Otto Wagner

For more information on Otto Wagner, visit Britannica.com.

(b Penzing, nr Vienna, 13 July 1841; d Vienna, 11 April 1918). Austrian architect, urban planner, designer, teacher and writer. He was one of the most important architects of the 19th and 20th centuries

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Otto Wagner (1841-1918), Austrian architect and teacher, advocated a breakaway from historicist architecture and became a founder of modern European architecture.

Otto Wagner was born in Vienna, Austria, on July 13, 1841. First he attended the Technical University there; in 1860 he attended the Bauakademie in Berlin; and in 1861-1863 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Up to 1894 Wagner's architectural practice was fully in the prevalent Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque modes. This can be seen in the private dwelling Rennweg 3 in Vienna from 1889, a Baroque, palacelike residence with rather conventional decoration. Wagner's 1897-1898 project for an academy of fine arts combined classical planning principles inspired from the Roman imperial fora with an aggressive monumentality; however, the open metallic crown with floral decoration which topped the main building was a distinctly modern element.

In 1894 Wagner was appointed professor of architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, replacing Carl von Hasenauer, and Wagner held that position until 1913. In his remarkable inaugural lecture, Wagner, who was already in his fifties, declared himself absolutely and without reservation in favor of a modern architecture in response to modern needs and condemned all stylistic imitation as false and inappropriate. This inaugural lecture, which epitomized Wagner's philosophy of architecture and design, was published in the following year as a book under the title Moderne Architektur. Shortly thereafter this book was made available to the American public by N. Clifford Ricker, who translated it and published it first in serialized form in 1901 in the Brickbuilder and in the following year as a book.

The functionalist message that Wagner set forth was that "Modern art must yield for us modern ideas, forms created for us, which represent our abilities, our acts, and our preferences" and that "Objects resulting from modern views … harmonize perfectly with our surroundings, but copied and imitated objects never do." Moreover, Wagner repeated verbatim the famous functionalist principle advocated by the great German architect Gottfried Semper: "Necessity is the sole mistress of art," to which he subsequently added his own emphasis on structure and materials.

Wagner's outspoken, strongly rationalist functionalism was indeed more revolutionary than his architecture. In 1894 he was commissioned to design the stations of the elevated and underground railroad (Stadtbahn) of Vienna. The stations that he designed at the start were in a rather conventional historicist mode. This, however, changed drastically in later stations, presumably under the influence of his pupils Josef Hoffmann and Josef Maria Olbrich, both of whom worked for him for several years. Thus in the later stations, such as the Hofpavillon in Schönbrunn and the Karlsplatz Station, Wagner used the historicist formal vocabulary in a freer and more innovative manner. In his blocks of flats in Vienna, such as Linke Wienzeile 38 and 40 of 1898, Wagner adorned the facades, which were essentially inspired from Renaissance palace architecture, with bold flat ornament, purely Art Nouveau in character. In that year Wagner joined the Vienna Secession, remaining a member until 1905.

After the turn of the century, Wagner started throwing off the Art Nouveau influence. His work in the new mode culminated in Sankt Leopold, the church of the Steinhof Asylum in Penzing outside Vienna, built in 1904-1907. This was a large cruciform edifice with a hemispherical dome raised on a cylindrical drum. There was abundant decoration, but this had been submitted to a linear stylization and was kept within rectangles and squares. Although remotely Byzantinesque in character, it appeared nonhistoricist and very much in the spirit of the work of younger architects such as Josef Maria Olbrich and Peter Behrens. Wagner's masterpiece of the time was the Postal Savings Bank in Vienna of 1904-1906, a work characterized by linearity, smoothness, and crispness of design. The external walls were covered by marble revetments held in place by exposed aluminum fastenings. The interior, equally striking in its lightness and in the elegant use of exposed metal and glass, secured Wagner a place among the 20th-century pioneers. Wagner died in Vienna on April 11, 1918.

Through his 1894 lecture, which was published as a book in numerous editions, Wagner facilitated greatly the reform of architectural practice and the establishment of modern design principles, such as honest use of materials, especially steel; rejection of historicist formal vocabulary; and preference for simplicity and clarity of form. His own work remained tied to tradition much longer, although it became increasingly modern after the turn of the century. Among his works, the Vienna railroad with its stations and the Postal Savings Bank provided exemplary solutions to contemporary and relatively new architectural problems. His theories and teachings, on the other hand, exercised a broad and fruitful influence and found their full realization in the work of subsequent generations.

Further Reading

Wagner is discussed in 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). The best sources on his life and work are in German - Josef A. Lux, Otto Wagner (1914) and an exhibition catalogue Otto Wagner: das Werk des Architeckten 1841-1918 (1964); many of his beautiful drawings and sketches are published in Die Kunst des Otto Wagner (1984).

Additional Sources

Geretsegger, Heinz, Otto Wagner 1841-1918: the expanding city, the beginning of modern architecture, New York: Rizzoli, 1979.

Architect Otto Wagner was a leading figure in the Vienna Secession. After studying architecture at the Technical High School in Vienna (1857-60) and the Vienna Academy (1861-3) for many years he worked in a range of historical styles until he joined the Secession. The latter had been founded in 1898 as a focus for opposition to the prevalent academicism of the fine arts establishment, which also believed in the superiority of painting and sculpture over the applied arts. Supporting the idea of the unity of the arts common to many avant-garde designers, architects, and artists at the turn of the century, Wagner's work took on a more functional appearance. This was particularly apparent in the Post Office Savings Bank building in Vienna (1904-6), the furniture for which was manufactured by Thonet and was characterized by a simplicity of form. His role as an influential figure in the development of modern architecture and design was consolidated in his 1896 book Moderne Architektur which stressed the need for function, practical construction, and new materials. His position as head of architecture at the Vienna Academy in 1894 was also important in this respect, having taught Josef Hoffmann and other young avant-garde figures. Both Hoffmann and Joseph Olbrich also worked in Wagner's architectural office in the mid-1890s.

Austrian architect of great distriction. Born in Penzing, near Vienna, he studied in that city and in Berlin (where he absorbed something of Schinkel's Classicism), and began practice in Vienna as a competent architect of many Historicist buildings, drawing heavily on the Renaissance and Baroque traditions (influenced by van der Null and Siccard von Siccardsburg). In 1890 he was appointed to prepare proposals for replanning the city: the only part to be realized was the Stadtbahn (City Railway—1894–1901), with its series of remarkable and beautiful buildings (stations, bridges, and other structures) in a restrained, economical style, tending to Neo-Classicism (but where even Ionic capitals are transformed into machine-like elements), and openly exploiting the possibilities of metal and glass in architecture. The elegant stations at Schönbrunn (Hofpavillon (Court Pavilion)) outside the city and in the Karlsplatz in the centre both displayed Baroque and fin-de-siècle Art Nouveau tendencies.

Among his finest creations in an Art Nouveau style are the Majolikahaus (faced with ceramic tiles), and adjacent apartment-block (with Art Nouveau stucco ornament), on the Linke Wienzeile, Vienna (1898–9), while the second Villa Wagner, 28 Hüttelbergstrasse, Vienna (1912–13), anticipated aspects of C20 Neo-Classicism and even Art Deco. As a practitioner and Professor of Architecture at the Academy, Wagner influenced the younger generation, including Hoffmann, Kotěra, Olbrich, and Plečnik, and in his influential Moderne Architektur (1896) he argued for forms, style, structures, and materials that would be suitable for the times. His stripped Classical Post Office Savings Bank, Vienna (1904–6), has a façade clad in stone fixed with metal bolts, the heads of which are exposed, and the interior of the banking-hall is treated without historical references in a fresh and confident manner, using metal and glass. His mastery of combining new technology and materials with traditional forms is best seen at the Church of St Leopold, Am Steinhof (1905–7), on a hill in the grounds of the Vienna State Mental Asylum: there, aspects of Jugendstil, Neo-Classicism, and Baroque combine in a masterly synthesized whole. Wagner's influence extended after his death to the successor-states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire through his many pupils and assistants.

Bibliography

• Asenbaum et al. (1984)
• B&G (1986)
• Geretsegger et al. (1983)
• Graf (1985)
• Lux (1914), 1997, 1999, 2000)
• Kliczkowski (ed.) (2002)
• Kolb (1989)
• Ostwald (1948)
• Ouvrard et al. (1986)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• Pintarić (1989)
• Sheaffer (1997)
• Jane Turner (1996)
• Sheaffer (1997)
• Jane Turner (1996)
• Trevisiol (1990)
• Wagner (1914,1987, 1988, 2002, 2002a)

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)

Otto Wagner
Personal information
Name	Otto Wagner
Nationality	Austria-Hungarian
Birth date	July 13, 1841(1841-07-13)
Birth place	Vienna, Austrian Empire
Date of death	April 11, 1918 (aged 76)
Place of death	Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Work
Significant buildings	Floodgate, Nußdorf, Vienna Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station Majolica house Postal Office Savings Bank Building Kirche am Steinhof Rumbach Synagogue
Significant projects	Viennese Wiener Stadtbahn

Otto Koloman Wagner (13 July 1841 – 11 April 1918) was an Austrian architect.

Wagner was born in Penzing, a district in Vienna. He studied in Berlin and Vienna. In 1864, he started designing his first buildings in the historicist style. In the mid- and late-1880s, like many of his contemporaries in Germany (such as Constantin Lipsius, Richard Streiter and Georg Heuser), Switzerland (Hans Auer and Alfred Friedrich Bluntschli) and France (Paul Sédille), Wagner became a proponent of Architectural Realism. It was a theoretical position that enabled him to mitigate the reliance on historical forms. In 1894, when he became Professor of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, he was well advanced on his path toward a more radical opposition to the prevailing currents of historicist architecture.

By the mid-1890s, he had already designed several Jugendstil buildings. Wagner was very interested in urban planning — in 1890 he designed a new city plan for Vienna, but only his urban rail network, the Stadtbahn, was built. In 1896 he published a textbook entitled Modern Architecture in which he expressed his ideas about the role of the architect; it was based on the text of his 1894 inaugural lecture to the Academy. His style incorporated the use of new materials and new forms to reflect the fact that society itself was changing. In his textbook, he stated that "new human tasks and views called for a change or reconstitution of existing forms". In pursuit of this ideal, he designed and built structures that reflected their intended function, such as the austere Neustiftgasse apartment block in Vienna.

In 1897, Otto Wagner, Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser founded the "Vienna Secession" artistic group. From the ideas of this group he developed a style that included quasi-symbolic references to the new forms of modernity.

Wagner died in Vienna in 1918.

Contents 1 Major works 2 Gallery 3 Publications 4 External links 5 References

Major works

Hungary

• Rumbach Street synagogue, Budapest (1872)

Austria

• Floodgate, Nußdorf, Vienna (1894)
• Viennese Wiener Stadtbahn, metropolitan railway system (1894-1902), e.g. Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station
• Majolica house, Vienna (1898-1899)
• Postal Office Savings Bank Building, Vienna (1894-1902)
• Kirche am Steinhof, Vienna (1903-1907)

Gallery

Rumbach Street synagogue in the Budapest	Wohnhaus in the Neustiftgasse, Vienna	Metro bridge, Wienzeile, Vienna	Österreichische Postsparkasse (Post Office Savings Bank)
Linke Wienzeile 38

Publications

• Wagner, Otto (1988). Modern Architecture: A Guidebook for His Students to This Field of Art. Trans. Harry F. Mallgrave. Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. ISBN 0226869385. 

External links

• Otto Wagner Museum in Vienna
• Great Buildings Online
• Images of several Wagner buildings
• Otto Wagner at WOKA (de/en)
• Majolica House in Vienna by Otto Wagner (with drawings and photos)
• AEIOU - Das österreichische Kulturinformationssystem

References

• Mallgrave (ed.), Harry (1993). Otto Wagner: Reflections on the Raiment of Modernity. Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. ISBN 089236257X. 
• Duncan Berry, J. (1993). "From Historicism to Architectural Realism: On Some of Wagner’s Sources". in Harry Mallgrave. Otto Wagner: Reflections on the Raiment of Modernity. Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. pp. 242–278. ISBN 089236257X. 
• Graf, Otto Antonia (1994) (in german). Otto Wagner: Das Werk des Architekten 1860-1918. Vienna: Bölhau. ISBN 320598224X. 
• Kolb, Günter (1989) (in german). Otto Wagner Und Die Wiener Stadtbahn. Munich: Scaneg. ISBN 3892350299. 
• Schorske, Carl (1981). "The Ringstrasse and the Birth of Urban Modernism". Fin-De-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0394744780. 
• Muller, Ines (1992) (in german). Die Otto Wagner-Synagoge in Budapest. Wien: Löcker. ISBN 9783854092001. 
• Geretsegger, Heinz (1979). Otto Wagner, 1841-1989; the Expanding City; The Beginning of Modern Architecture. New York: Rizzoli. ISBN 0847802175. 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Otto Wagner

External images
	Search for Otto Wagner in Europeana.eu

Persondata
NAME	Wagner, Otto Koloman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Austrian Art Nouveau architect. Main works: Floodgate, Nußdorf, Vienna, Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station, Majolica house, Postal Office Savings Bank Building, Kirche am Steinhof, Rumbach Synagogue
DATE OF BIRTH	July 13, 1841(1841-07-13)
PLACE OF BIRTH	Vienna, Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH	1918-4-11
PLACE OF DEATH	Vienna, Austria-Hungary

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)