The MAK – Museum of Applied Arts (German: Museum für angewandte Kunst) is an arts and crafts museum located at Stubenring 5 in Vienna's 1st district Innere Stadt. Besides its traditional orientation towards arts and crafts and design, the museum especially focuses on architecture and contemporary art. The museum has been at its current location since 1871. Since 2004 the building is illuminated in the evenings by the permanent outdoor installation "MAKlite" of American artist James Turrell. In 2015 the MAK became the first museum to use bitcoin to acquire art, when it purchased the screensaver "Event listeners" of van den Dorpel. With over 300,000 objects displayed online, the MAK presents the largest online collection within the Austrian Federal Museums. The audio guide to this museum is provided as a web-based app.

On 7 March 1863, the Imperial Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry – today's MAK—was founded by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Rudolf von Eitelberger, the first Professor of art history at the University of Vienna, was appointed director. Following the example of London's South Kensington Museum (today's Victoria and Albert Museum) which was founded in 1852, the museum aims at serving as an exemplary collection for artists, industrialists, and the public and as an institution for education and training of designers and craftspeople. The museum opened on 12 May 1864, at first provisionally in rooms of the Ballhaus building next to the Vienna Hofburg, which were adapted for the purpose of the museum by architect Heinrich von Ferstel.

With the establishment of the k.k. Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule (Vienna School of Arts and Crafts) in 1867, theoretical and practical training was united. At first, the school was housed in the former gun factory at Währinger Straße 11–13/Schwarzspanierstraße 17 (nowadays the Anatomical Institute of the Medical University of Vienna which was newly constructed in 1886). Only after the construction of an extension next to the Imperial Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, did the school move to Stubenring 3 in 1877.

1897, Arthur von Scala, until then director of the Royal Middle Eastern Museum (later Royal Austrian Trade Museum), takes over as director of the Museum of Art and Industry, bringing Otto Wagner, Felician von Myrbach, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Alfred Roller on board to work at the museum and at the School of Arts and Crafts. Due to conflicts between Scala and the Arts and Crafts Association (founded in 1884), who sees his influence on the museum beginning to wane, Archduke Rainer resigns 1898 as the museum's protector. New statutes were drawn up. Two years later, around 1900, the museum and the School of Arts and Crafts each received their own separate administration, although their final separation did not take place until 1909: The museum was placed under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture and Education, the school stayed at the Royal Ministry of Cultus and Education. In 1907, the Museum of Art and Industry took over most of the collection of the Royal Austrian Trade Museum.

From 1865 to 1897, the Museum of Art and Industry also published the magazine Mittheilungen des k. k. Österreichischen Museums für Kunst und Industrie (Transactions of the Imperial Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry). From 1898 to 1921, however, the Museum Journal was published with the new name Kunst und Kunsthandwerk and soon gained international reputation. The museum began publishing the periodical alte und moderne kunst (old and modern art).

After the establishment of the First Republic, the holdings previously in the possession of the Habsburgs—e.g. oriental carpets—were handed over to the Museum. In 1936 and 1940, the Museum on Stubenring gave part of its sculpture collection to the Kunsthistorisches Museum [Museum of Art History]. In exchange, it received the arts and crafts section of the collections of Albert Figdor and of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Following Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany, the museum was renamed "Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum in Wien" (State Arts and Crafts Museum in Vienna). Between 1939 and 1945, Austria's museums take over several confiscated private collections. The collection of the "State Arts and Crafts Museum" also expanded in this way. Since 1998, numerous works of art have been restituted to their owners as a result of provenance research.

In 1947, the "Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum in Wien" (State Arts and Crafts Museum) was renamed "Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst" (Austrian Museum of Applied Arts). In 1949, the museum reopened following the repair of war-related damage. In 1965, the Geymüllerschlössel in Vienna's 18th district was affiliated to the museum and became a new branch. At the same time as the building, the MAK also acquired Dr. Franz Sobek's important clock collection (160 Old-Viennese clocks from the time between 1750 and the second half of the 19th century) as well as furniture from the years 1800 to 1840. In the late 1980s, parts of the wall paintings were returned to their original state in the course of the renovation of the façade. The subsequent rearrangement of the furniture and the extraordinary clock collection in the rooms of the Geymüllerschlössel have provided visitors with an authentic insight into the diversity of Biedermeier interior decorating until today.

The combat Flak Tower (G-Tower) in the Arenbergpark—one of the six flak towers erected in Vienna during World War II—became an additional branch of the museum in 1994 and since 1995 has served as the MAK Contemporary Art Depot (MAK Tower), which hosts major parts of the Contemporary Art Collection of the museum. Currently, the MAK Tower is closed to the public due to a lack of official approval.