Monuments of the Future

Summer 2025 – Design Investigations at the Angewandte Festival

This summer, students will collaborate on a bold, large-scale installation that transforms Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz into a space of unexpected encounters during the Angewandte Festival. Led by Prof. Anab Jain and supported by the Design Investigations team and guest tutors, the project invites students to craft speculative monuments—physical interventions that provoke reflection, wonder, and dialogue.

These monuments will explore different possible futures which will be shared with the students in the brief - from celebrations of ecological rewilding to end of war. Through this process, students will engage with plural histories and their role in shaping our futures.

Throughout the course, students will develop skills in scenario creation, speculative design, and public engagement. They will learn how to translate abstract ideas into tangible installations, prototype at scale, and build physical works that invite participation. The goal is to craft an immersive experience that challenges perceptions of the future—not as a fixed destination, but as something multiple, malleable, and open to collective imagination.

Students will work in groups, developing sprojects based on the brief, in guidance with the Professor and tutors.  There will be a mid-term review, design freeze, final juries and the public installation at the Angewandte Festival at the end of the semester.