Global – Neutral: Austrian Architecture in Africa and Asia, 1955–1989 (Architekturzentrum Wien)

Between 1955 and 1989 Austrian architects built a great deal outside Europe — in Burkina Faso, India, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Nepal, Tanzania, Algeria — and did so trading on a particular asset: a country with no colonial past, and therefore, in the language of the time, a neutral partner. This exhibition at the Architekturzentrum Wien examines what that neutrality actually meant on the ground.

Curated by Monika Platzer and Susanne Rick, it gathers plans, photographs and models from the work of some twenty-five architects, Hans Hollein, Carl Pruscha and Roland Rainer among them. The argument running through it is that architecture and urban planning in those decades carried political positions as surely as treaties did, and that the Cold War and decolonisation are legible in the drawings.

Practical details

• When: 16 April – 5 October 2026
• Where: Architekturzentrum Wien, Ausstellungshalle 2, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna — inside the MuseumsQuartier
• Full title: Global – Neutral: Architektur aus Österreich in Afrika und Asien 1955–1989
• Curators: Monika Platzer and Susanne Rick
• Organiser: Architekturzentrum Wien, Austria’s museum of architecture

While you are in Vienna

Within walking distance or a short tram ride: Otto Wagner’s Postsparkasse and his Karlsplatz Stadtbahn pavilions, Adolf Loos’s Looshaus on Michaelerplatz, and further out the gold-domed Kirche am Steinhof.

Cultural Heritage Online lists this exhibition for readers planning a trip to Vienna; opening times and tickets are handled directly by the Architekturzentrum Wien.