Historical Museum of the City of Vienna there since 1887. Up until 1959, the museum was housed in the building of the Vienna City Hall. However, the talks on the creation of a separate building for the museum were from the beginning of the 20th century, many architects submitted their plans, of which the most interesting was the suggestion of Otto Wagner. Historical events, namely the two hardest war made their adjustments - building of the museum was delayed for several decades.

In 1953 the city council of Vienna adopted a resolution marking the 80th anniversary of the republic's president and former mayor of Vienna, Theodor Körner, promising to transform the old idea of ​​the construction of the museum a reality. Competition was organized to participate in which 13 architects were invited, such as Clemens Holtsmeyster, Erich and Karl Shvantser Boltenshtern. The contest is open to all participants. Projects evaluated by a jury headed by the chairman Franz Schuster and director of French architecture glitches. In the contest was attended by 80 contestants, and submitted a total of 96 projects. The contract for the design of buildings in the Art Nouveau style as well as design the interior of the museum project was signed with Oswald Haertlom that, surprisingly, the competition took fourth place.

The museum was opened on April 23, 1959. In 1985, Robert Vayssenberger presented the exhibition "Dream and Reality", which was attended by over 600,000 people, to make an exhibition of one of the most successful in the history of Vienna.

In 2003, under the direction of Wolfgang Kos Vienna several museums have been combined, and History Museum was renamed the Vienna Museum Karlsplatz.

In the museum you can see works by Schiele, Kokoschka, Loos. On the ground floor of the museum presents the stained glass windows of the Cathedral of St. Stephen, who miraculously survived the fire in 1945, and the second, among other things exhibits are the Turkish siege, including jars, a turban and interesting Turkish plan of Vienna.

The museum has both a permanent exhibition, and holds exhibitions.