Hot Questions - Cold Storage - permanent exhibition at AzW

Hot Questions - Cold Storage presents an exceptional permanent exhibition focused on Austrian architecture of the 20th and 21st centuries, which can be admired at the Austrian Museum of Architecture in Vienna. This museum regularly hosts international exhibitions on various themes throughout the year. The Az W Museum attracts a specialized audience and architecture enthusiasts through approximately 500 events, including symposiums, workshops, lectures, city tours, and film series.

The Austrian Museum of Architecture is located in the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna and is part of the largest European cultural area. Its primary aim is to explore the social dimension of architecture, addressing significant issues such as distributive justice and sustainable use of limited resources. Az W emphasizes the importance of sustainable architectural approaches as a strong argument against the impacts of contemporary climate change.

The museum has its own library, which supports the depth of content, an online database of buildings, and a lexicon of architects. For anyone interested in Viennese architecture and related issues, Az W represents an essential destination. With an area of approximately 2000 m², Az W reflects the spirit of the times and contributes to increasing awareness of this period.

Under the title "Hot Questions - Cold Storage," Az W presents a perspective on the historical development of Austrian architecture in the 20th and 21st centuries from a global perspective. It utilizes a unique set of architectural histories and possesses the most significant and extensive collection of Austrian architecture from this period. Az W has included approximately 100 legacies from notable architects in its inventory, including project collections, architectural models, drawings, furniture, fabrics, documents, and films.

The exhibition presents these artifacts in a playful, atmospheric, and sensory style, endeavoring to create a unique approach to presenting architectural heritage. Az W aims to create an experience that not only informs about the historical context but also stimulates the senses and evokes the atmosphere of architectural works.
The exhibition is divided into seven thematic sections, with each one addressing a "hot" contemporary question in the field of architecture. These include questions such as: How is architecture produced?, Who provides for us?, Who are We?, How do we want to live?, Who shapes the city?, How can we survive?, Who gets involved?. For visitors interested in architecture, these questions come with interesting information as well as unexpected moments and experiences. This tour poses numerous questions, such as why there are still so few women in the field of architecture. The collection of the exhibition also reflects on shaping today's perception of Viennese modernism and the issue of why figures like Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, and others were not sufficiently appreciated during the 20th century until the 1960s.

Post-war modernism and construction in an era of increasingly scarce resources form another "hot question – cold storage," alongside themes such as child-friendly architecture, socially sustainable architecture, and other socially relevant aspects of construction. In total, the new exhibition collection contains approximately 400 items that authentically bring to life the theme of architecture. This collection also includes fantastic architectural models made from Lego by Viennese artist Harald Gach, who created well-known and lesser-known Viennese buildings from colorful plastic blocks.

The presentation offers an enlightening view on the formation of the nation and all its cultural, social, political, economic, and technical impacts. The themes it addresses include the pleasures of Red Vienna through experiments in educational buildings after the uprising in 1968, efforts to promote "construction art" in Vorarlberg, and an examination of the past and present in the context of an ecological approach to architectural design. The exhibition also transforms the framework of the Austrian architectural canon by providing an egalitarian view of cultural achievements. It explores the ideological instrumentalization of architecture and spatial planning, presenting new authors and revealing new sources.

Ultimately, it creates a comprehensive story from models, drawings, furniture, textiles, documents, and films. The exhibition clearly explains that the collections of architecture represent a foundation for important contributions to the discussion and are not merely a storage of the past. Their social relevance manifests in questions and discoveries, and in the relationship between research and preservation. "Hot Questions - Cold Storage" further opens its own space for discussions and provides an enterprising step toward the museum of the future.