ABSTRACT
The Museum for Art and Industry, to recall its original name, was central to the formulation of design policy and, alongside its counterparts across the Empire, was drawn into the cultural politics of the Habsburg territories. Much discussion of design and the applied arts in Austria-Hungary has tended to focus on the extent to which it was recruited to advance conflicting visions of national and imperial identity. The dismemberment of the Habsburg Empire in 1918 created a socio-political framework that brought the historical focus of the museums into question. The significance of the museums of design and applied art thus goes considerably beyond their ostensible scope, since they functioned as a means for the articulation of broader ideas of social and political identity. The redrawing of political boundaries disrupted the consumer markets it had been founded to serve.
