Institute
The Institute of Art and Architecture (IKA) is divided into two study programs: Architecture and Scenography.
Both disciplines are deeply rooted in art and share a common interest in space production, construction, and virtual practices, as well as the exploration and the reinvention of spaces. In the design process, students learn to take into account the social, socio-cultural, political, and ecological conditions, reflect on them, and to implement them in their artistic work, in both the Architecture and in Scenography courses.
The IKA offers the following study programs: a Bachelor’s Program in Architecture, a Master’s Program in Architecture, a Doctoral Degree in Technical Sciences, a Diploma Degree in Scenography. The doctoral degree focuses on theoretical, historical and experimental research questions that arise in the context of architecture, cities, and art.
In Architecture, the bachelor’s and master’s degree programs offer a range of perspectives for critical engagement in design. Students work closely with their lecturers and professors throughout the design process, gaining exploratory and professional insights into the discipline. They question forms of housing and reimagine how and what to build in the future, facing complex issues together and developing a greater awareness for using materials, resources, ecologies of care, issues of cultural heritage, as well as critically reflecting on developments in digitalization and AI.
In Scenography, the emphasis is on the staged space for all those involved in theater, musical theater, dance, and performance. Students learn to penetrate dramatic and post-dramatic texts, musical works, performative formats and plot development in plays in terms of content and how to translate this theatrically into space and costumes. The students’ communication and teamwork play an important role in conveying and realizing their own ideas. Interdisciplinary cooperation is therefore part of the training.
Student exchanges between the Architecture and Scenography programs are encouraged. The IKA supports other interdisciplinary collaborations with other departments of the Academy as well as abroad, through research, guest professorships, Erasmus programs, reviews, and excursions. Students are offered numerous exchange programs within Europe as well as international exchange opportunities (e.g. Santiago, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo).
Collaborational topics include material issues, restoration and cultural heritage issues, ecologies of care, critical ecologies, ignored technologies, and new forms of living together.
The IKA is also a place of artistic research, artistic-scientific, and scientific research. Questions and approaches to research are investigated both in short-term projects (HITZE takes Command) and in long-term research projects (Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing, Unstable Bodies, Ambivalences of Modernity: The Architect and City Planner Roland Rainer between Dictatorship and Democracy, and Raumpark Vienna).
The Architecture premises are located on the second floor of the building at Schillerplatz. It houses design studio spaces, computer labs, a lecture hall, seminar rooms, a student work room for printing and sharing materials as well as a secretariat and faculty rooms. There are also workshop spaces with analog and digital tools and machines, such as table saws, laser cutters, 3D plotting machines and a milling machine. There is a VR/AR experimental lab space below.
The Scenography premises are located at Léhargasse, on the third floor in the large loft spaces of the Studiobuilding. There are workspaces for faculty members and students, a seminar room, and storage rooms.