One of the most important historic buildings in Linz, the Landhaus today serves as the headquarters for Upper Austria's government. The original structure was built around 1570 with a gracefully arcaded courtyard surrounding a fountain. The complex served as the city's university during the 1600s and is still celebrated as the site where Johannes Kepler, the noted astronomer and mathematician, taught and developed his theories of planetary motion.
Within the Landhaus's labyrinthine confines are the Church of the Minorite Brothers and the richly furnished apartments used by Empress Elisabeth ("Sissi") on the night she spent en route from her childhood home in Bavaria to the Hapsburg court in Vienna just before her marriage to Franz Josef in 1854.