Architecture journeys

The Architekturzentrum Wien opens an exhibition that takes a look at sixty years of international architecture history on architecture from 1959 to 2019.  

To mark the retirement of its founding director, the Architekturzentrum Wien is taking a look at sixty years of international architecture history with the exhibition “In the End: Architecture. Journeys through Time 1959–2019”. 

Top: Arduino Cantafora, La Città analoga, 1973. Courtesy Museo del Novecento, Milano © Comune di Milano. Above: Rural Studio, Lucy's House, Mason’s Bend, Alabama (US), 2002. Courtesy Timothy Hursley

In a globalised world with continually renewing technological and digital possibilities, the rapid developments of recent decades have plunged architecture as a creative discipline and a social phenomenon into a crisis. Large offices with global operations, star architects, industry 4.0, ever more standards to be met, and the legal and economic weakening of the profession are impacting increasingly on the role of architecture. 

Haus-Rucker-Co, Yellow Heart, Pneumatic Object / Action, Vienna, 1967-68. Courtesy Archiv HRC, Günter Zamp Kelp

In the midst of the discussion on the crisis, which appears to be paralysing what is happening in the architecture sector, new and initially hardly perceptible undercurrents started to attract attention – with socially engaged, historically aware or regionally anchored approaches – and breathing new life into the discipline while counteracting the ostensible stagnation.

Johan Otto von Spreckelsen and Paul Andreu, Grande Arche, La Défense, Paris, 1998. Courtesy Paul Maurer © Bildrecht, Wien, 2016
ZUS (Zones Urbaines Sensibles), Luchtsingel pedestrian bridge, Rotterdam, 2015. Courtesy Ossip van Duivenbode © ZUS
Zaha Hadid, Vitra Fire Station, Weil am Rhein, 1993. Courtesy Margherita Spiluttini, Az W Sammlung
Coop Himmelb(l)au, Reiss Bar, Vienna, 1977. Courtesy Margherita Spiluttini, Az W Sammlung



until 20 March 2017
In the End: Architecture. Journeys through Time 1959 – 2019
curated by Karoline Mayer, Sonja Pisarik, Katharina Ritter
Architekturzentrum Wien
Alte Halle, Museumsplatz 1
Vienna