Ulrike-Gschwandtner-Straße 5, 5020 Salzburg, АвстрияAs the ARGEkultur in Salzburg, ARGEkultur uniquely combines contemporary art and culture. She acts as organizer and producer for contemporary, innovative and socially critical culture. As a communication and production facility - also for numerous initiatives and groups - ARGEkultur positions itself as a meeting place and workplace for up-to-date cultural work in Salzburg.
Every year, ARGEkultur hosts up to 350 events (in-house, co-organized and guest events) with a total of around 40,000 visitors. There are also numerous workshops, courses, seminars and rehearsals.
In a dynamic home-use concept, ARGEkultur offers a platform for work and networking opportunities for more than 20 permanent or regular user groups in various sectors.
The history of the ARGEkultur begins with the founding of the ARGE Kulturgelände in 1981. In a coalition of about 50 initiatives and groups, this association was founded with the aim of the former Sternbräu site at the foot of the Rainberg, with a usable area of 24,000 m², as a self-governing cultural center.
For the first time, this wish manifested itself at the first Salzburg youth and culture talk in April 1981 at the film culture center "Das Kino". Under the title "Züri brännt, Salzburg pennt!" Following the screening of the film "Züri brennt", there was a public discussion about the insufficient spatial infrastructure for cultural development in Salzburg. The demand for a cultural site on Rainberg was the concrete goal of this movement, which founded the club in November 1981, and called ARGE Rainberg.
Over a period of three years, attempts were made in negotiations with the political leaders to get pledges for this Rainberg project, but without success.
The ARGE Rainberg Movement received wider public awareness through its politically motivated, creative activism, which came to the fore in the "Colorful Demo" (June 1984) and the "Beggar Demo" (July 1984). As a result of this protest culture, new to Salzburg, ARGE Rainberg received the offer to use the HTL-Lehrbauhof in Nonntal for its own purposes. This small variant (about 1100 m²) was structurally adapted in the following years and opened in 1987 its operation as a cultural area Nonntal.
Many initiatives that would have been intended in the original use concept for the Rainberg area could find no place in the area in Nonntal. Some found their own homes in the following years, the failure of the Rainberg project is therefore a basis for the current cultural landscape in the city of Salzburg with many decentralized cultural sites.
It was possible to maintain the concept of a self-managed cultural center in the Nonntal cultural area, comparable to the WUK in Vienna. Since then, the cultural area (the ARGEkultur) has been considered the largest autonomously managed cultural center in western Austria.
In the late 1990s, the adapted temporary of the former HTL Lehrbauhof became more and more obvious in its limited usability. After lengthy negotiations, the Salzburg City Council decided in December 2003 to finance the construction of a new building, which was opened in 2005 in the grounds of the Unipark Nonntal. With the change of location especially from the cultural area Nonntal the ARGEkultur.