At the Theseus Temple in Vienna's Volksgarten, the Kunsthistorisches Museum has been showing exhibitions and installations of contemporary art since 1999.

When Peter Nobile built the Temple between 1819 and 1823, it was also meant to house a then-contemporary work of art: the famous Theseus Group by Antonio Canova, a sculpture made of white marble depicting the Greek hero Theseus engaged in one-on-one combat with a centaur. Peter von Nobile’s construction is a miniature copy of the Theseion in Athens, in which frieze scenes from the Theseus story can be seen. The late classicist Viennese Temple was put up in the Volksgarten, which was new at the time and had been created in place of the Burgbastei, which had been demolished by Napoleon’s troops. In 1890, Canova’s Theseus Group was moved to the newly built Kunsthistorisches Museum on Vienna’s Ring Road, where the sculpture still decorates the monumental staircase today.