"Sonderfall" Angewandte

Historical reappraisal - history of the University

When the Vienna School of Applied Arts was elevated to the status of a "Reichshochschule" in 1941, it saw itself as a "special case" in the National Socialist university system. Based on the latest research, this study traces the eventful history of today's University of Applied Arts Vienna under Austria's fascist regime followed by the "Anschluss" with Nazi Germany, and through the postwar years.

This book provides comprehensive insights into the Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna and examines the history of this Viennese art institution, its classes and workshops, and its teachers and students. Questions are raised about political, cultural, and artistic turning points as well as continuities amid the transformation of democratic and fascist structures that shaped the university from 1933 to 1955.

• Critical institutional history in a cultural-political context
• Research contribution to Viennese Modernism and contemporary Austrian history
• With an extensive chronology, biographies of artists, and a lavishly illustrated, annotated catalog section with selected samples (works of art, archival materials, sources)