[Back]

A. Aigner:
"Building exhibition, open-air museum, digital web-exhibit: The Vienna Werkbund estate on display";
Austrian History Yearbook, 46 (2015), 68 - 88.

In this article I address the topic of exhibitions in the field of architecture by analyzing the various dimensions of display associated with the Vienna Werkbund estate (1932), an architectural icon of the so-called second Vienna Moderne. In examining the Werkbund estate in terms of cultural transformation, changes of use, meaning and value over time, I distinguish among different modes and practices of exhibiting. The first section of the article analyzes the estate´s temporary condition as a building exhibition in 1932 and discusses this type of architectural exhibition within the context of a modern exhibitionary culture geared towards the education of taste and the formation of the consumer. Section two considers the estate as a lived-in open air-museum after it was listed as an official national monument in 1978. Here I present the findings of an empirical study based on ethnographic fieldwork, examining the impact the upgrading to heritage status had on the residents. The final section addresses the estate as virtual museum and digital web-exhibit, comparing competing representations found in private and official homepages. Bringing together the framework of critical cultural sociology and the constructivist approaches of critical heritage studies, the analysis aims to broaden the traditional view of architectural history. This paper makes a case for a long-term view of architecture that integrates the perspective of users and elucidates the vicissitudes of built material culture on a symbolic and socio-cultural level.

Werkbundsiedlung; Wiener Moderne, modernist architecture, exhibition, exhibition culture, history

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0067237814000101