Explore four generations of innovative and creative design with notable artistic touches and a pinch of humour in the MAK’s look at Vienna’s Auböck workshop.
- Around 400 (mostly household) items
- Various classic and iconic pieces
- Mix of materials and motifs
- Focus on the 20s, 30s, post-WWII and the 80s
- Runs May 15, 2024 – Jan 6, 2025
- Book MAK tickets* online
- See also:
- MAK museum overview
- Design exhibitions in Vienna
Shaping Austrian design
(A view of the Iconic Auböck exhibition in the central room of the MAK Design Lab; press photo © MAK/Christian Mendez)
Nip down Bernhardgasse in Vienna’s 7th district, and you find a quiet historical side street of the kind that appears in TV productions like Vienna Blood.
You also find Werkstätte Carl Auböck, which moved there in 1912. This design workshop is still going strong and has left its mark on more than just metal and wood.
The Iconic Auböck exhibition at the MAK museum illustrates why this workshop has gained such an influential position in the Austrian and international design landscape: innovations and distinctive products.
That influence and resonance can be seen today in the enduring popularity of Auböck designs, but also in the presence of those products in private and public collections.
New York’s Museum of Modern Art, for example, owns an ashtray, cocktail shaker and cutlery designed by Carl Auböck III, and his designs appeared in two exhibitions there in the 1950s and 1960s. His 6-part cutlery set is currently on display in the V&A South Kensington.
(Carl Auböck II, paperweights, 1947–1950; photo © MAK/Christian Mendez)
Although filling just one room, several hundred items feature in the exhibition. They use a range of materials and include one-offs and prototypes.
The designs reveal a multifaceted mix of innovation, functionality and playful creativity laced with strong artistic tendencies.
A particular theme is the influence of artists and art movements, notably the role of surrealist and avant garde approaches that blur the border between functional object and sculpture.
Here we’re largely in the domain of Carl Auböck II (1900-1957). But the exhibition also covers, for example, the textile designs of his wife: the sculptor and textile artist Mara Uckunowa (1895-1987). And works by his successors.
Carl Auböck III (1924-1993), for example, turned the workshop into an international name, and the exhibition includes products for the likes of Tiffany and Hermès designed by Carl Auböck IV (b.1954).
(Carl Auböck II, Baumtisch, 1948; Sammlung Loher; photo © MAK/Christian Mendez)
Most designs are for home use, like a bottle stopper shaped like an eye, a unique wooden coffee table top, a stylised hand-shaped brass paperweight, or a stand to hold a bunch of keys (a product that might be boxed up for the customer with a sly wink; you’ll understand what I mean when you see it).
Look closely, and you might spot the kind of brass bookends that should hold up a stack of well-thumbed art magazines from another century.
Or chess sets from the 60s and 80s that move away from figurative representations.
Or a corkscrew & bottle opener that looks like the kind of key used by the prelate to lock the abbey vaults.
It’s not all polished brass and shaped wood, though, as biographical elements demonstrate. For example, Carl Auböck II was also a member of the NSDAP (Nazi party). And so we might ponder, as so often, whether and how to distinguish between a creator and their creations.
Dates, tickets & tips
Enjoy a multigenerational trip through the Auböck design world from May 15th, 2024 to January 6th, 2025. An entrance ticket from or for the MAK includes the special exhibitions within.
(Booking service provided by Tiqets.com*, who I am an affiliate of)
Objects are only numbered in the displays, so look for the leaflet that lists each object’s designer, year, identity and materials.
Many of the MAK’s wider displays deal with design, of course. But in the final months of Iconic Auböck you should find an exhibition specifically highlighting outstanding Austrian product design in the 21st century.
For other design-flavoured special exhibitions in Vienna, see these listings.
How to get there
Follow the travel tips in the main MAK article. the museum is on the Ringstrasse that envelops Vienna’s old town. Once inside, go down a level to see Iconic Auböck in the room opposite where the stairs emerge.
Address: Stubenring 5, 1010 Vienna