COLD WAR AND ARCHITECTURE. Contributions to Austria's Democratization after 1945 - a podcast by CastYourArt.com

COLD WAR AND ARCHITECTURE. Contributions to Austria's Democratization after 1945

The exhibition "Cold War and Architecture. Contributions to Austria’s Democratization after 1945" sheds light on aspects of Austrian and global architectural history that have been neglected by research until now. The subject is the period of allied occupation and its influence on the social and cultural history of Austria.

Including the social dimension of architecture, the exhibition highlights architecture and urban planning in occupied Austria and the mark that the occupation period from 1945 to 1955 left in the country’s architecture and culture.
Just like in general cultural politics, the rivalry of the systems was shaping urban planning policies as well, and Austria, especially Vienna, became a stage for the Cold War in the field of culture.

Great Britain, the USA, France and the Soviet Union came together in the liberated, and later occupied, Vienna with their competing economic interests and ideologies. Each one of the allied forces established its own elaborate cultural program, including architectural exhibitions and lectures.

Just like the entire country, Vienna was divided in four occupied zones, and the exhibition is arranged in the same way, by zones – red for Russia, yellow for the US, green for Great Britain and blue for France.
Instead of constructed buildings, the focus of the show is on the urban planning concepts, the architecture exhibitions and debates as well as on the respective image cultivations of the allies.

Curator Monika Platzer incorporated newly discovered primary and secondary sources, many of them from the AzW’s own archives. Photographs, films, plans and drawings document the developments and put them into context, many of the exhibits are on public display for the first time. The extensive exhibition is completed by a timescale with the events of the Cold War and a view on Austria’s export of architecture to Asia and the Near East. A 340 page catalogue of the show was published by Park Books, in English and German. („Cold War and Architecture. The Competing Forces that Reshaped Austria after 1945.“)(Text written by Cem Angeli)

Architekturzentrum Wien | www.azw.at
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