Schönbrunn Palace

Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, born Johann Bernhard Fischer was probably the most influential Austrian architect of the Baroque period. Architectural tastes throughout the Habsburg Empire were profoundly influenced by his ideas, as articulated in A Plan of Civil and Historical Architecture ,... one of the first and most popular comparative studies of world architecture. Born near Graz, Johann Fischer was trained in the workshop of his father, a provincial artisan, before departing for Rome at the precocious age of 16. He spent the following sixteen years in Italy. In Rome he joined the workshop of his fellow Austrian Johann Paul Schor and of the great Bernini, who gave him ample opportunities to study both ancient and modern sculpture and architecture. He then moved to Naples, where he was reported to have amassed a considerable fortune serving the Spanish viceroy. Back in Austria in 1687, Fischer von Erlach was installed as a fashionable and sought-after architect.
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Tiergarten Schönbrunn or Vienna Zoo is a zoo located on the grounds of the famous Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. Founded as an... imperial menagerie in 1752, it is the oldest zoo in the world. Today Tiergarten Schönbrunn is considered and regards itself as a scientifically administered zoo which sees its main purpose as a centre for species conservation and general nature conservation as well as in the fulfillment of the education mandate given to it by the legislation. The still preserved buildings of the baroque era, which have been complemented in the last years by elements of modern zoo architecture, convey still a good impression of the 18th century menagerie-buildings after the Versailles model. Tiergarten Schönbrunn is one of the few zoos worldwide to house giant pandas. The zoo's pandas are named Yang Yang , Long Hui , Fu Long , and Fu Hu . Fu Long's birth on 23 August 2007 was the first natural insemination panda birth in Europe. Fu Hu was born exactly 3 years later, and he was also conceived via natural mating.
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