In this class we consider the eclecticism of the Ringstrasse and the modern efforts of Otto Wagner, J.M. Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, and Adolf Loos.

1. Vienna Modern
ARCH 417
CLASS 05

2. World map, political

3. World map, topographical

5. political map of Europe in 1750

6. political map of Europe in 1850

7. Johann Strauss
Kaiser-walzer (The Emperor Waltz)
1889
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBLaMmxyibE&list=RDEBLaM
mxyibE#t=33 [START at 2:30]
The waltz was composed for a ceremonial visit by Austrian
emperor Franz Josef to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in
1889.

11. Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria, 1400-room residence of the Habsburgs from the 18th
until 1918

12. interior, ballroom

13. interior, bedchamber of Emperor Franz Josef

14. interior, bedchamber of Empress Elisabeth

15. Empress Elisabeth's bedchamber with her exercise equipment in the right foreground

16. map of early Vienna showing the fortifications ringing the city

17. map of Vienna showing
the conversion of the city
walls into a ring of parks
and municipal buildings

18. Ringstrasse
December 1857 Emperor Franz Josef decrees the removal
of old fortifications ringing the city of Vienna.
Jan 1858 competition is announced to create a broad new
street where the ramparts were.
Ludwig Förster's plan went further, envisioning the planting of
trees and creation of parks and squares.
Buildings surrounding the Ringstrasse are in every possible
historicist style.

19. Rathaus, on the
Ringstrasse

20. Votivkirche, on the Ringstrasse

21. Parliament Building, on the Ringstrasse

22. elaborate sculptural decoration in front of the Parliament Building

23. Vienna State Opera House, a grab-bag of styles including French Renaissance, Go
Florentine and Venetian

24. Opera House
Defense of eclecticism:
"Ours does not appear to be an age given to the creation of
new styles in architecture. The more attempts are made to
invent a new style of building, the clearer it is that the
vocation for such creative activity is lacking. On the other
hand, the more imaginatively, the more ingeniously one
endeavors to unit given styles, the basic elements of already
existing types of architecture, with the advances of modern
technology, the more successful are the results."
—Rudolf von
Eitelberger

25. changing attitudes
toward the Ringstrasse
• first generation regarded it with pride
• later it was seen as an abomination
• one critic described it as a time that "understood by
architecture nothing more than an accumulation of orders,
profiles and ornaments from two millennia, from which
each individual selected what we thought best." (1914)
• "Contemporary art must express the ability, the mode of
existence, of modern man, by means of forms created by
us." (Otto Wagner, 1911)

26. "If you walk across the Ring, you have the impression of
being in the midst of a carnival. Everything masked,
everything disguised...Life has become too serious for that
sort of thing. We want to look life in the face. This is what we
mean when we talk of 'realist architecture,' that is, that the
building must not only serve its intended purpose but must
also express, not conceal, that purpose...To disguise it
behind borrowed forms is both silly and ugly."
—Hermann Bahr

27. "Earlier, people used to require that a building should 'look
like something'; we demand that it should 'be something.'
We, the working people of today, should be ashamed to live
in the style of the princes and patricians of yesterday. That
we think of as a swindle. From the appearance of a house,
we should be able to judge what is its purpose, who lives in it
and how. We are not of the age of the Baroque, we don't live
in the Renaissance, why should we act as if we did? Life has
changed, costume has changed, our thoughts and feelings,
our whole manner of living has changed, architecture must
change too...These demands have now become audible, and
will no longer be stifled."
—Hermann Bahr

28. Otto WAGNER (1841-1918)
• antithesis of historicist attitude present on Ringstrasse
• "father" of modern Viennese architecture
• educator of an entire generation

29. Wagner, Post Office
Savings Bank
1904-1912
Wagner designed the building, all the details, and the
furniture
an example of the "Gesamtkunstwerk": total work of art,
creation of a complete designed environment

33. radiator design

36. Wiener Sezession
(Vienna Secession)
Founded 1897.
Artists, designers and architects included Gustav Klimt,
Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max
Kurzweil, Wilhelm Bernatzik and many others. (See
monogram designs on following slide.)
Otto Wagner was NOT a member though he is often
associated with the group as he taught all of them.

37. monograms of the
founding members of
the Vienna Secession

38. magazine
promoting the
new art and architecture
published 1898-1903
title is Latin for "sacred spring"

39. Joseph Maria OLBRICH
(1867-1908)

40. J.M. Olbrich, Secession Building, 1898

41. detail of decoration
exterior, Secession Building

42. motto on the Secession
Building
"Der Zeit ihre Kunst. Der
Kunst ihre Freiheit."
"To every age its art. To every
art its freedom."

43. Joseph HOFFMANN
(1870-1956)

44. Josef HOFFMANN, Palais Stoclet, 1905-1911, Brussels, Belgium

45. Palais Stoclet, garden facade

46. Palais Stoclet
exterior sculpture

50. Adolf Loos (1870—1933)
• born in Austro-
Hungarian Empire
• his father was German
and a stonemason
• studied locally and then
in Dresden
• traveled in US 1893-6
(attended World's
Columbian Exposition)
• returned to Vienna to
practice architecture

51. Villa Steiner (1910)

54. "Looshaus" (1910)
Goldman &
Salatsch Building
on Michaelerplatz.
central Vienna