Josef Hoffmann

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(b Pirnitz, Moravia [now Brtnice, Czech Republic], 15 Dec 1870; d Vienna, 15 May 1956). Austrian architect, designer and draughtsman. He had a natural gift for creating beautiful forms, and he proceeded to make the most of it during a career that spanned more than 50 years. In this half century the conditions and nature of architectural practice changed profoundly, but Hoffmann's fundamental approach remained the same. He relied on his intuition to produce works that were unmistakably his own in their formal and compositional treatment, yet mirrored all stylistic changes in the European architectural scene.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956), Austrian architect and decorator, was a pioneer of European modernism and founder of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshop).

Josef Franz Maria Hoffmann was born in Pirnitz (Brtnice), then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on December 15, 1870. He studied architecture at the trade school in Brünn. Following his graduation in 1891 he went to Würzburg for a year of practical experience and then entered the special architectural school of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he studied until 1895, first under Carl von Hasenauer and then under Otto Wagner. Upon graduation he won the Rome Prize. Otto Wagner then employed him as a draftsman in his office for several years.

During his studies and early professional years Hoffmann assimilated the historicist architectural traditions of Vienna, as exemplified in the work of Hasenauer and Wagner (among others); Wagner's functionalistic theories; the stylistic experimentations of the European Art Nouveau; and the teachings of the English arts and crafts movement. Hoffmann's earliest independent works, such as the rooms of the second, third, and fourth exhibitions at the Vienna Secession that he designed in 1899 and the remodelling of the store Am Hof 3 in Vienna the same year, showed clearly the influence of Art Nouveau and of the English arts and crafts.

In 1899 Hoffmann became professor at the Kunstgewer-beschule (School of Applied Arts) in Vienna. His works of the following year, such as the rooms of the Kunstgewer-beschule at the Paris Exhibition, already showed a drastic change in his style from the flowing curvatures of the earlier works to a rectilinear simplicity of form and the tendency of superimposing rectangular elements and motifs; both of these would become Hoffmann's stylistic hallmarks. For this change Hoffmann was particularly indebted to the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Scottish master of Art Nouveau, who was highly regarded in Vienna.

Hoffmann's first important architectural commission was for a group of villas in the Hohe Warte near Vienna. These were designed in careful relation to each other so as to form a total composition. Moreover, their interior arrangement was expressed on the exterior and great emphasis was placed on color and texture. Yet one notices in them an increased simplicity of form; this became even more prominent in the works that Hoffmann exhibited at the 1902 Kunstausstellung in Düsseldorf.

Together with Kolo Moser, Hoffmann founded in 1903 the Wiener Werkstätte for the production of furniture and objects of the applied arts. In the same year he received the commission for the Purkersdorf Sanatorium, which was built in 1903 and 1904. This was a work of astonishing modernity and could be easily antedated by 25 years. It had plain white walls and ample, regularly placed windows almost devoid of surrounding frames. There were no cornices, and the roofs were completely flat. Hoffmann's opus magnum, the Palais Stoclet in Brussels, was designed in 1905 and built between 1905 and 1911. It was a large and luxurious mansion, asymmetrically composed and dominated by the stair-tower. The external walls were covered by a thin veneer of marble plaques contained within a decorative edging of gilded metal that defined the wall planes. Both the exterior and the lavishly appointed interior were characterized by a charm and playfulness that were Austrian in character; clearly Hoffmann's, however, was the pervasive effect of a relentless geometry of form inside and out. Both the Purkersdorf Sanatorium and the Palais Stoclet were entirely furnished by the Wiener Werkstätte.

Hoffmann did not develop his style further after the Palais Stoclet. Instead, he resorted to the Neoclassicism that became predominant all over Europe and in England after 1905. A notable work of the time was the Ast House in the Hohe Warte near Vienna, built in 1909-1911. This was also quite large and luxurious, although more massive and tectonic than the Palais Stoclet. The classicizing tendency in Hoffmann's work became more explicit in two later works, the Skyra-Primavesi House in the Hietzing suburb of Vienna and the Austrian Pavilion at the Cologne exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund of 1914. In both Hoffmann articulated the exterior with broad, fluted pilasters; yet these elements of classical inspiration were used in a mannerist way that had little to do with their original structural and formal properties. For example, in the Austrian Pavilion the massive pilasters appeared to be supporting a cornice that was nothing more than a thin molding. Hoffmann's last great villa, the Knips House in Vienna of 1924-1925, was a compact block that emulated deliberately the Biedermeier architecture of its surroundings. Hoffmann became city architect of Vienna in 1920. The low-cost housing blocks that he designed in the mid-1920s in Vienna, such as the Klosehof and the Winarskyhof, retained in their simplicity and cleanliness of composition a good deal of the purist quality of his sanatorium at Purkersdorf. Hoffmann died in Vienna on May 7, 1956.

The Wiener Werkstätte that Hoffmann founded sought a new relation between formal beauty and functionalism and brought about a revival of the applied arts. The furniture and other objects that he designed for production at the Wiener Werkstätte exercised a great influence on the European taste for several decades. In their simplicity and formal expediency these prepared the way for the plainer surface articulation and purity of modernism.

Further Reading

The life and work of Josef Hoffmann are treated exhaustively in two recent monographs: Guiliano Gresleri, Josef Hoffmann (1985) and Eduard F. Sekler, Josef Hoffmann. Das architektonischeWerk: Monographie und Werkverzeichnis (Architectural Work: Treatises and Drawings) (1982). For a brief discussion of Hoffmann's contribution in the development of modern architecture and design see Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (4th ed., 1977); Leonardo Benevolo, History of Modern Architecture, 2 vols. (1977); and Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: from William Morris to Walter Gropius (2d ed., 1975).

Additional Sources

Hoffmann, Josef Franz Maria, Josef Hoffman, Wien: Edition Tusch, 1992.

Langseth-Christensen, Lillian, A design for living, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking, 1987.

Sekler, Eduard F. (Eduard Franz), Josef Hoffmann: the architectural work: monograph and catalogue of works, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985.

A leading member and founder of the Wiener Secession (1897) and Wiener Werkstätte (1903), architect and designer Hoffmann was one of the most influential figures in the field in the early 20th century. After commencing his studies at the Royal State Technical School in Brno in 1887 he went on to study architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1892 to 1895, where his tutors included Otto Wagner. He designed the Ver sacrum room at the first Wiener Secession exhibition in 1898. Hoffmann fell under the influence of British designers Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Charles Robert Ashbee, whose Guild of Handicraft proved an important stimulus for the establishment of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshops) with designer Koloman Moser and industrialist Fritz Warndorfer in 1903. Between then and 1931 the Werkstätte produced furniture, metalware, and jewellery designs by Hoffmann, often characterized by qualities of geometry and rectilinearity. Hoffmann had begun teaching architecture at the Vienna School of Applied Arts in 1899, a post that he maintained until 1941. One of his most important commissions was the Palais Stoclet in Brussels (1905-11), for which he designed the whole ensemble from building through to interiors and furniture and worked alongside the distinguished Viennese artist Gustav Klimt and artist-designer Carl Otto Czeschka. He also designed furniture for the Thonet company including his Sitzmaschine (‘Sitting Machine’) of 1908. Following on from the ideas of the Deutscher Werkbund established in 1907, Hoffmann founded the Austrian Werkbund in 1912 and headed it until 1920. He also designed the Austrian Pavilions at the 1914 Werkbund exhibition in Cologne, the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels, the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition, and the Venice Biennale of 1934.

Austro-Hungarian designer and architect. Born in Moravia, he studied with Hasenauer and Wagner in Vienna. He became involved in the Vienna Sezession (he greatly admired, and was friendly with, C. R. Mackintosh) and, with Koloman Moser (1868–1918) and Fritz Wärndorfer (1868–1923), founded the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903. He absorbed the Beaux-Arts method of composition, the Classically inspired style of Wagner, the freer style of the British Arts-and-Crafts movement, and early in the C20 began to simplify and purify his architecture, moving away from the Art Nouveau of the early Sezession. His white cubic building at the Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1903–5) led to a blocky style, the most developed example of which was the Adolphe Stoclet House, Brussels (1904–11): for this Hoffmann and other artists of the Werkstätte designed virtually everything. The Stoclet House was sumptuously finished in panels of marble framed with bronze, while some of the interiors (notably the dining-room) were also finished in marble, with glittering mosaics designed by Gustav Klimt (1862–1918). His Ast (1909–11) and Skywa-Primavesi (1913–15) Houses, both in Vienna, showed a profound shift towards Neo-Classicism that was a general tendency of the time. Later works were never again of such distinction: they included the Austrian Pavilion, Exposition Internationale des Arts-Décoratifs, Paris (1924–5), an asymmetrical composition with strong horizontal bandings on the walls; the Ast House, near Velden, Austria (1923), and the Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennale (1934–5). In 1953–4 he designed housing on the Heiligenstädterstrasse, Vienna.

Bibliography

• Kleiner (1927)
• Noever & Oberhuber (1987)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• Rochowanski (1950)
• Sekler (1985)
• Jane Turner (1996)
• Veronesi (1956)
• Weiser (1930)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Josef Franz Maria Hoffmann
Personal information
Name	Josef Franz Maria Hoffmann
Nationality	Austrian
Birth date	December 15, 1870(1870-12-15)
Birth place	Brtnice, Moravia, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Date of death	May 7, 1956 (aged 85)
Place of death	Vienna, Austria
Work
Significant buildings	Sanatorium Purkersdorf Stoclet Palace Ast Residence Skywa-Primavesi Residence
Significant projects	Vienna Secession Wiener Werkstätte

For the Polish-American pianist, see Józef Hofmann.

Josef Hoffmann (December 15, 1870, Pirnitz (Brtnice), Moravia (today the Czech Republic) – May 7, 1956, Vienna, Austria) was a Austrian architect and designer of consumer goods.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Teaching At University of Applied Arts Vienna 3 Critical reception and posthumous reputation 4 Selected architecture works 5 Selected furniture works 6 References 7 Literature 8 External links

Biography

Hoffmann studied at the Higher State Crafts School in Brno beginning in 1887 and then worked with the local military planning authority in Würzburg. Thereafter he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer and Otto Wagner, graduating with a Prix de Rome in 1895. In Wagner's office, he met Joseph Maria Olbrich, and together they founded the Vienna Secession in 1897 along with artists Gustav Klimt, and Koloman Moser.^[1] Beginning in 1899, he taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. With the Secession, Hoffmann developed strong connections with other artists. He designed installation spaces for Secession exhibitions and a house for Moser which was built from 1901-1903. However, he soon left the Secession in 1905 along with other stylist artists due to conflicts with realist naturalists over differences in artistic vision and disagreement over the premise of Gesamtkunstwerk.^[2] With the banker Fritz Wärndorfer and the artist Koloman Moser he established the Wiener Werkstätte, which was to last until 1932. He designed many products for the Wiener Werkstätte of which designer chairs, most notably "Sitzmaschine" Chair, a lamp, and sets of glasses have reached the collection of the Museum of Modern Art,^[3] and a tea service has reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^[4]

Sanatorium Purkersdorf

Hoffmann's style eventually became more sober and abstract and it was limited increasingly to functional structures and domestic products. In 1906, Hoffmann built his first great work on the outskirts of Vienna, the Sanatorium Purkersdorf . Compared to the Moser House, with its rusticated vernacular roof, this was a great advancement towards abstraction and a move away from traditional Arts and Crafts and historicism. This project served as a major precedent and inspiration for the modern architecture that would develop in the first half of the 20th century, for instance the early work of Le Corbusier.^[5] It had a clarity, simplicity, and logic that foretold of a Neue Sachlichkeit.^[6]

Palais Stoclet

Through contacts with Adolphe Stoclet, who sat on the supervisory board of the Austro-Belgischen Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, he was commissioned to build the Palais Stoclet in Brussels from 1905 to 1911 for this wealthy banker and railway financier. This masterpiece of Jugendstil, was an example of Gesamtkunstwerk, replete with murals in the dining room by Klimt and four copper figures on the tower by Franz Metzner. In 1907, Hoffmann was co-founder of the Deutscher Werkbund, and in 1912 of the Österreichischer Werkbund. After World War II, he took on official tasks, that of an Austrian general commissioner with the Venice Biennale and a membership in the art senate.

Modern production of Kubus sofa

Some of Hoffmann's domestic designs can still be found in production today, such as the Rundes Modell cutlery set that is manufactured by Alessi. Originally produced in silver the range is now produced in high quality stainless steel. Another example of Hoffmann’s strict geometrical lines and the quadratic theme is the iconic Kubus Armchair. Designed in 1910, Kubus Armchair was presented at the International Exhibition held in Buenos Aires on the centennial of Argentinean Independence known as May Revolution. His constant use of squares and cubes earned him the nickname "Quadratl-Hoffmann" (little square Hoffmann).

Teaching At University of Applied Arts Vienna

Although he said little to his students, Hoffmann was a highly esteemed and admired teacher. He tried to bring out the best in each member of his class by means of challenging assignments, which were occasionally work on real commissions. Where he detected talent among young artists he was willing or eager to promote it; Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele and Le Corbusier were the most prominent beneficiaries of his benevolence towards a promising next generation. Le Corbusier was offered a job in his office, Schiele was helped financially and Kokoschka was given work in the Wiener Werkstätte. As a member of the international jury for the competition to design a palace for the League of Nations at Geneva in 1927, he belonged to the minority who voted for Le Corbusier’s project, and the latter always spoke with admiration of his Viennese colleague.

Critical reception and posthumous reputation

The critical reception of Hoffmann’s oeuvre has faithfully mirrored the changing tastes and ideologies in the history of 20th-century architecture. He received favourable attention from the critics early in his career; in 1901 The Studio brought him to the attention of the English-speaking world through an illustrated article written by Fernand Khnopff. He was also given extensive coverage in the special volume The Art Revival in Austria that was published by The Studio in 1906. In France, Art et décoration published favourable reviews of his early and his mature work. Naturally his most extensive and detailed reviews are found in German-language periodicals, in particular Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration where many well-illustrated articles were devoted to his designs. His international exhibition work also helped to make his name widely known, and many distinguished contributors to the Festschrift on his 60th birthday acclaimed him as a master. Honours bestowed on him included the cross of a commander of the Légion d’honneur and the Honorary Fellowship of the American Institute of Architects. The critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock in 1929 wrote, ‘In Germany as well as in Austria, Hoffmann’s manner has profoundly influenced the New Tradition’. Only three years later, however, when together with Philip Johnson he published The International Style, Hitchcock no longer even mentioned Hoffmann’s name. Siegfried Giedion in his influential Space, Time and Architecture did not do justice to Hoffmann’s oeuvre because it would not fit easily into his polemically simplified version of architectural history. Despite honours and praise on the occasions of Hoffmann’s 80th and 85th birthdays, he was virtually forgotten by the time of his death. Although his true stature and contribution were acknowledged by such masters as Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Gio Ponti and Carlo Scarpa, the younger generation of architects and historians ignored him.

The process of rediscovery and reappraisal began in 1956 with a small book by Giulia Veronesi and during the 1970s gained momentum with a number of exhibitions and smaller publications. In the 1980s several monographs were published and major exhibitions held. Imitations of his style also began to occur, and replicas of his furniture, fabrics, and of some objects he had designed became commercial successes, while original pieces and drawings from his hand fetched record prices in the auction-rooms.

Selected architecture works

Kabarett Fledermaus in Vienna

• 1900-1911 Designer for Hohe Warte Artists’ Colony
• 1900-1901 Double House for Koloman Moser and Carl Moll
• 1904 Sanatorium Purkersdorf
• 1905–1906 House for the writer Richard Beer-Hofmann in Vienna
• 1905–1911 Palais Stoclet in Brussels, Belgium
• 1907 Interior decoration of Kabarett Fledermaus in Vienna
• 1909–1911 Ast Residence in Vienna
• 1913–1915 Skywa-Primavesi Residence in Vienna
• 1913–1914 Country house for Otto Primavesi in Winkelsdorf, Moravia (destroyed by fire in 1922^[7])
• 1923–1925 Urban Klosehof Housing Complex
• 1924-1925 Villa Knips in Vienna, made for Sonja Knips
• 1930–1932 Four row houses for the Viennese Werkbund’s settlement
• 1934 Austrian pavilion at the Venice Biennale

Selected furniture works

Sitzmaschine Armchair in black color

• 1904 Purkersdorf Armchair
• 1905 Sitzmaschine Armchair
• 1905 Kunstschau Armchair
• 1905-1910 Palais Stoclet Armchair
• 1907 Fledermaus Chair
• 1908 Siebenkugelstuhl Chair
• 1908 Armloffel Chair
• 1910 Kubus Armchair
• 1910 Club Armchair
• 1911 Haus Koller Chair

References

1. ^ Pg. 79, Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History. Thames & Hudson. 1980, 1985, 1992.
2. ^ Vienna Secession history by Senses-ArtNouveau.com
3. ^ MoMA.org | The Collection | Josef Hoffmann. (Austrian, 1870-1956)
4. ^ Josef Hoffmann: Tea service (2000.278.1-.9) | Works of Art | Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5. ^ Pg. 81, Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History. Thames & Hudson. 1980, 1985, 1992.
6. ^ Dr Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory: a historical survey, 1673-1968. Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0521793068
7. ^ The country house of the Primavesi family in Winkelsdorf

Literature

• Sarnitz, August (2007). Josef Hoffmann. In the Realm of Beauty. Cologne: Taschen. ISBN 9783822855911. 
• Fahr-Becker, Gabriele (2008). Wiener Werkstätte: 1903-1932. Cologne: Taschen. ISBN 3822837733. 
• Sekler, Eduard (1982). Josef Hoffmann. Das Architektonische Werk; Monographie und Werkverzeichnis. Salzburg: Residenz. ISBN 370170306X. 

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Josef Hoffmann

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Josef Hoffmann

• http://www.mastersofmodernism.com/?page=Silver&sp=va&item=1
• His entry in the aeiou Encyclopaedia
• Josef Hoffmann Biografie at WOKA (de/en)
• Illustrated history of the Purkersdorf Sanatorium
• Interior of the Purkersdorf Sanatorium in historical setup
• Wiener Werkstätte
• Arts and Crafts in Vienna 1900
• Josef Hoffmann Furniture Design
• Josef Hoffmann Lighting Design

Persondata
NAME	Hoffmann, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Austrian architect and designer
DATE OF BIRTH	1870-12-15
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brtnice
DATE OF DEATH	1956-05-07
PLACE OF DEATH	Vienna

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