Until the late 1800s, this area originally contained the walls of the city of Vienna and was faced by the dirt slope, called a glacis, built up to defend them. Emperor Franz Joseph I assigned the building of the specific Schwarzenberg equestrian statue in 1861 to Ernst Hähnel.
Nearby you will find the Heroes' Monument of the Red Army, a Soviet memorial to soldiers killed in World War Two. In addition, the Hochstrahlbrunnen (High-Jet Fountain) stands there to commemorate Vienna's first spring water pipeline in 1873. A special feature is the Hochstrahlbrunnen (in Schwarzenbergplatz) lit by 365 multicolored lights—not to be missed at night!