All Things Urban

Artistic research can generate links between multifaceted disciplinary expertise and the problems posed by the urban realm. The University of Applied Arts Vienna (Angewandte) has therefore implemented a new Social Design - Arts as Urban Innovation master degree programme dedicated to these challenges that emerge within urban social systems and the broad spectrum of related issues.

The master programme Social Design Arts as Urban Innovation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna is oriented towards graduates from diverse fields of study, thereby stipulating work in transdisciplinary teams as the central teaching and learning approach in the programme. On the basis of professional competences acquired in their respective previous studies, students become acquainted with transcending disciplinary codes and thinking and working in greater interrelationships. Art in synergy with project-related scientific methods and knowledge is seen as a tool for urban innovation.

The master programme is oriented towards graduates from diverse fields of study, bringing into accordance approaches of multiple disciplines in co-disciplinary projects as the central teaching and learning strategy. On the basis of professional competences acquired in their respective previous studies, students become acquainted with transcending disciplinary codes and thinking and working in diverse constellations. Art in synergy with project related scientific methods and knowledge is regarded as a tool for urban innovation.

• Application Phase for Winter Term 2024/25: 10.01. - 26.01.2024 (12:00 o´clock CET)

• Entrance Examination 20-22 February 2024, on Zoom (whole-time)

• Admission Requirements
  Graduation from a bachelor or equivalent programme at a recognised domestic or foreign post-secondary educational institution. Proof of artistic aptitude in the framework of the entrance examination.

Duration and Scope:
- 4 semesters / 120 ECTS
- Graduation: "Master of Arts" (MA)

Urban Environment
Today, more than half of the world population lives in cities, and according to UN reports another 200,000 people arrive each day. In the next 20 years, cities around the globe will expand by 1.5 million square kilometres and in 25 years two-thirds of the world population will live in cities. In this global event we can identify the triggering factors behind tremendous restructuring processes: the transformational power of the industrial and digital revolution. This development places cities as complex, self-generating environments under enormous pressure. Through the densification and concentration of the population, economy, capital, and media, as well as culture and knowledge in urban agglomerations, both their spatial and social fabric are subject to overproportional stress.

Social Design
In order to account for this global development, new concepts are needed that address the overall process of knowledge production in society. Especially art universities are predestined to formulate these new, distinct perspectives on the inherent logic of cities and the corresponding dynamics of their processes. Artistic research can generate links between multifaceted disciplinary expertise and the problems posed by the urban realm. The University of Applied Arts Vienna (Angewandte) has therefore implemented a new master degree programme dedicated to these challenges that emerge within urban social systems and the broad spectrum of related issues.

The shaping of reality viewed on the example of urban agglomerations and contrasted with the urban context of Vienna initially forms both the field of work and the scale for the realisation of the individual projects.