Join us for a visit to the Viennese Architecture Museum in Vienna's Museumsquartier and you will see what Austrian achitecture is all about. Was Otto Wagner a lonely mistake only?
The Austrian Architecture Museum (Az W) is the only architecture museum in Austria, located in the Museumsquartier in central Vienna. It focuses on showing what architecture and urban design in Austria have been in the 20th century and what it is going to be in the 21st.
The centre was founded in 1993 as a non-profit organisation, based on cooperation between the Government and the city. After eight years in temporary exhibition venues in the Museumsquartier, the museum moved into its present location in 2001. It has around 1,000 m2 of exhibition space at its disposal that have allowed it to organise over 150 exhibitions, 300 events and 600 architectural excursions in its first 15 years. The permanent exhibition displays the history of Austrian architecture from 1850 to the present. The changing exhibitions focus on contemporary architecture and future developments.
An absolute highlight and a must for all fans of architecture is the show collection that was completely recurated for 2022. Under the title "Hot Questions – Cold Storage", the museum looks at the history of Austrian architecture for the past century against the global development.
Some works of important architects also belong to the inventory including project collections, architectural models, drawings, furniture, fabrics, documents, and films. The exhibition is arranged into seven thematic sections, each of which is introduced with a topic of the present day. The show also questions why there are still so few women working in architecture. For a foreign visitor, an important theme is to see how the architecture of Vienna Modernism came about, with names such as Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos and many others.
There is a museum shop with some interesting stuff to have a look at. The museum restaurant, is a sight on its own right. The French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean Philippe Vassal got the Pritzker Prize for their design. The pattern of the ceiling tiles was designed by the Turkish artist Asiye Kolbai-Kafalier in collaboration with the architects especially for this room and produced in Istanbul.
There are three parking spaces for persons with disabilities. All exhibition rooms are at ground level with a stepless entry and there is an accessible loo, too.
Architekturzentrum
Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna
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