Symposium
Germany — Austria — Switzerland after 1945
World Fair in Brussels, foreground: Karl Schwanzer, Austrian Pavilion; background: André Polak, Jean Polak: Atomium, 1958
© photograph: Gerd Schlögl
This symposium makes a contribution to a European History of Architecture — a history of transfer, but also of convergences and divergences in Europe’s architecture, politics and culture.
The efforts made by Germany as a ‘perpetrator nation’ to make a radical break with its Nazi past as well as Austria’s claim to ‘victim status’ characterized politics in the postwar period. Both countries’ search for identity after 1945 expedited nation building – under the watch of the Allies. Switzerland, which had remained neutral during the war, served as a bridge facilitating the flow of know-how and assistance to the two war-damaged countries. All three countries participated to varying degrees in the ideological conflict of the Cold War. With its transnational approach, the symposium will shine a light – in comparative perspective – on building practices and the socio-political parameters of the three.
18:00 Welcome address
Angelika Fitz, Director of the Az W
Wolfgang Petritsch, President of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation
18:10–19:50 Ideology Transfer
Keynotes:
Günter Bischof, University Research & Marshall Plan Professor of History, Director, Center Austria, University of New Orleans, Lecture: “The Beginnings of the Cold War and of the Marshall Plan in Austria, 1947-1948”
Maria Fritsche, Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Lecture: “Challenges and Opportunities for Cultural Transfer: The Marshall Plan Film Campaign
19:50 Discussion with
Günter Bischof and Maria Fritsche
Moderated by Wolfgang Petritsch, President of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation
10:00 Welcome address and introduction
Angelika Fitz, Director of the Az W
Monika Platzer, Exhibition Curator, Az W
10:30–11:30 Transfer via Democracy
Dennis Pohl, research assistent, department of architectural theory, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Lecture: “Flying Façades: Architecture excursions within the Marshal Plan’s system of alliances”
Georg Vrachliotis, Professor of Architecture theory, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Lecture: “Control and Communication. Architecture and politics in the age of cybernetics”
Moderated by Anna Minta, Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture, Catholic Private University Linz
11:30–12:30 Transfer via Display
Regine Hess, Curator and research assistant, Chair of History of Architecture and Curatorial Practice / Architekturmuseum TU Munich, Lecture: “Quirky Anti-Urbanism and Inventive Construction: Austria at German building exhibitions in the Cold War”
Sabine Sträuli, research assistent, gta, ETH Zürich, Lecture: “The EXPO ’58 world exhibition in Brussels: architecture and exhibiting to represent national identities”
14:00–15:30 Transfer via Networks
Bruno Maurer, Leiter gta Archiv, ETH Zürich, Lecture: “Switzerland, A Special Case?”
Gabriele Kaiser, architecture correspondent, lecturer, Kunstuniversität Linz, Lecture: “Orientation and Alliances: The Austrian architecture journals Der Aufbau and Der Bau”
Andreas Kalpakci, research assistent, gta, ETH Zürich, Lecture: “The Silent Transfer of Modernism: CIAM-UIA relations, 1946–1959”
16:00–17:00 Discussion with
Bernd M. Scherer, Director of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Monika Sommer, Director of the Haus der Geschichte Österreich, Vienna
Moderated by Angelika Fitz, Director of the Az W
Curator: Monika Platzer, Az W
An initiative of the research network D-A-CH: Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)/Southwest German Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering (saai), Institute for History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich, Chair of History of Architecture and Curatorial Practice / Architecture Museum of the TU Munich
A cooperation by the Az W with the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation
