Interview with Marion Kuzmany, responsible for the excursions at the Az W. The Architekturzentrum Wien is a living exhibition space with changing exhibitions and the central aim to mediate architecture as a cultural discipline, as an everyday phenomenon and as a complex process. VTV is talking with Marion Kuzmany about the center’s activities and influence, the current exhibition WineArchitecture and young Austrian architects. January 24, 2006.
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00:00 Our purpose is to distribute architecture into a wide public range in Vienna.
00:10 We want to exhibit architects, we want to show their concepts, we want to support young architects,
00:18 we want to show historical architecture and bring it close to the public.
00:24 We are doing exhibitions, we are doing lectures, congresses, publications,
00:31 and excursions of course, this is my part.
00:36 So you are responsible for excursions?
00:39 I am responsible for excursions, yes.
00:42 Is the focus on Austrian architects or do you also exhibit your architecture from other countries?
00:51 We do exhibit architects from other countries, we have sometimes one man shows, special shows,
00:59 like for instance this July we are showing Dominique Perrault, an exhibition about his work.
01:10 And we are also doing of course basically exhibitions about Austrian architects to support them and to show them
01:21 and to build a base for them in Vienna.
01:25 So the current exhibition is about the boom of architecture, not only in Austria but also in Austria?
01:33 Yes, my colleague Kerstin Gus, she is the curator of the architecture center of this exhibition.
01:40 I was writing the texts for the catalog and we were traveling together to several winery's in Austria.
01:55 And the purpose I think of this exhibition is to show the phenomenon, why in Austria in the last 10 years,
02:06 or 20 years, actually 20 years after the wine scandal in the 1980s,
02:12 why there was such a boom of new architecture, why winters wanted to remodel their wineries,
02:24 and why the quality rose so much.
02:30 Before that people did not put so much energy or they did not have this taste
02:41 and did not want to spend so much money on good quality wine.
02:46 They were satisfied with a low quality and a low cost wine and why did this standard of living rise so much?
03:00 And we wanted to investigate why this thing happened.
03:05 And we found over 60 wineries in Austria under these circumstances.
03:11 Most of them are around Neusiedlersee in Burgenland and several in southern Styria
03:19 and some in lower Austria, north of Vienna.
03:22 But it is a concentration on certain areas.
03:26 Of course together with the EU, European Union sponsorships.
03:34 Can you name some young Austrian architects building wineries in the moment?
03:41 And perhaps describe a little bit how their architecture can be described.
03:47 Yeah, like we were talking about Gerne and Gerne before.
03:51 They built several wineries and they were one of the first because I think they have some relatives.
03:58 Most young architects start with relatives, either their one family house, single family house
04:05 or remodeling of an apartment, of a shop.
04:09 In this case it was a winery and they were one of the first in Burgenland who renewed their winery.
04:18 It was, Wellenschieds was the first and Hillinger is now the newest one.
04:24 And they built another one, Hunsdorfer. It looks like a little alien from outer space in the little winery.
04:34 But it is also interesting and Hillinger is very famous. It is the newest one.
04:39 And then there is Propeller Z. It is also a young Austrian architect group.
04:46 And they also were one of the first and they did the interior design and the architecture made Mr. Dickinger.
04:54 For young architects of course it is a big chance because it is a very nice work.
05:01 It is published a lot and wineries, many people come there and see it to taste wine, to visit the place, to buy wine.
05:10 And so they get well known through the project.
05:15 I noticed that in Vienna we have the impression that the architecture scene is very lively compared to other cities.
05:25 So is this due to the heritage, the tradition of architecture in Vienna?
05:33 Or what is the reason why so many very interesting buildings can be seen here?
05:40 Maybe it is in whole Europe. You can see also in Germany and in Switzerland there are many young architecture groups.
05:49 I don't know why they concentrate so much here in Vienna.
05:53 I could see many young architects in Japan maybe also 10 years ago.
06:00 And I was a little bit jealous why do they have so much chances there.
06:03 I thought it is maybe because there are so many more people or much more money.
06:07 But now I think the attitude from the people is different than it was several years ago.
06:17 Maybe also through institutions like us because maybe we succeeded in a way that we bring architecture close to the people.
06:26 And we want to tell them and show them that architecture is very important.
06:31 It doesn't matter if you try to build your house by yourself or if you take an architect.
06:37 The result is very different.