The Orangery, located in the picturesque southeastern part of Mirabell Gardens, will be transformed into a unique exhibition venue by mid-2026, combining the richness of Salzburg’s UNESCO World Heritage Site with Johann Michael Sattler’s famous panorama of Salzburg. The extensive renovation and redesign of the listed building aims to connect history with modernity and invite visitors from Salzburg and around the world into a multimedia and interactive World Heritage experience.

More on the Orangery Salzburg Panorama | World Heritage construction project

A panorama as far as the eye can see: Johann Michael Sattler depicts the city of Salzburg and its surroundings in the panoramic painting created between 1826 and 1829. He chose a sunny autumn afternoon at 4 o’clock, as all the tower clocks and sundials show. The view still seems familiar to us today, but on closer inspection, quite a lot has changed.

The picture is striking for its topographical precision, above all in the built-up areas of the city. All the window axes, chimneys, and roof forms of the buildings exactly match reality. On closer inspection, one can also discover a multitude of people from all walks of life and professions, engaged in all kinds of activities. Only the landscape above the doorway is fictional; Sattler invented it because otherwise part of the city (in the Nonntal area) would have been missing in the area of the door (which was later enlarged slightly).

Johann Michael Sattler (1786–1847) presented his panorama of the city of Salzburg for the first time to an astounded Salzburg public on Easter Sunday 1829 in a tent on today’s Makartplatz. The panorama painting was thus the first major tourism advertisement for Salzburg: the family went on tour with it throughout Europe for ten whole years – until 1839! For this purpose, the oil painting – 5 m high and 26 m long – was packed onto a houseboat and put on show in many European cities in a specially made wooden pavilion. Even then, all of Europe took notice of Salzburg’s beauty and its surroundings.

Back in Salzburg, it was shown until 1937 in a round building in today’s Mirabell Gardens, and between 1977 and 2001 in the former Café Winkler on Mönchsberg. After extensive renovation, it was reopened in 2005 in the former main hall of the post office at Residenzplatz. In 2026, the historic panoramic painting – close to its original location in the immediate vicinity of Mirabell Gardens – will be the centrepiece of the new institution dedicated to presenting Salzburg’s World Heritage.