Wiener Werkstätte

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Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, financially backed by the wealthy industrialist Fritz Wärndorfer, founded the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) in June 1903. Inspired by the outlook of William Morris, John Ruskin and C. R. Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft that had been founded in England in 1888, the Austrian roots of the Wiener Werkstätte lay in the late 19th-century Secessionist movement. Its ideals were promoted in the periodical Ver sacrum and the Secession Exhibitions (which in 1900 included work by C. R. Mackintosh and Ashbee that impressed through its simplicity of form). Vigorously opposed to the intrinsically conservative outlook of the art establishment the Secession also embraced the applied arts. Wiener Werkstätte products included metalwork, glass, ceramics, furniture, wallpaper, graphics, dress, and jewellery and, in the early years, were characterized by geometric motifs and abstract patterns. Typifying this was the distinctively rectilinear Werkstätte logotype thought to have been designed by Koloman Moser in 1903. Superficially, such qualities might be seen to parallel the standardized forms of contemporary German design in its search to find modern product types that were aesthetically compatible with 20th-century manufacturing technology. However, although the Werkstätte employed more than 100 workers by 1905, its largely handcrafted products were inevitably expensive and remained the preserve of a wealthy clientele, despite the original intentions of its founders who had sought to produce good, simple designs for the home. Other designers involved with the earlier years of the Werkstätte included Carl Czeschka, Otto Prütscher, Berthold Löffler, and Michael Powolny. By about 1915 there was a shift away from the rectilinear abstraction favoured by Moser and Hoffmann towards a more florid, curvilinear, and marketable style influenced by Dagobert Peche, who directed the Werkstätte from 1910 to 1923. After the First World War, perhaps reflecting the traditional percentages of women training and working in the applied arts, many women also designed for the Werkstätte. Typifying this trend was Vally Wieselthier, who designed textiles, glass, wallpaper and ceramics, winning gold and silver medals at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels. Although new retailing outlets were opened, including one on Fifth Avenue, New York, the Werkstätte were disbanded in 1932 in the difficult economic climate which followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Literally ‘Vienna Workshop’, founded in 1903 to emulate English Arts-and-Crafts workshops, such as the Guild of Handicrafts of C. R. Ashbee. It grew partly from the Sezession exhibition of 1900 that included designs by Mackintosh and Ashbee. By 1905 the Werkstätte was employing over 100 people, most of the artefacts being designed by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser (1868–1918). It became the centre for progressive design in Austria-Hungary, promoting a severe rectilinear style. It ceased operations in 1932.

Bibliography

• Fahr-Becker (1995)
• Ouvrard et al. (1986)
• Schweiger (1984)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
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