Veranstaltungen

Call for papers

International Conference:
TU Wien Architects in Exile. The Global Circulation of Knowledge
21.-22.05.2027, TU Wien – Technical University Vienna

This international conference organised by the Art History Research Department at TU Wien explores the global circulation of architectural knowledge, focusing on architects who completed their training at the Technische Hochschule Wien and were forced into exile as a result of Nazi persecution. Beginning with the Technische Hochschule Wien as a shared place of education, the conference examines how architectural knowledge circulated, transformed and took on new forms worldwide through flight, displacement and exile, under varying cultural, political and institutional conditions. The focus is on the question of what role their training in Vienna played in their subsequent professional careers, and how the architectural concepts taught there evolved through interaction with the local building cultures and the social conditions of their respective host countries.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Technische Hochschule Wien was one of the most important centres of architectural education in Central Europe. As a result of Nazi persecution, many of its graduates were stripped of their rights, displaced or forced to emigrate. Their personal and professional paths led them to different regions of the world, where they worked, taught and practised architecture under new political, social and cultural conditions. Their biographies provide an insight into the global interconnections of 20th-century architectural history and enable us to examine the international circulation of architectural knowledge from the perspective of a shared educational institution.

Although research into exile in architectural history has been an established field for decades, it has so far focused primarily on exile in the USA, Western Europe and Israel. Other regions of exile – particularly in Asia, Africa and South America – are just as under-represented as the biographies of female architects or lesser-known exile narratives. The conference aims to broaden these research perspectives and highlight the history of architects trained at the Technische Hochschule Wien in all its geographical and cultural diversity. In this context, the circulation of architectural knowledge is understood not as a one-way movement from a European centre to supposed peripheries, but as a reciprocal process of appropriation, translation and transformation, in which architectural ideas, local building traditions and diverse social contexts interacted to produce new forms of architectural practice.

We invite contributions that examine the biographies of architects who were trained at the Technische Hochschule Wien and who were forced to emigrate or go into exile as a result of Nazi persecution. We welcome both studies on individual figures and research into professional networks, institutional contexts and transnational exchange processes. Research that examines the influence of education at the Technische Hochschule Wien on architectural work in exile, taps into new biographical sources, or reconstructs previously unknown life stories and career paths is particularly encouraged. Contributions on under-researched places of exile, on female architects in exile, and on methodological, historiographical and memory-culture issues are also welcome.

The conference is intended as a forum for international academic exchange on the global circulation of architectural knowledge. It aims to place the diverse life and career paths of graduates of the Technische Hochschule Wien within a shared context, thereby opening up new perspectives on the international history of 20th-century architecture.

The selection of papers for the conference will be based on the abstracts submitted and will depend on the number of submissions. If not all papers can be presented during the conference, suitable papers will be included in the planned conference proceedings. Travel expenses for speakers invited to the conference will be covered in accordance with the available project funds, provided no other funding (e.g. through scholarships or academic appointments) is available.

Submissions
Please submit abstracts (max. 500 words) and a brief academic CV by 1 November 2026 to ingrid.holzschuh@tuwien.ac.at and vanessa.reiter@tuwien.ac.at (Link: www.kunstgeschichte.tuwien.ac.at).
Papers may be submitted in English or German.

Selected papers will be published in an academic anthology following the conference.

Moon Museum: Curating Outer Space

International Conference
May 28–29, 2026
TU Wien

Downloads: Full Program, Conference Poster, Keynote Poster

Free registration: thomas.moser@tuwien.ac.at

As omnipresent as the universe is in the public imaginary, it constitutes a representational paradox: distorted space, warped time, twisted logic. Time and again, scientists, exhibition makers, and artists have grappled with the challenge of mediating the alterity of the cosmos our planet is embedded in. From space art to science fiction cinema, from documentaries to pulp fiction, from planetarium displays to museum dioramas, outer space—its landscapes, denizens, and infrastructures—has been invented and re-invented in myriad ways. This conference turns to the medium of display and considers outer space as a curatorial problem: we approach this field of inquiry from two angles, examining both how outer space was historically exhibited on earth, and how outer space itself has been conceived of as a site of exhibition.
Exhibits of outer space raise questions about how the cosmos was staged at various moments in time, how it mobilized colonial and imperial attitudes, how it served as a geopolitical arena, and how it projected different futures. Conversely, exhibitions in outer space compel us to rethink fundamental curatorial assumptions and categories: what is the meaning of ‘art’ in an extraterrestrial environment? What is a museum, an exhibit, a display without an audience? What might it mean to curate for a non-human or extraterrestrial audience? In bringing these two perspectives together, we seek to offer opportunities for critical reflection and speculative re-imagination of inquiries at the intersections of the cultural history of outer space and curatorial and museum studies.

Concept & Organization
Magdalena Grüner (USC Los Angeles)
Thomas Moser (TU Wien/NDU St. Pölten)

Public Keynote
May 28
6 pm, Festsaal, first floor, Karlsplatz 13
Barbara Imhof (University of Innsbruck/LIQUIFER)
Staging Space Futures: Architecture, Agency, and the Planetary Imaginary

Thomas Moser, Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, Harald R. Stühlinger (Hrsg.)

Dieser Sammelband gibt Architektinnen eine Stimme, die „OFF Stage“ arbeiten – jene, die im Schatten des Kanons oder an dessen Rändern tätig sind. Durch 27 kurze Biografien und eine Reihe wissenschaftlicher Essays präsentiert der Band globale, intersektionale und queerfeministische Perspektiven auf Architektur und Raum. Durch das Zusammenführen von Autor_innen aus verschiedenen Regionen und Karrierestufen entsteht eine kritische feministische Historiografie, die auf Vielfalt, Auseinandersetzung und die fortlaufende Neukonfiguration architekturhistorischer Narrative ausgerichtet ist.

This edited volume gives voice to women architects from the “OFF-Stage”, those working in the shadows of the canon or at its margins. Through 27 short biographies and a series of scholarly essays, it presents global, intersectional, and queer-feminist perspectives on architecture and space. Bringing together authors from a range of regions and career stages, the volume advances a critical feminist historiography attuned to multiplicity, contestation, and the ongoing reconfiguration of architectural history.