WUK (cultural center)
The WUK (Werkstätten- und Kulturhaus) is an alternative cultural center at Währinger Straße 59 in the 9th district of Alsergrund in Vienna . The more than 400 events on 1,000 match days attract over 80,000 visitors annually (as of 2012), and a total of 200,000 people visit and use the WUK each year. With over 12,000 square meters of floor space, it is one of the largest facilities of its kind in Europe. Essentially, the WUK consists of the WUK cultural operations , the WUK education and counseling and the socio-cultural center WUK .
WUK culture business
This includes the program sections performing arts, music, children's culture and the Kunsthalle Exnergasse.
WUK education and advice
Since 1983 it has been running and initiating educational and advisory institutions for people who are disadvantaged in the labor market. At nine locations in Vienna and Lower Austria, eleven institutions and projects support more than 2500 people annually in their entry into the working world (2012). Advice, career guidance, qualification and employment are offered.
Sociocultural Center WUK
In addition to the association, the WUK cultural operations and WUK education and consulting, it includes all autonomous WUK structures and activities. Around 150 groups, initiatives and individuals (as of October 2013) find their place under the umbrella of the seven self-administered areas of fine arts, socio-political initiatives, intercultural initiatives, children and youth, music, dance theater performance and workshops. All decisions to be made in the autonomous areas are made in grassroots democratic decision-making structures and in a monthly plenum.
Fine arts area
This area houses thirteen studios that deal with painting, graphics, installations, photography and film. Two studios are provided for guests. A total of around twenty artists work there. In addition to the studios, the Photo Gallery Vienna and the International Association of Female Artists IntAkt belong to this area.
Social policy area
Around forty groups and guest groups deal with cultural mediation, environmental protection, senior citizens, self-help and human rights.
Intercultural Initiatives
All groups are committed to equality and are committed to combating racism. Here migrants are supported as well as art and culture are conveyed and cultivated. The groups include the refugee aid Asyl in Not , the African Cultural Union , the Iranian House of Culture and the umbrella organization for intercultural initiatives in Vienna.
Children and youth area
In this area there are three groups of children, an after- school care center (with around 150 children), the elementary school school collective Vienna and the pupil's school (comprehensive school), which also includes the Werkcollege (upper level school). The schools are democratic schools and members of the European Democratic Education Community . In 1995, the student school hosted the International Democratic Education Conference .
Music area
Seventeen rehearsal rooms are used by around forty music groups and other individual musicians of all genres. This area also includes an open recording studio.
Area of dance / theater / performance
Around 60 artists and guest artists work here in three training rooms.
Workshops area
Eighteen groups and many individual artists work in this area in twelve workshops and nine studios. There is both interdisciplinary experimentation and traditional craftsmanship. There are workshops for book and paper design, sculpture, gravure printing, wood, metal, ceramics, bicycles, motorcycles, leather and textiles as well as a photo laboratory.
Other institutions in the WUK
The café-restaurant Statt-Beisl , the FZ bar and the communication center for women / lesbian migrants and girls , which is also known as the FZ (women's center) , are housed in the WUK building, but not part of the WUK association . The FZ has been a second owner besides the WUK since the "WUK property" was occupied and is located on Stiege 6. It is a separate, autonomous feminist, public, political space for women and one of the oldest women's centers in Europe.
history
"Locomotive Factory"
The WUK building complex was initially a locomotive factory, which was built in 1855 by the locksmith and industrial pioneer Georg Sigl (1811–1887) on what was then the green Himmelpfortgrund. Located on Währinger Strasse, the director had a representative and residential wing built for him, as was the case with early industrial practice. From 1861 Sigl was also the owner of the Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik .
In 1873, as a result of the stock market crash , he had to sell his Wiener Neustädter factory and sublet parts of the Vienna factory, for example to the Kremenetzky electrical factory and other companies. Production was switched to general mechanical engineering . Projects of the Viennese high culture of the time have now been implemented , such as the stage machinery for the Vienna State Opera and iron structures for the Votive Church .
Teaching and research operations
In 1884 the Technological Trade Museum (TGM), initiated by Wilhelm Exner and supported by the Lower Austrian Trade Association , moved into the former factory. In 1905 the federal government took over the TGM because the trade association could no longer finance the maintenance of the training facility. In 1933 the extensive technical collection of the TGM was moved to the Technical Museum .
Due to the baby boom in the 1970s, the so-called "education boom" and the now outdated infrastructure and technical facilities, it was decided to build a new building in Vienna's 20th district of Brigittenau . In 1979/80 the new school building was finished and the TGM moved.
1970s
From the occupations as a turning point ...
- Amerlinghaus
Urban development in the 1970s was characterized by a demolition and new building policy. At the beginning of the 1970s, large-scale ensembles of the Spittelberg were to be dismantled and municipal housing built in their place . Citizen protests prevented this for the time being and the Spittelberg was placed under protection in 1973. The buildings now owned by the municipality of Vienna were in a desolate condition, a renovation of the city quarter was announced. In the summer of 1975 it came to the occupation of Amerlinghauses by residents of the neighborhood and a group of architecture students and artists. They asked the City of Vienna to enable and finance a communication and cultural center that was to be operated with a concept of self-administration . After long negotiations with the responsible politicians around City Councilor for Culture Gertrude Fröhlich-Sandner and the acceptance of certain conditions, the newly renovated house was handed over to the Spittelberg cultural center association three years after the occupation in the spring of 1978 .
- arena
In the mid-1970s, plans began according to which Vienna's Naschmarkt should give way to a motorway and be relocated to the outskirts as a future wholesale market . Although the Spittelbergviertel had been under protection since 1973, it continued to deteriorate (see above). On the other hand, there was a lack of places in Vienna for alternative and countercultures that were not part of high culture, and there was a lack of alternative youth culture centers that were run all year round.
The arena has existed since 1970 and was originally a series of events for the Wiener Festwochen . In 1975 the foreign slaughterhouse , part of the abandoned St. Marx slaughterhouse , was used as an arena . According to the will of the Viennese SPÖ , the foreign slaughterhouse was to be transferred from the city of Vienna to the Schöps textile chain . In 1976, architecture students in the Peichl class found the demolition plans that were already there.
On the evening of June 27, 1976, the last day of the festival weeks, the musical Schabernack by the group Misthaufen was performed in the arena , which dealt with the planned Autobahn-instead of Naschmarkt project. After the musical, the architecture students distributed leaflets with the slogan “The slaughterhouse must not die” and the visitors were asked to stay.
At the same time as the event in the arena, a “festival against the razing of the Naschmarkt” was demonstrated elsewhere on the slaughterhouse site. The performing groups Butterflies around Willi Resetarits and Beatrix Neundlinger and Keif called on their audience to move to the arena after their concerts. What began as a rescue operation for the Naschmarkt went into the occupation of the arena, which lasted until autumn (1976). Again it was up to the City Councilor for Culture Fröhlich-Sandner to find a solution that “wanted to give young people the chance to realize themselves”, but on the other hand respect the interests of the City of Vienna with upright contracts with the Schöps textile chain and a deep-freeze company.
The two citizens' initiatives to save the Naschmarkt and to save the Spittelberg brought a kind of trend reversal in city politics. With a compromise in the local council , the Naschmarkt in the form it still exists today was saved. The arena as a self-governing cultural center had to give way and one year later it was relocated to the smaller domestic slaughterhouse. It was not possible to build on the earlier successes.
The occupation of the arena, which began that evening in June 1976, as well as the occupation of the Amerlinghaus a year earlier, which heralded the beginning of further occupations and the resulting self-governing businesses such as the WUK, therefore came as no surprise.
What works or supposedly doesn't work, however, was no longer so clear after Amerlinghaus and Arena . In Vienna, but also beyond, there were numerous projects for which the arena was basically the initial spark or the breakthrough. In Vienna this was followed by the squatting on Gassergasse and by the so-called Aegidi-Spalos the occupation of the blocks of the Aegidi- / Spalowskygasse in Mariahilf . In this climate of the 1970s, the WUK was created as a self-governing cultural center.
... to the WUK
In 1978, when the TGM was about to move out and it was already foreseeable that the municipal parties wanted to plan the property “sensibly as a green space with an underground car park or as a residential complex” and the federal government was considering the move of university institutions, a citizens' initiative was formed around the historic, Preserve listed ensemble and make it accessible to a wide range of subsequent uses. People from the professional areas of social work, the arts, architecture and teachers met under the motto “Save the TGM”, as well as representatives from women's groups, as well as students and retired people. The aim was to create the substantive and material prerequisites for an alternative and autonomous cultural establishment.
In 1979 the Association for the Creation of Open Culture and Workshop Houses (WUK) was founded, and in February the first park festival attracted attention. Weekly meetings took place in the Amerlinghaus, there were press conferences and signature campaigns, information stands and direct mail. A club sheet WUK-Info was published. Helmut Zilk , then City Councilor for Culture, recognized the potential of the initiative and subsidized the association with 2,500 schillings (around 430 euros based on today's purchasing power) for public relations. In 1997 the WUK already received a subsidy of 6.75 million Schillings (that is about 490,000 euros) and for 2013 130,000 euros were approved.
1980s
On May 10, 1980, a “sweep of dusty high culture” was held in front of the State Opera . Another campaign followed on June 4th with “We are missing a roof over our heads” in front of the TGM building, in which the gradual decline of “the historic house” began. Also in 1980 a WUK member seminar was held in Bernstein for training in organization and self-administration.
In 1981 the building of the former TGM was occupied by activists of the association, and finally the keys were handed over to the association under the promise of Mayor Gratz to give the TGM to the WUK for provisional use. The project also caught the attention of Federal Chancellor Kreisky , who was informed about it. The house was settled by various WUK groups and associations such as the Association for Women’s Communication Center, and the first cleaning and restoration work began. The opening ceremony was held on October 3rd. On November 20, the association received a subsidy of one million schillings (around 150,000 euros based on today's purchasing power), for which Helmut Zilk stood in as a private guarantor.
On February 10, 1982, a twelve-person board of directors was elected at a general assembly, chaired by the founding chairman Walter Hnat: “For the right to participate in cultural life for everyone and against everything that hinders it!” Plenaries followed in unheated rooms, permanent ones New admissions of groups as well as cleaning and construction weeks. During these weeks, City Councilor Helmut Zilk also cleaned a WUK window on July 16. Events in 1982 were anti-fascist, solidarity, educational, without a muzzle, "a bit cheeky and not too conservative" etc. and were called, for example, "The WUK is not a hotel", "Who is waiting for the bosses?", As well as from the group atheism "The Last Judgment does not meet". Flea markets, flower campaigns and the “children's house opening party” rounded off the annual program.
21st century
In October 2011 the WUK celebrated its 30th anniversary under the motto "WUK 30 - and it is growing". For one week, the WUK presented a program along its main themes, which was designed by “the grassroots”, the groups, initiatives and artists who have their home and work at WUK.
Walter Hnat
Walter Hnat is a member of the Arena movement and one of the founding fathers of the WUK. As the founding chairman, the senior, born in 1920, was always an integrative part between the generations at WUK.
In June 2001, the then 81-year-old chairman of the Vienna Senior Citizens' Center at WUK was honored with the Golden Sign of Merit of the State of Vienna .
Walter Hnat died on December 1st, 2009 at the age of 90. In his honor, a commemorative event was held on March 18, 2010 under the motto “Don't let go! - Homage to Walter Hnat and the WUK ”.
WUK as an association
The Association for the creation of open culture and workshops Housing is led as early as the beginning of the legal entity of the WUK and is powered by a six-member board, which decides the strategic direction. The board is re-elected every two years at the annual general assembly. Ordinary members can only be physical persons . Currently (May 2019) the WUK Association has around 650 members.
Quotes
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- About the creation of the WUK
“It has been proven that there is a lack of cultural sites that promote everyday culture as a way of life and try out social models that support community-based behavior. The association sees an opportunity to largely remedy this deficiency in an open culture and workshop building and to create such a model case in the TGM. "
- To the idea behind the WUK
“As an alternative to (more or less) closed 'muse temples', as previous efforts and experiences in several countries, but also in Austria, have shown, open culture houses should be developed. Your concept of culture should no longer be based on 'musical enrichment' but rather on social interest and should therefore, contrary to the usual sector-specific attractions, be shaped in the conscious intermingling of diverse activities. Contents such as design and communication forms are now to be developed specifically life-related, contrary to the previous alienation. At the same time, all cultural processes, including artistic ones, must be proven to be active as well as activating work processes (in tellingly numerous cases, indeed, to be made possible in the first place!), So that such cultural institutions must also be equally open workshops. Cultural activities are organically linked to other social activities. "
“The WUK is an open cultural space, a space for the living connection between art, politics and the social. This manifests itself in an expanded concept of culture that goes beyond the meaning of culture in everyday language. "
literature
- WUK: From the locomotive factory to the alternative cultural center 1855–1982 (PDF; 91 kB). Retrieved May 30, 2010.
- Anton Mantler: From the arena to the WUK - 25 years of Viennese history of cultural alternatives. (PDF; 42 kB) Lecture by Anton Mantler at the Vienna History Association in June 2002 (abridged version). Retrieved May 30, 2010.
- Wien Museum: “Occupied! Struggle for freedom since the 70s ", catalog for the exhibition published in 2012 by Czernin Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7076-0413-9 (with its own chapter on the WUK)
- Thomas Schaller: The WUK - a pulsating allotment garden? In: Bärbel Danneberg , Fritz Keller, Aly Machalicky (Ed.): The 68er . A generation and its legacy. Döcker Verlag 1998, ISBN 3-85115-253-0 .
- Thomas Geiblinger: Between subsidies and repression. Subcultural cultural institutions in Vienna and the Viennese municipal administration using the example of Arena, WUK and Flex, diploma thesis University of Vienna, 2000
- Heike Summerer: Between the spirit of the times and the intention to found a company. The change in free cultural work using the example of the Vienna WUK, diploma thesis University of Vienna, 2007
Web links
- Website of the cultural center WUK
- Video documentations on the WUK history from the online archive of the Austrian Media Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ The WUK - VERY GENERAL - philosophy for practice. Retrieved May 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Homepage of the school for pupils. Retrieved May 20, 2019 .
- ↑ EUDEC Member Schools. Retrieved May 24, 2019 .
- ^ Democratic Schools in Europe. Retrieved May 24, 2019 .
- ↑ What does IDEC mean? Retrieved May 24, 2019 .
- ↑ The short version of the history of the FC can be found on the blog of the feminist WOMEN'S STRIKE. “A city without women's spaces is like a night without dreams.” FZ - Autonomous Feminist WomenLesbianMigrant Center Vienna - history and self-image. In: Frauenstreikt.noblogs.org. November 2019, accessed November 15, 2019 .
- ↑ Heinz Fassmann, Gerhard Hatz, Walter Matznetter (Eds.): Vienna - Urban structures and social developments. Böhlau, Vienna 2009, ISBN 3-205-78323-9 , p. 169 ff. (Google books? Id = 1c1OYMaOTF0C & pg = PA169)
- ↑ akin press release : Crisis needs culture. The Spittelberg Culture & Communication Center (Amerlinghaus) takes to the streets to avoid having to lock up! , April 20, 2010. Retrieved May 30, 2010.
- ↑ WienGV.AT: 6.75 million subsidy for the WUK
- ↑ Culture Committee of May 8, 2012
- ↑ a b c Organization and History. 1981 until today. ( Memento of May 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved May 30, 2010.
- ↑ WUK 30 - The Birthday Week ( Memento from December 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on July 30, 2012.
- ↑ APA-OTS : Laska presents awards. City hall correspondence, June 6, 2001. Retrieved May 30, 2010.
- ^ KPÖ, Wiener Stadtleitung , obituary: Walter Hnat - founder of the WUK - has died . Retrieved May 30, 2010.
- ↑ APA-OTS: With Walter Hnat, WUK reminds us of its own history. WUK broadcast, March 17, 2010. Retrieved May 30, 2010.
- ^ Association statutes on the WUK website. March 8, 2017. Retrieved May 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Membership information. Retrieved May 25, 2019 .
Coordinates: 48 ° 13 ′ 23 " N , 16 ° 21 ′ 4" E