Paper Short Abstract:

The current project explores the almost unnoticed joint history of the Volkskundemuseum in Vienna and the bunker in the neighbouring public park. Planned visual and acoustic interventions on-site, e.g., aim to make this massive structure of war and threat – which has become increasingly invisible – publicly recognisable and worth remembering.

Paper Abstract:

Following the logic of aerial warfare, massive war buildings with protective purposes, such as bunkers, need to be invisible. The bunker in Vienna's Schönbornpark was built as part of the ‘Führer-Sofort-Programme’ ordered by the NS regime. After 1945 this building ‘disappeared’ even more into the surrounding and was made imperceptible for park visitors. This invisibility seems to be symbolic for the uses after the war – to forget about the relating war and NS past. Unclear ownership and responsibilities were just another sign, such as the desires for new utilisations.

From the late 1940s onwards the management of Volkskundemuseum Wien saw potential for expansion in the spacious bunker in the direct neighbourhood and therefore it was developed. There has never been consideration on the original use of the building – neither by the museum nor by the city.

With the ongoing project ‘MASSIVELY INVISIBLE’, the Volkskundemuseum Wien has set itself the task of reflecting on the invisibility of this building contaminated by ideology and violence. In our contribution we want to discuss various politics of memory, and the hitherto largely unquestioned fact that active memory repression and oblivion have ‘happened’. The projects intention is to make the past and ongoing processes transparent, comprehensible and accessible at any time – both on-site as well as online. The intended interventions and the additional information are supposed to create a lasting reminder about the bunker, its original function and its history with the museum and the city.