Reflecting on A Blueprint for a Museum simultaneously means reflecting on abstract categories of the institution and concrete programme concepts. This form of publication follows and remains true to the idea of experimentation that the Kunsthaus Graz has embodied since its foundation.

Twenty years ago, the city of Graz was named European Capital of Culture and in 2003 the long-standing idea of an exhibition space for contemporary art was realised: Kunsthaus Graz. The background to the institution goes back to many scenarios and ideas that were ultimately not realised, including the idea of founding a Trigon Museum. A museum focussing on art from the "Trigon region" (Austria, Italy, former Yugoslavia and later Hungary). The Trigon exhibitions had a significant impact on the cultural landscape of the city from the early 1960s onwards and successfully pursued the approach of establishing the city of Graz as an international centre for contemporary art. Despite these initial ideas of a museum, the Kunsthaus Graz was ultimately conceived as a multifunctional exhibition space, even as a laboratory with a focus on media art, which challenges the idea of the white cube with its unusual exhibition spaces. With its architecture and highly international programme, it has become a space and place of potentiality and otherness. In a symbolic way, the starting point for the architects of the Kunsthaus, Colin Fournier and Peter Cook, was the adventurous invitation "Into the unknown!", which we can read as an invitation to explore the limits of imagination and promote alternative ideas and utopias.

Published by Kunsthaus Graz. Published by Verlag für moderne Kunst
ISBN: 9783991530794
Language: German/English
Pages: 302