Protest Architecture: Barricades, Camps, Spatial Tactics 1830-2023, by Oliver Elser

An encyclopedia of protest movements of 190 years and their architectural manifestations.

Protest movements shape public space not only through their messages but in many cases also through their mostly temporary buildings. Frankfurt’s Deutsches Architekturmuseum DAM and Vienna’s MAK—Museum of Applied Arts explore this thesis in a joint exhibition project. The exhibition and this coinciding book examine the topic further using examples spanning from 1830 to 2022.

Protest Architecture is the first international survey of the architecture of protest and presents it in all its manifold forms and, in some cases, ambivalence. It is conceived as an encyclopedia with 176 entries, supplemented by 16 expansive case studies. A preceding chronology portrays 68 protest movements and their architectural manifestations through concise texts and one image each, including examples from all over the world.