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In the late 1840s an important new suburban church, that of Altlerchenfeld, waS being started in Vienna in an Italian Renaissance style by the court architect Paul Eduard Sprenger (1798-1854). The younger architects of Vienna rebelled against the dictatorship of both the style and the man. They invited from Munich a youthful Swiss architect, Johann Georg Müller, whose unusual talent was already known from his design for the completion of Florence cathedral, and other works in the new medievalizing manner.
Müller won the new competition and was commissioned to continue the construction. He proceeded to integrate Sprenger's foundations into his plan, building a basilica with a nave and two aisles of undressed brick with a double tower on the western façade, a short transept and an octagonal dome over the crossing. Apart from the altered décor, the basically Neoclassical building masses were retained.
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