© Leah Rom
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Paula Strunden, transdisciplinary artist with a background in architecture, just returned from Los Angeles, where she developed her interpretation of the iconic Schindler House as an XR experience from the perspective of Pauline Schindler as part of the MAK Schindler Residency.
10.4.2025—13.4.2025
MAK Columned Main Hall
Paula Strunden’s experimental extended reality (XR) installation reimagines Pauline Schindler’s House, transforming the iconic Kings Road House—designed by Rudolph M. Schindler in the early 1920s—using memory fragments, movement, and sound as narrative elements. Combining historical research and speculative storytelling, the experience offers an atmospheric reenactment of the modernist space as it might have felt on a moonlit evening in the 1970s, long after a dinner with friends had ended.
Visitors drift through the house in first-person immersion, as if suspended within its memories—wine glasses left on the table, candlelight flickering against wood, the distant hum of a record spinning on vinyl. The interplay of these sensory experiences invites participants to crawl through the chimney like Alice in Wonderland, touch floor plans that dissolve spatial boundaries, and navigate a house that “remembers” itself.
Approaching architecture from a phenomenological perspective, the installation emphasizes first-hand bodily engagement with space—where perception, movement, and sensation become the primary modes of understanding. Through subtle movements—leaning, listening, touching—space becomes a living archive, where Pauline Schindler’s presence lingers and architectural history is reimagined as an ambiguous, open-ended, and inherently multisensory experience.
Pop-up: Extended-Reality-(XR)-Installation
Thu, 10.4.–Sun, 13.4.2025
2-6 pm
MAK Columned Main Hall
Opening Event
Tue, 8.4.2025
Extended-Reality-(XR)-Installation
6-9 pm
Drinks
6-9 pm
Artist Talk
with Paula Strunden and Marlies Wirth
6 pm
Free participation with a valid museum ticket
Visitors drift through the house in first-person immersion, as if suspended within its memories—wine glasses left on the table, candlelight flickering against wood, the distant hum of a record spinning on vinyl. The interplay of these sensory experiences invites participants to crawl through the chimney like Alice in Wonderland, touch floor plans that dissolve spatial boundaries, and navigate a house that “remembers” itself.
Approaching architecture from a phenomenological perspective, the installation emphasizes first-hand bodily engagement with space—where perception, movement, and sensation become the primary modes of understanding. Through subtle movements—leaning, listening, touching—space becomes a living archive, where Pauline Schindler’s presence lingers and architectural history is reimagined as an ambiguous, open-ended, and inherently multisensory experience.
Pop-up: Extended-Reality-(XR)-Installation
Thu, 10.4.–Sun, 13.4.2025
2-6 pm
MAK Columned Main Hall
Opening Event
Tue, 8.4.2025
Extended-Reality-(XR)-Installation
6-9 pm
Drinks
6-9 pm
Artist Talk
with Paula Strunden and Marlies Wirth
6 pm
Free participation with a valid museum ticket
© Leah Rom
© Leah Rom
© Leah Rom
© Leah Rom
© Leah Rom
Previous Image
Paula Strunden
Dr Paula Strunden is a transdisciplinary artist with a background in architecture. She has worked with Herzog & de Meuron and Raumlabor Berlin and completed her PhD thesis on multisensory perception in Extended Reality Models (XRM), which was awarded the 2023/24 Best Research Award of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her XR models have been nominated twice for the Dutch film award Golden Calf and presented internationally at institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts London, Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, and Ars Electronica Linz. She also researches the role of women in virtual technologies, founded the platform xr-atlas.org and has taught at leading architecture and art schools in Europe, currently as acting professor for Emerging Technologies and Design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar.
MAK in Los Angeles
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the California branch of the MAK in Los Angeles, was founded in 1994 as a contemporary, experimental, and interdisciplinary center for art and architecture. Today, it operates three of the most important buildings designed by the Austro-American architect Rudolph M. Schindler, including the iconic Schindler House in West Hollywood. Designed in 1921/22, the house was conceived as a radical, communal live-work space, strongly influenced by Pauline Schindler, who, as a progressive thinker and arts advocate, transformed it into a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, and political activists. A key component of the program is the internationally renowned MAK Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program, which has been supporting innovative artists and architects from around the world since 1995 at the historic Mackey Apartments. Designed by Schindler in 1939, the Mackey Apartments serve as both living quarters and a site for experimentation, fostering dialogue between residents and the art and architecture community of Los Angeles.
Credits
Artistic Director: Paula Strunden
Sound Design: Daniel Helmer & Maximilian Liebich
Voice-over Recording: ElevenLabs AI
Oral History Recording: Pauline Schindler, an Oral History (1976) – Larry Scher
Archival Material: Architecture & Design Collection (ADC), University of California, Santa Barbara
3D Model of Kings Road House: Courtesy of Friends of Schindler House (FoSH)
Special Thanks: Friends of Schindler House (FoSH), Bob Sweeney, Bob Knight, Larry Scher, Valentina Ganeva, Marlene Moser, and Nikola Znaor
Dr Paula Strunden is a transdisciplinary artist with a background in architecture. She has worked with Herzog & de Meuron and Raumlabor Berlin and completed her PhD thesis on multisensory perception in Extended Reality Models (XRM), which was awarded the 2023/24 Best Research Award of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her XR models have been nominated twice for the Dutch film award Golden Calf and presented internationally at institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts London, Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, and Ars Electronica Linz. She also researches the role of women in virtual technologies, founded the platform xr-atlas.org and has taught at leading architecture and art schools in Europe, currently as acting professor for Emerging Technologies and Design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar.
MAK in Los Angeles
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the California branch of the MAK in Los Angeles, was founded in 1994 as a contemporary, experimental, and interdisciplinary center for art and architecture. Today, it operates three of the most important buildings designed by the Austro-American architect Rudolph M. Schindler, including the iconic Schindler House in West Hollywood. Designed in 1921/22, the house was conceived as a radical, communal live-work space, strongly influenced by Pauline Schindler, who, as a progressive thinker and arts advocate, transformed it into a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, and political activists. A key component of the program is the internationally renowned MAK Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program, which has been supporting innovative artists and architects from around the world since 1995 at the historic Mackey Apartments. Designed by Schindler in 1939, the Mackey Apartments serve as both living quarters and a site for experimentation, fostering dialogue between residents and the art and architecture community of Los Angeles.
Credits
Artistic Director: Paula Strunden
Sound Design: Daniel Helmer & Maximilian Liebich
Voice-over Recording: ElevenLabs AI
Oral History Recording: Pauline Schindler, an Oral History (1976) – Larry Scher
Archival Material: Architecture & Design Collection (ADC), University of California, Santa Barbara
3D Model of Kings Road House: Courtesy of Friends of Schindler House (FoSH)
Special Thanks: Friends of Schindler House (FoSH), Bob Sweeney, Bob Knight, Larry Scher, Valentina Ganeva, Marlene Moser, and Nikola Znaor
Media
Pauline Schindler’s House: An Extended Reality (XR) Reconstruction by Paula Strunden © Leah Rom
Pauline Schindler’s House: An Extended Reality (XR) Reconstruction by Paula Strunden © Leah Rom
Pauline Schindler’s House: An Extended Reality (XR) Reconstruction by Paula Strunden © Leah Rom
An Extended Reality (XR) Reconstruction by Paula Strunden © Leah Rom
An Extended Reality (XR) Reconstruction by Paula Strunden © Leah Rom
