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WIKI Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary opened the facility around 1891 at the same time as the Natural History Museum which has a similar design and is directly across Maria-Theresien-Platz. The two buildings were constructed between 1871 and 1891 according to plans by Gottfried Semper and Baron Karl von Hasenauer. The emperor commissioned the two Ringstrasse museums to create a suitable home for the formidable Habsburg art collection and to make it accessible to the general public.