The “District Museum” design course in the winter semester 25/26 is a cooperation between the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Expanded Museum Studies), the Vienna University of Technology (Raum) and the Wien Museum.
Students work in interdisciplinary groups to develop conceptual and spatial designs for selected Viennese district museums on the basis of texts, drawings and models.
Vienna’s district museums are institutions that have set themselves the goal of documenting and exhibiting the history of Vienna’s districts. The first district museums were established in the 1920s and were intended as places where historical aspects could be presented from an educational perspective, among other things.
This original intention of the district museums can still be seen today in the language of some of the display boards. Over time, the museum collections grew through private donations that reflected the interests and views of the collectors. The museums contain a wide variety of objects that serve as witnesses to collective memories. In addition to the 23 district museums, there are five museums that focus on specific collections, such as the Brick and Building Ceramics Museum or the Circus and Clown Museum.
The district museums are located in a wide variety of spaces. They are often integrated into the district offices, some are located in independent buildings or are housed in rooms on housing estates. Some have additional displays in supermarkets or outdoor exhibition spaces with the aim of generating publicity and making exhibition content accessible at a low threshold. Due to often precarious storage and archive situations, physical exhibits are now being replaced by new media in some museums. This raises questions for us about the role of objects as symbols of identity and carriers of memory.
Most of Vienna’s district museums are run by volunteers. The association “Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Wiener Bezirksmuseen” represents their interests, acts as an information point and organizes various activities.
Despite different approaches and recent efforts by the City of Vienna to open up and promote the district museums, and despite their potential as collective spaces and special places for researching the city’s history, they remain largely unknown to most people. Who visits the district museums? How can their presence be more anchored in urban culture and everyday life? How can their collections be opened up and made more accessible? What forms of storytelling and exhibiting can link history more strongly with the present in the individual museums?
Teaching Methods:
The relationship between art, architectural space, and exhibition-making will be theoretically investigated on various levels and become the starting point for curatorial and architectural exhibiting models. Specific narratives in artistic and architectural work are addressed in relation to current issues. The analysis of references as well as an intensive examination of the given context serve as a base for the design work. The projects for an exhibition will be developed throughout the semester with the help of drawings, models, and experimenting with different forms of displays on different scales.
Lecturers:
Wilfried Kuehn
Basma Abu-Naim
Aaron Amar Bhamra
Further Information:
Kick-off: Thu, October 2nd, 2025, 10am in Seminarraum 20, Universität für Angewandte Kunst, Vordere Zollamtstraße 7, OG5.
Meetings will take place every thursday between 10am–3pm.