Mission and History
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture is a contemporary, experimental, multi-disciplinary center for art and architecture headquartered in three significant architectural works by the Austrian-American architect R.M. Schindler. Offering a year-round schedule of exhibitions and events, the MAK Center presents programming that challenges conventional notions of architectural space and relationships between the creative arts.
The Center is headquartered in the landmark Schindler House (R.M. Schindler, 1922) in West Hollywood; operates a residency program and exhibition space at the Mackey Apartments (R.M. Schindler, 1939) and runs more intimate programming at the Fitzpatrick-Leland House (R.M. Schindler, 1936) in Los Angeles. The MAK Center is the California satellite of the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, and works in cooperation with the FOSH.
Unique in its role as a constellation of historic architectural sites and contemporary exhibition spaces, the MAK Center develops local, national, and international projects exploring the intersection of art and architecture. It seeks out and supports projects that test disciplinary boundaries. Acting as a cultural think tank for current issues, the MAK Center encourages exploration of practical and theoretical ideas in art and architecture by engaging the center’s places, spaces, and histories. Its programming includes exhibitions, lectures, symposia, discussions, performances, music series, publication projects, salons, architecture tours, and new work commissions. It collaborates frequently with guest curators, artists and architects.
The Schindler House, designed by modern architect and Viennese émigré Rudolph M. Schindler, is considered one of the world’s first modern houses. It has influenced and inspired generations of architects worldwide. It redefined notions of public and private, and indoor and outdoor space; and broke new ground in the design and construction of the modern dwelling. Schindler and his wife Pauline regularly hosted artists, musicians, poets, writers, and actors, and so their home quickly turned into a center for avant-garde art and inquiry. Today, the Schindler House is regarded as one of Los Angeles’s most beloved architectural and cultural landmarks. It is the MAK Center’s mission to preserve and promote Schindler’s architecture and continue his and Pauline’s legacy of artistic and cultural experimentation.
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture recognizes our presence on Tovaangar, the unceded ancestral lands of the Gabrielino-Tongva people who are its rightful caretakers.