In addition to the main building in Karlsplatz, the group includes some locations, numerous specialised museums, musicians' residences and archaeological excavations.

The museum reopened in December 2023 after a three years reconstruction and extension of the building, which was erected after the Second World War based on plans of Oswald Haerdtl.

In 1953, the City Council of Vienna passed a resolution to honour Austrian president and former mayor Theodor Körner, on the occasion of his 80th birthday by making the museum building a reality.

A design contest was organised, in which 13 architects were specifically invited to take part (including Clemens Holzmeister, Erich Boltenstern and Karl Schwanzer) but which was open to any other entrants.

Designs were evaluated by a jury which was chaired by the architect Franz Schuster and whose other members were the architects Max Fellerer and Roland Rainer, the Vienna Director of Building, the Director of City Collections, Franz Glück, the Head of the City Department of Regulations and the Head of the Department of Architecture.

The jury awarded Oswald Haerdtl fourth place, but he was subsequently "off-handedly" contracted to design the building, which was executed in an unassuming contemporary modern style.

With the reopening in 2023 the Wien Museum unveiled its new permanent exhibit which tells the story of the city, from its beginnings in the Neolithic through the Roman camp of Vindobona to the present.

Since 1971, exhibitions have been presented in the Hermesvilla, a former imperial residence in the Lainzer Tiergarten in the west of Vienna which Emperor Franz Joseph had built for his wife Empress Elisabeth in 1882–86.

The permanent exhibition is dedicated to the history of the building and the imperial couple, who spent a few days there each year until Elisabeth's death.

During the planning in the 1960s for the new Vienna U-Bahn nodal station at Karlsplatz, the two pavilions were saved from demolition, dismantled, restored, and put back in place in 1977 after completion of the construction work in the square.

It was not included in the original plans for the Stadtbahn, but Wagner began construction on his own initiative and was finally able to win over the Minister for Railways, Heinrich von Wittek.

In contrast to the other Stadtbahn stations, this pavilion with its cupola has baroque elements, which could be interpreted as a sign of respect for the Emperor on the architect's part.

The Emperor is only known to have used the station on two occasions: in 1899 when he opened the lower Vienna Valley line on the Stadtbahn (between Meidling Hauptstraße and Hauptzollamt) and in April 1902.

In the Hoher Markt north of Stephansplatz, excavated ruins of houses which served as officers' quarters in Vindobona are on display, together with exhibits of ceramic ware, gravestones and other objects which illuminate life 2,000 years ago in the Roman camp and attached town.

On the ground floor are displayed the collections of the museum's first and long-time director, Rudolf Kaftan, and of the poet Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.

During this stay, he worked on compositions including his Second Symphony, but also — in an episode of depression and despair about the state of his hearing — wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament.

According to oral tradition, the house was Herrengasse 6, now Probusgasse 6; this is however disputed, since at the time there were no registration records for the suburbs of Vienna and Beethoven's own letters do not mention the address.

In 1804–08 and 1810–14, Beethoven lived at the house of his patron Johann Baptist Freiherr von Pasqualati on the Mölker Bastei (Mölk Bastion, a remnant of the old city walls) in the Innere Stadt.

Franz Schubert spent the first four and a half years of his life in this house in Nußdorfer Straße in Himmelpfortgrund in what is now Alsergrund, the 9th district of Vienna.