Be they Baroque vedutas, magnificent Renaissance buildings, or architectural ensembles like Vienna’s Ringstrasse: since time immemorial, it has been architectural drawings that artists have used both to document the urban and rural past and to envision the future.

The presentation Masterworks of Architectural Drawing provides new insights into this fascinating genre: a selection of around 120 highlights from the Albertina’s important collection of architecture-related works covers a period running from the Late Gothic and the Renaissance to the Baroque and Classicism, to Historicism and Art Nouveau, and continuing all the way to the architecture of the present day. World-famous drawings by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Theophil von Hansen, Adolf Loos, Frank Lloyd Wright, Clemens Holzmeister or Hans Hollein and many others reveal the essence and unique qualities of architectural sketches while also showing painters’ compositional takes on and naturalistic perceptions of buildings, architectural ensembles, and cities.