Detail

A model of a modern house stands inside a glass shell. Flat rooves, many transparent surfaces and simple basic geometrical shapes. A little Austrian flag flatters in this space void of air, and the captions ‘Autriche’ and ‘Österreich’ can be easily discerned. This is not a dwelling and not a modern villa, but the Austrian Pavilion for the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels. Austrian architect Karl Schwanzer designed a light and transparent building for his country’s contribution. The construction hung on four central steel supports and seemed to be floating above the slightly hilly ground. Visitors entered the gallery space via a broad free-standing staircase. In the designed garden and exterior were placed sculptures by artists like Fritz Wotruba and Rudolf Hoflehner. Karl Schwanzer was awarded the Grand Prix, the Fair’s most prestigious prize, for this design. It was new advances in architecture and building that enabled him to create such a form of transparent and modular building. The Brussels Expo 58 was the first after World War Two, and when it closed the Pavilion was re-erected in the Parc Royal. Three years later, in fall 1962, it was moved to Vienna, redesigned by Schwanzer himself, and opened as the Museum of Modernism—the founding building for today’s mumok. Both the state of the ground at the new site in the Swiss Gardens and the demands of a museum made some redesign necessary. Schwanzer replaced light and cheap materials in the original design with more durable materials for the new “20er Haus,” as it was known. The building has since been refurbished once more, and now this former World’s Fair Pavilion houses the “21er Haus.” Karl Schwanzer continued to be highly successful after winning the prize at the World’s Fair. His architecture firm designed many progressive and well received buildings, like the Philips Haus in Vienna and the BMW complex in Munich. Schwanzer was also an influential teacher at the Vienna Technical University and he was committed to gaining postwar Austria a place in international architecture.