Museum give a vivid account of the life, work, family and times of the father of psychoanalysis. You will discover the cradle of psychoanalysis and the famous couch where Freud's patients used to lie.

For 47 years, until 1938, Sigmund Freud lived with his family, conducted his research and practiced his profession in this classic building of the Viennese Hochgründerzeit. It was within these walls that he refined his theories and wrote the pioneering works of psychoanalysis, including The Interpretation of the Dream. It was here, in the waiting room of his office, that Freud gathered the members of the pioneering circle in the history of psychoanalysis, the Wednesday Psychological Society. His house at 19 Berggasse remains a major piece of his legacy and an important place of pilgrimage for students and followers of the psychoanalytic discipline. However, it is remembered that Freud did not end his life there. Following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, Freud, who was known to be Jewish, fled in June 1938 and spent the last year of his life in London where, knowing he had cancer, he ended his life at the age of 83.

The museum has been modernized and the area open to the public has doubled. Following the renovation of the museum, all the rooms of the house are now accessible and staged. The new entrance hall now houses the ticket office, the museum store and a café. On the mezzanine floor, one discovers Freud's first cabinet, which now houses the museum's contemporary art collection. The mezzanine leads to the private apartments on the left and the cabinet on the right. To respect protocol, you must ring the bell before entering the cabinet... The main floor houses an impressive and rich library dedicated to psychoanalysis, with 40,000 works and the Sigmund Freud archive. The second renovated stairwell tells the story of the building, which was built in 1880. We learn that the apartments of this residence requisitioned by the Nazis were used as collective housing for Jews awaiting deportation.

The collection of conceptual art was created in the mid-1990s by the American artist Joseph Kosuth and includes works by John Baldessari, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Susan Hiller, Ilya Kabakov and Franz West. Temporary exhibitions complete the offer of this museum space.