Sprechende Fassaden
(Narrative facades)
by Klaus-Jürgen Bauer (Text)
and Charlotte Schwarz (Photo)

Highlighting the "MAK-Terrace Plateau"
Peter Noever (1993) today.
Falter Verlag, Vienna, 2025
ISBN: 9783991660194

The MAK-Terrace Plateau, an urban element in the center of the city, originally conceived for artistic interventions, represents among other things, an act of appreciation for the historic riverbed construction. Moreover, the MAK-Terrace Plateau offers visitors surprising views – in and out — including toward the nearby City Park. Currently, it is not accessible and is no longer in its originally intended condition.

Klaus-Jürgen Bauer (*1963 in Vienna) passed away unexpectedly on June 27, 2025.

This news struck me deeply. Beyond being one of the most knowledgeable and committed advocates for the preservation and renewal of architecture in Burgenland / Austria, he never ceased to champion and fight for an ambitious architectural culture — despite the prevailing dominance of mediocrity in both mindset and practice.

For me, Klaus-Jürgen Bauer was and remains a beacon of hope.
+pn

The Platform
Peter Noever (1993)

1st District, Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz, Vienna

Art is a private matter. Whether someone visits a museum, why, and how long they spend in front of a single artwork — none of that is anyone else’s business. It’s a completely different case with art in public space, especially when it intersects with architecture — as in the project the MAK Terrace Plateau in front of the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), designed in 1988/93. The creator of this artwork on the banks of the Vienna River is longtime MAK Director and designer Peter Noever.

The free-floating concrete terrace has a large circular hole at its center, through which a tree grows. This is a motif of Austria’s artistic diaspora. The Viennese architect Bernard Rudofsky, who left the country in 1932 and became a key voice in international modernism, also took up this theme.

The terrace with the hole is part of a larger series of public art interventions initiated by Noever during his long tenure as director. World-renowned artists such as Donald Judd (Stage Set), James Turrell (MAKlite), James Wines/SITE (Gate to the Ring), Walter Pichler (Gate to the Garden), and Philip Johnson (Vienna Trio) helped transform postwar provincial Vienna into a center of international art discourse.

Image Caption:
In modernism, ornament not only lost its significance — it became an explicit target for rejection and devaluation. It came to symbolize backwardness and primitiveness and was to be replaced by images of rationalism and functionalism. Yet ornament quietly returned through the back door: the symbolic power of the circular hole is hard to escape.

Klaus-Jürgen Bauer, 2025