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On Christmas Eve 1857, the Emperor Franz-Josef I announced the demolition of the zigzag fortifications around the old town and the building of a Ringstrasse , a horseshoe of imperial boulevards to be laid out on the former glacis (the sloping ground between the walls and the suburbs). Twelve major public buildings were set down along its course between 1860 and 1890 - among them the court opera house and theatre, two court museums, the imperial parliament, the city university and town hall - all at no cost to the taxpayer. By the end of World War I, though, the Habsburgs were no more: as Edward Crankshaw wrote, the Ringstrasse "was designed as the crown of the Empire, but it turned out to be a tomb". Today Vienna's Ringstrasse looks pretty much as it did in last days of the Habsburgs, studded with key landmarks. The monumental public institutions remain the chief sights: heading anticlockwise, they include the Votivkirche , Rathaus , Burgtheater and Parlament buildings, the two monster museums - the Naturhistorisches and Kunsthistorisches - the new cultural centre of the Museumsquartier , and the Staatsoper . Countless other cultural institutions occupy prime positions on the Ring and neighbouring Karlsplatz, most notably, the Musikverein , the city's premier concert venue, the glorious Jugendstil Secession building, and three more excellent museums: the Akademie der bildenden Kunste , the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien , and the MAK (Museum of Applied Art). Last, but not least, Karlsplatz also boasts Vienna's most imposing Baroque church, the Karlskirche .
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