Protests have to be disruptive to be effective. When protest movements extend into public space and take root there, when they blockade, defend, and seize these spaces, they produce protest architecture.
14.2.2024—25.8.2024
Upper Exhibition Hall
Please note: The exhibition PROTEST/ARCHITECTURE closes at 5.30 pm on Friday, April 26. We kindly ask for your understanding.

The exhibition PROTEST/ARCHITECTURE: Barricades, Camps, Superglue explores the spatial aspects of protest cultures. The focus is on political movements that have manifested themselves in public space and produced specific architecture and design objects. The research for the exhibition revealed an ambivalent, often utopian and sometimes risky spectrum: it ranges from the fighting at the barricades during the July Revolution of 1830 in Paris to protesters using their bodies in the numerous protest camps that can be found in almost all regions of the world today.

Intricately detailed models made at the Technical University of Munich and the Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart (Prof. Andreas Kretzer) depict a broad range of protest camps, from Resurrection City in Washington in 1968 through to the Austrian “LobauBleibt!” movement of 2021/22. Forty “ground-based structures” from Lützerath, mostly pile structures, were documented by Rokas Wille (Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design) by way of models made of photographic paper, while director Oliver Hardt produced a film installation for the exhibition. In coordination with activists, a suspension bridge from the Hambach Forest was able to be secured as an exhibit. The hanging model of the Beechtown barrio by artist Stephan Mörsch also shows the Hambach Forest occupation. Furthermore, the “LobauBleibt!” protests are documented by two films by the artists Oliver Ressler and Christoph Schwarz and Extinction Rebellion Austria made one of their tensegrity structures available for the show. The exhibition architecture was created by Something Fantastic.

In the form of an encyclopedia, the publication accompanying this exhibition presents a wide-ranging field of references from 1930 to 2023, from A for Abschütten to Z for Zwentendorf.

Experience the exhibition aurally with the MAK Guide: no need to download and free to use! guide.MAK.at (only available in German).
PROTEST/ARCHITECTURE 2023: A film by Oliver Hardt
Watch here (16:20 min, YouTube)
In the form of an encyclopedia, the publication accompanying this exhibition presents a wide-ranging field of references from 1930 to 2023, from A for Abschütten to Z for Zwentendorf. Available in the MAK Design Shop and at makdesignshop.at
An exhibition of the DAM – Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, and the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna

Curatorial Team
Project Leader, Curator DAM: Oliver Elser
Curator MAK: Sebastian Hackenschmidt
Curatorial Assistance, Research DAM: Anna-Maria Mayerhofer
Scientific Trainee DAM: Jennifer Dyck
Assistance MAK: Judith Huemer

Program
The exhibition is accompanied by a rebellious supporting program of events and discussions. Workshops for children and adults provide the opportunity of immersing yourself in the strategies, mindsets, and creative methods of civil resistance together with activists. We will embroider in protest, make sure our causes get plenty of ink (with silk screen prints), and use the museum as a gym for our resistance training. We will talk to the contemporary analyst Friedrich von Borries about the duties of future-proof architecture and to activists from Letzte Generation about methods of protest and the resistance fighting for democracy on the brink of criminalization. Curator-guided tours, dialogue tours, a MAK on Tour in the Lobau, and not least our regular program of guided tours give special insights into this unusual exhibition. And there are plenty of liberating, rebellious, and creative things to do during the playful protest training aimed at school classes.

Funded by

Logo Kulturstiftung des Bundes BRD           

Funded by

Logo Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien BRD   
Sub-project on education in collaboration with the Wüstenrot Foundation

Logo Wüstenrot Stiftung Deutschland


Sponsor
Logo wienerberger


Calendar

MAK – Museum of Applied Arts
MAK – Museum of Applied Arts
MAK – Museum of Applied Arts