Salons Privés
With their gold-decorated wood panelling, impressive ceiling paintings and majestic marble columns, they are among the most fascinating locations in the city.
Welcome to the world of elegance and history:
The Gerstner Salons Privés
Step into the exclusive world of the Gerstner Salons Privés, located on the 2nd floor of the Palais Todesco. Here, historical glamour blends with a magnificent atmosphere to create the perfect setting for unforgettable events. Surrounded by golden wood panelling, fascinating ceiling paintings and imposing marble columns, you will find rooms that not only tell a story, but also provide the ideal setting for your event.
Discover the charm of the past and organise your event against this magnificent backdrop. Welcome to a world in which tradition and exclusivity merge into an unforgettable whole.
The Festsaal
The dance hall of the Todescos
The ballroom is a rectangular ballroom facing Kärntner Strasse, which contrasts with dark red pilasters and light-coloured walls and windows. The hall has polychrome wall panelling. The predominant colours are reddish brown, gold, black and ivory.
The large, gold-grounded doors with flat decorated panels can be slid sideways into the wall, allowing the room to be opened up to the neighbouring rooms and more or less connected to them. The monogram of Eduard and his brother Moritz Todesco can be found in the round arch of the doors. Angels are attached to the supraports, referring to the function of the room, as they are depicted playing various musical instruments.
The perfect room to start an event with an aperitif while marvelling at the ceiling painting – the main work by Carl Rahl “Judgement of Paris”.
The dining room of Palais Todesco is the only one in Hansen’s Viennese Zinspalais to be architecturally structured by pilasters. The ceiling area is richly decorated with offset stucco, most of which is gilded. The dining room was thus given an honour that was otherwise only reserved for the actual banqueting hall.
The dining room opens into a glazed bay window in front of the courtyard, whose marble fountain in the centre suggests that it was a conservatory. The conservatory proves to be an exemplary takeover from the aristocratic palace, which, like the natural garden in the Baroque period, is a documentation of man’s achieved dominion over nature. The Baroque conservatory now becomes a minimised garden surrogate for the wealthy classes on the Ringstrasse.
The master’s office adjoins the banqueting room to the north. The transformation of the basic ideas of Baroque ceiling painting into the 19th century can be seen in this room. Whereas in the past a single figure characterised the absolutist ceiling, in Hansen’s work the sum of the individual images forms the statement.
In one corner, a fireplace adorns the room. A crowned monogram with a “T” can be seen on it, naturally an allusion to the inhabitants of Todesco. An “S” can also be seen in the monogram. As the fireplace was originally installed in the boudoir, this letter refers to the first name of the lady of the house, Sophie.
Eduard of Todesco’s billiard room – which could be interpreted as an anteroom to the office – was furnished by Hansen with a wooden ceiling matching the office, lambris, red walls and green wallpapered benches. The furniture sketch included a billiard table in the centre. A table with an armchair and a bench were planned in front of each of the two windows, connecting the two seating areas. Unfortunately, no furniture designs for this room have survived, but a photo taken around 1870 gives a good impression of what the interior might have looked like.
The landlord’s son and progenitor of the family, Hermann, who died tragically in a carriage accident, had this room furnished by the Munich sculptor, architect, interior designer and interior decorator Lorenz Gedon (1844-1883) in 1873, the year of the World Exhibition.
A parapet lambrequin runs around the walls, covering more than half the height of the wall and is still original. This is interrupted in the centre of the south and east walls by a mighty portal with a straight entablature.
Gedon created the carved wall and ceiling panelling from solid oak in lavish abundance. With its heavy, dark Mannerist carvings and playful putti herms, this import from Bavaria forms the greatest conceivable contrast to the festive classicism of the rooms next door, which had been furnished almost ten years earlier.
From the grand staircase, which is decorated with monograms of the landlords Eduard and Moritz Todesco, you first enter an antechamber, today’s Black Room.
From this antechamber, guests were invited into the reception room. This door can still be seen from this side (on the left as you enter), but you cannot go through it. The original furnishings originally included a round sofa in the centre of the salon, four further seating groups and a piano by the window. This arrangement has been confirmed, as a floor plan with Hansen’s furnishing design has been preserved and is now in the Kupfer-stichkabinett of the Akademie der bildenden Künste.
The black marble fireplace on the wall opposite the windows is an original.
Our team at your side
Martina Wietzke
Event Manager Salons Privés
Christoph Huber
Junior Event Manager Salons Privés
Please contact us
Enjoy your celebration in the impressive Gerstner Salons Privés, in a prime location opposite the Vienna State Opera.
We will treat you and your guests with special attention, the finest food and drinks.
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of the Palais Todesco
The Todesco Palais was built between 1861 and 1864 according to plans by Ludwig Förster and Theophil Hansen for the bankers Eduard and Moriz von Todesco. Built in the Renaissance style, the palace is a representative building typical of its time.
At least as important as the external appearance and facades of the Ringstrasse palaces was their interior design, which was often planned down to the smallest detail and conceived as a total work of art. In the palace planned and furnished by Theophil Hansen for Eduard and Moritz Todesco, nothing was left to chance. The interior design of these palace rooms is one of the most important achievements of historicism in Vienna.
