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The Spanish Riding School is located between Michaelerplatz and Josefsplatz near the Hofburg Palace in central Vienna. Performances take place in the Winter Riding School, built between 1729–1735. The Winter Riding School is beautiful hall, filled with natural sunlight, ornately decorated in mainly white with some beige and light greys. There is a portrait of Emperor Charles above the royal box and opposite the entrance (to which the riders always salute before they ride), which measures 55 by 18 metres and is 17 metres in height.
The riding school was first named during the Habsburg Monarchy in 1572, long before the “french manège” of Antoine de Pluvinel, and is the oldest of its kind in the world. Records show that a wooden riding arena was first commissioned in 1565, but it wasn’t until 1729 that Emperor Charles VI commissioned the architect Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach to build the white riding hall used today. Prior to that time, the school operated from a wooden arena at the Josefsplatz. For a time, the riding hall was used for various ceremonies, but it is now open to the public, who may witness the training and performances by the stallions.
