PLATFORM AUSTRIA
ON THE PHENOMENON OF PLATFORM URBANISM

Digital platforms are unarguably exercising an increasing influence on the ways we live together. The fact that they are transforming our social, economic and political frameworks has been particularly clear over recent months, when platforms have often made their presence felt as saviours in our hour of need. PLATFORM AUSTRIA, the Austrian contribution to the Biennale Architettura 2021, seeks to articulate the profound changes that this development involves for our built environment. To this end, it will transform the Austrian pavilion into a platform of debate around how we envision the architecture of the future.

The opening of the Biennale Architettura will take place on 22 May 2021. Many aspects of our everyday lives – working, learning, shopping, meeting and socialising – are now no longer conceivable without platforms. However, platforms are not only changing the way we live but are also having a significant impact on the design of our cities. Long-standing urban structures, public institutions and established forms of social organisation are increasingly coming under pressure. Careful long-term planning is now being confronted by the call for immediate fulfilment of our desires in a “city-on-demand”.

The most important resource for platforms is participation by people, and this is the basis on which curators Peter Mörtenböck und Helge Mooshammer claim the right to co-determine the parameters of future development. They are opening up the Austrian pavilion as a discursive space addressing the changes being driven by platform urbanism – in keeping with the theme of the Biennale Architettura 2021, “How will we live together?”.

Hier steht ein Zitat, Over the last year, we’ve learned a lot about digital platforms. Having to stay at home because of the current pandemic has meant having to get used to these platforms in order to be able to get on with our lives. So, as a result, we’ve seen how platforms have completely changed the way we interact – the way we work, learn, shop, entertain ourselves and socialise.

Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer