schindler scholarship

The MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, is going to award a total of six scholarships for residency at the Mackey Apartments, Los Angeles, in 2027/2028. These scholarships are open to four free-lance artists, two advanced students of architecture (“2. Studienabschnitt”), and graduates of architecture immediately after completion of their degree.

The involvement of the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art with Rudolph M. Schindler’s work began with one of the first exhibitions held at the new MAK in 1986 entitled R. M. Schindler, Architect, 1887−1953, which was the first time his œuvre was shown in Austria. This important exhibition revealed how little known this Austrian architect’s buildings were not only in his home country but internationally as well. When in winter 1991 the MAK explored what was left of Schindler's buildings in and around Los Angeles, it quickly became obvious that the situation had changed very little in the meantime. Retracing Schindler's steps led to La Jolla, to the Pueblo Ribera built in 1923/1925 and now heavily damaged, which was in the way of the developers, to his abandoned Kings Road House, which had once been the architect’s home and studio, to Silver Lake, where some of his “most elegant” villas can still be seen, and to Newport Beach, where the icon of the Lovell Beach House has been altered by later additions. The encounter with R. M. Schindler in L.A. turned more and more into a “commitment” towards the voluntary exile and, thus, into an opportunity for Austria, the country that had lost and exiled thousands of people. This was the starting point for the idea of an initiative that would not only encourage the preservation of R. M. Schindler’s buildings but—and perhaps even more importantly—also continue his vision in order to promote and influence today’s art and architecture.

In 1994 the MAK Center for Art and Architecture was founded and its main activities in the first few years were the cooperation with Friends of the Schindler House (FOSH, August 1994), the purchase of the Mackey Apartments (June 1995), the inauguration of the MAK Schindler Scholarship Program Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program (October 1995), the completion of the first stage of the renovation of Schindler House and its opening as a house museum (December 1995), the beginning of activities at the MAK Center (April 1996), and the restoration of the Mackey Apartments (2000).

Innovations in art and architecture, new trends, and interdisciplinary developments that follow spatial structures and conceptual and experimental approaches are the focus of the international connections between Vienna and Los Angeles, which have been realized at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture since 1994.

In addition to exhibitions, MAK talks, symposia, and lectures held at Schindler House, the MAK Schindler Scholarship Program Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program at Schindler's Mackey Apartments is an important part of these activities. The main focus of the Scholarship Program is on the purposeful long-term support of individual young artists and architects / students of architecture and on creating new interdisciplinary opportunities and confrontations through a lively exchange program.

The clear orientation towards experimentation at the borderline of art and architecture is at the center of the program. Due to its purposeful and practice-oriented structure (involvement in organizing the programs at Schindler House, cooperation with universities, artists and architects, and exhibition activities) the Scholarship Program provides an opportunity for a broad discourse with topical questions of art and architecture.