Sebastian Hackenschmidt – författare

The catalog for the 2015/16 exhibition at the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts) in Vienna is dedicated to Josef Frank (1885–1967), one of the most important Austrian architects of the 20th century. In addition to his groundbreaking architectural work, the catalog focuses his design, which remains highly influential to this day. As an architect and designer, Frank remains contemporary, having promoted a pragmatic approach to design that focused less on formal qualities and more on those of social experience. Frank's ideal of an unaffected and unpretentious practicality, aimed at an independent and sophisticated bourgeois culture of living beyond stylistic dogmas and fashionable conventions, seems more relevant than ever.

New social challenges and innovative forms of work influence the design of objects just as much as new production techniques, marketing opportunities, and distribution channels. The catalog presents 100 selected objects – furniture, household appliances, tools, lighting, consumer electronics and accessories as well as designs for personal care, health, and mobility – and reveals the diversity and innovative power of Austrian product design from 2000 to 2025. These objects are role models of quality design in terms of functionality, technological innovation, resource conservation, and ergonomics. They also demonstrate wit, charisma, and emotional appeal. Even in familiar objects, there are surprising and exciting things to discover. Austrian design in the 21st Century Exhibition at the MAK Vienna: September 18, 2024 to May 18, 2025100 objects, 100 designers—25 years, 25 categories: Alpine · Circular · Compact · Concept · Craft · Design parlant · Do-Easy · Empowerment · Human–Machine · Invisible · Joints · Lo-Tek · Luxury · Material Opportunities · Participation · Possible Tools · Pre-Product · Reduction · Re-Typification · Subtle · Super Normal · Tuning · Update · Viennese Postproduction · Zeitgeist

"How did UK activists outfox 700 police? Why was Hong Kong traffic stopped by ‘mini Stonehenges’? And could an octagonal treehouse and a crow’s nest really have saved a German forest? Our writer enjoys a 200-year history of resistance architecture." — The GuardianProtest movements shape public space not only through their messages, but in many cases also through their - mostly temporary - buildings. Frankfurt’s Deutsches Architekturmuseum DAM and Vienna’s MAK - Museum of Applied Arts are exploring this thesis in a joint exhibition project. The exhibition and the book coinciding with it explore the topic based on examples spanning from 1830 to 2022.Protest Architecture is the first-ever international survey of the architecture of protest and presents it in all its manifold forms and, in some cases, ambivalence. It is conceived as an encyclopedia with around 170 entries, supplemented by 14 more expansive case studies. A preceding chronology portrays some 80 protest movements and their architectural manifestations through concise texts and one image each, including examples from all over the world, such as the 1830 July Revolution in Paris, the 1848 March Revolution in Berlin, the 1911 Sugar Workers Strike in Queensland (Australia), the 1936-37 General Motors Sit-down Strike in Flint, MI (USA), the 1969-98 Troubles in Northern Ireland, Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen since 1971, the 1986 People Power Revolution in Manila, the 1999 WTO Protests in Seattle, WA (USA), the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions on Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Manama’s Pearl Roundabout, the 2013–14 Euromaidan uprisings in Kyiv, the 2015–16 #FeesMustFall student protests in Pretoria, the 2019 Acampamento Terra Livre in Brasilia, the 2020–21 Indian Farmers Protests, and the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Ottawa.Text in English and German.