In 1897, a group of artists headed by Gustav Klimt banded together to form the Secession, an artists’ collective that rebelled against the conservatism of academic art and introduced to Vienna its own brand of Modernism—the Jugendstil.

In the following year, the pioneering young architect Joseph Maria Olbrich designed the Secession’s famous exhibition space: a stark white box topped with a huge gilded dome of laurel leaves that was soon heralded as a secular “temple” of Modernism.

True to its origins, this mecca of the fin de siècle remains a contemporary artists’ collective, and mounts nearly twenty independently curated shows a year. On permanent display in the downstairs gallery is Gustav Klimt’s monumental “Beethovenfrieze,” which was executed on site in 1902.