Yet an equally prominent public monument of the seventies and eighties, the Burgtheater, which stands just opposite the Rathaus, is of a Late Renaissance, almost Neo-Baroque order, with a distinctly Second Empire flavour to its bowed front and generally very plastic composition (Plate 73A). This, the most distinguished of all the public monuments along the Ringstrasse, was built in 1874-88 by Semper, whose international career in Germany, England, and Switzerland wound up in Vienna after he was called there in 1871 by Francis Joseph to advise on the extension of the Hofburg Palace. Except perhaps in its bowed front, this Viennese theatre does not much resemble the rebuilt Dresden Opera House of 1871-8 which Semper had just designed (see Chapter 9). Perhaps Semper and his Viennese partner Karl von Hasenauer (1833-94), a pupil of Van der Nüll and of Siccardsburg, were somewhat influenced by the plans on which they were working together for the extension of the nearby palace; these were, not inappropriately, in the Austrian Baroque of Fischer von Erlach’s unfinished Michaelertrakt of the Hofburg dating from the second quarter of the eighteenth century. However that may be, the theatre, boldly scaled and tightly composed, is a far more successful building than the very derivative Neue Hofburg projecting out towards the Ring as that was executed in 1881-94 by Hasenauer after Semper’s death. The post-War restoration of the theatre and the rebuilding of its auditorium are by Michel Engelhart (b. 1897). Semper and Hasenauer’s two vast Museums of Art History and Natural History face each other on a large square across the Burgring from the Neue Hofburg. Of identical design, they were both largely built in 1872-81. In the treatment of the exteriors—they were finished internally only very much later—as also in some of Hansen’s very latest work in Vienna, one senses a conscious rejection of the bold plasticity and the compositional elaboration characteristic of the preceding decades, and most notably of the Burgtheater. The Renaissance detail is by no means sparse, but there is an academic sort of primness and orderliness belonging to the last quarter of the century such as has been noted earlier in Koch’s Roman work. The Bodenkreditanstalt built by Emil von Förster (1838-1909), Ludwig’s son, in 1884-7 is still more severe in its Florentine _quattrocento_ way, recalling the more Tuscan aspects of the _Rundbogenstil_. With this may be contrasted the unashamed Neo-Baroque of Karl König’s Philipphof of 1883, introducing one of the modes most characteristic of the end of the century in both Austria and Germany.