Historical Museum of the city of Vienna has existed since 1887. Until 1959, the Museum was located in the Vienna city Hall. However, talks on the creation of a separate building for the Museum had been carried out since the early 20th century, many architects presented their plans, the most interesting was the proposal of Otto Wagner. Historical events, specifically the two hardest war brought about changes – the Museum building was delayed for several decades.

In 1953 the city Council of Vienna adopted a resolution in honor of the 80th anniversary of the President of the Republic and former mayor of Vienna, Theodor Koerner, promising to transform a long-standing idea about the construction of the Museum a reality. Contest was organized, to which were invited 13 of architects such as Clemens Holzmeister, Erich Boltenstern and Carl Swancer. To participate in the contest all the participants. The projects were evaluated by the jury headed by Chairman Franz Schuster and Director of the Department of architecture Franz Gluck. The contest was attended by 80 participants and presented a total of 96 projects. The contract for the design of the building in art Nouveau style, and the design project of the interior of the Museum was signed with Oswald Heartla that, surprisingly, the competition took fourth place.

The Museum was opened on 23 April 1959. In 1985 Robert Weisenberger presented the exhibition "Dream and reality", which was visited by over 600,000 people, making the exhibition one of the most successful in the history in Vienna.

In 2003, under the leadership of Wolfgang KOs several museums of Vienna were combined, and the Historical Museum was renamed the Vienna Museum Karlsplatz.

In the Museum you can see works by Schiele, Kokoschka, Loos. On the first floor of the Museum are the stained glass Windows of St. Stephen's Cathedral, which miraculously survived the fire in 1945, and the second among the other exhibits are stuff since the Turkish sieges, among which jar, turban and interesting Turkish plan of Vienna.

The Museum has both permanent collections and holds thematic exhibitions.