AZ Wien 2014. 03. 12. – 06.30.

Text: Zsuzsa Beliczay

design.build Studio, TU Vienna, Peter Fattinger: add on / AIR, köztéri installáció, Bécs, 2005 © Florian Haydn

Subtitled „Architectures for a Better World”, this exhibition is now open to the public in Vienna after its début in Frankfurt-am-Main last summer. Its collection is completed with a totally differently structured local survey focussing on the events of the past decade in Austria. According to Andres Lepik, the trustee of the material also exhibited in Frankfurt the challenges of architecture were typically technical by nature in the last few decades, and meanwhile the significance and importance of social issues were almost forgotten. Thus the exhibition was meant to function much like a call for architects inviting them to deal with social issues more frequently in the future. The AZ Wien with its own means has already been an active participant ambitioning to avoid empty words and fill them with meaning. In spring 2003 when preparations for the exhibition presenting the works of Rural Studio managed by Samuel Mockbee were made they called upon architectural faculties of Austria to find out whether or not they are willing to integrate „bottom-up” projects in their training system based on American models. This was the last push some workshops needed which were just about to be born then. The exhibition in Vienna is a summary of their past decade.