The Politics of Urban Participation: From the Right to the City to the Right to the Museum

Building from Right to the City movements, the article addresses the Right to the Museum framework, aiming for urban participation within curatorial, artistic and community-based strategies. The case study traces the genesis of the Wien Museum from a historical bourgeois institution to a contemporary city museum with a spotlight on the year 2015. In addition to an architectural competition, that year was marked by debates on how the museum should incorporate the diverse lived realities of citizens into its programming. Based on documents and interviews, the frictions of urban participation in everyday museum practice are discussed and related to recent museum developments.