Created in 1903, the Wiener Wekstätte was a workshop of production of furnishing resulting from the Sezessionsstil (Secession Viennese). This workshop brought together architects, artists and designers whose engagement first consisted in putting esthetics at the range of each one, by reconciling the major craft industry and arts. The work most representative of Wiener Werkstätte will be the Palais Stoclet, with Brussels.

Context

Whereas the power of the Austro-Hungarian empire declines and that the First World War war is profiled with far, a modernistic breath without precedent invades Europe. In England, the current Arts and Crafts makes followers. The Art nouveau makes its appearance, while being distinguished however in Austria with the Sécession Viennese (1897). This movement affirms, indeed, its difference through an esthetics resting on a geometrical ideal, and not on the natural curve and forms. It is in this spirit that Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser founds Wiener Werkstätte.

WW

Josef Hoffmann and its associates aim to associate the applied arts and the fine arts in an esthetic design total, accessible by all. Structure, movable, textile, ceramic, jewelry, goldsmithery, cabinet work, pottery, Art schools… All is carried out by the craftsmen of the workshop.

Easily recognizable by its logo to both “W”, the workshop markets its productions in a collective way, by including the signature of each associated member. In addition to Hoffmann, Moser and Carl Otto Czesshka, the WW counted inter alia Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Richard Luksch, Franz Metzner, Emily Floege, max Lenz, Wilhelm List, Emil Orlik, Dagobert Peche, Eduard Wimmer Wisgrill, Leopold Bauer, Oskar Kokoschka, Vally Wieselthier, Otto Prutscher, Emanuel Margold, Hans Ofner, Michael Powolny and Carl Moll.

The Stoclet palate

The Palate Stoclet mark the apogee of Wiener Werkstätte. By offering an unlimited budget to him, Adolphe Stoclet, a Belgian banking rich person with the tastes avant-gardists, makes it possible Hoffmann to go until the end of its ideas. The Stoclet palate will be thus a “total work”. Buttons of doors to the toys of the children, the least detail will be thought as a whole by Hoffmann and will be carried out by the WW. The construction of the Stoclet palate is also the occasion to reinflate the cases of the workshop whose economic health wavers.

The legacy

If the WW will be the first modern “mark” of decoration, it goes bankrupt however in 1932. It misses especially its preliminary draft: to create esthetic objects for all. The production of those are so expensive that they could be addressed only to one easy customers. The furniture and the objects of furnishing remain recognizable; the majority are still republished today. The typography, the fashion and graphic arts remain one of the most inventive aspects of their activity.

Works

• the Stoclet Palate in Brussels (in English)
• the sanatorium of Purkersdorf (in English)

Sources

• the broken dream of the workshop Viennese/Daniele Gillemon/the Evening (2/16/2006)
• Wiener Werkstätte: the Workshops Viennese 1903-1932, BRANSTÄTTER Christian, ED. Hazan, 400 p.
• Wiener Werkstaette