Zara Pfeifer, Du, meine konkrete Utopie, 2013–2017.
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture is pleased to present Social Housing: Vienna—Los Angeles. The exhibition brings together case studies from both cities to examine the relationship between architecture, housing policy, and civic responsibility.
Social Housing: Vienna—Los Angeles unfolds at the Schindler House, designed in 1922 by Austrian émigré architect R.M. Schindler as an experiment in cooperative living. Its construction coincided with the emergence of Red Vienna, when the city began developing the municipally supported housing system that would transform Vienna over the following century. These parallel experiments in collective life provide a historical frame for considering the sharply different trajectories the two cities have followed: Vienna’s sustained public investment in housing alongside the largely market-driven conditions that have shaped Los Angeles.
Rather than proposing Vienna as a model to be directly replicated, Social Housing: Vienna—Los Angeles asks what these distinct histories can reveal about the possibilities for housing today, and how architecture, public institutions, and collective action might contribute to new forms of affordable and shared urban life.
Credits
CURATORIAL
Curated by Michael Obrist, Sabine Pollak, and Beth Stryker
Additional curatorial contributions: Chelsea Kirk, Zara Pfeifer
Architectural research and photographic assistance: Cooper Bluhm
Exhibition coordination: Maeve Atkinson
PHOTOGRAPHY
Hertha Hurnaus, Armin Linke, Gili Merin, Paul Sebesta, Zara Pfeifer
VIDEOS
Tatjana Bergmeister / Luz Olivares Capelle, David Eisl, Max Limbeck-Lilienau, Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau, Franz Günther Hauser / Lotte Schreiber, Alexander Dworschak, Michael Rieper, Christine Schmauszer / Nikola Miloradovic
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Bueronardin
VIENNA GRAPHICS AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Originally produced for Agency for Better Living, Austrian Pavilion, Biennale Architettura 2025
Related events
Thursday, October 22, 2026
7:00 – 9:00 PM
The Social Housing: Vienna—Los Angeles exhibition was made possible with support from the Austrian Consulate General Los Angeles, the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, Republic of Austria, the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, and the City of West Hollywood.
The Social Housing: Vienna—Los Angeles publication was produced with support from WBV-GPA, a Vienna-based, limited-profit housing developer; the City of Vienna, Housing Promotion and Arbitration, Board for Legal Housing Matters; the Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport, Republic of Austria; and the Research Unit of Housing and Design / Institute for Architecture and Design / TU Wien – University of Technology in Vienna, Austria.
