Off-spaces seldomly get this elegant.

This residential town palace was built in 1863 for archduke Ludwig Viktor, the youngest brother of Emperor Franz Joseph and one of the more glamorous figures in the house of Hapsburg. Designed in the Italian Renaissance style by architect Heinrich von Ferstel, the palace was the site of many a lavish and flamboyant soirée. But in 1910, after a string of scandals outing him as a homosexual, the hard-partying royal was banished to Schloss Klessheim near Salzburg, and his palace given to the army, for use as an officers’ mess.

Today, the palace’s erstwhile great hall functions as a rehearsal space for the Burgtheater and as an alternative venue for the theater’s smaller productions. In 2003, Austrian artist Heimo Zobernig redesigned the auditorium to create an unadorned black-box performance space against the backdrop of the grandiose palatial architecture. With only two hundreds seats, Kasino am Schwarzenbergplatz offers a small and intimate setting for one of Vienna’s best theater companies.