This presentation’s thematic core is the multifarious struggle to arrive at an Austrian, modern, bourgeois, and democratic
style. Today, this chapter of design and arts and crafts history—subsumed under the terms of Secessionism and Jugendstil—serves
like no other to underpin Austrian identity.
VIENNA 1900. Design / Arts and Crafts 1890–1938 adheres to a largely chronological structure: the first room is dedicated to the search for a modern style; the second room
features a close look at the Viennese style; and the third room points the way to the International Style. Around 500 collection
objects are shown in various thematic combinations that serve to shed light on art-historical and sociopolitical aspects relevant
to Viennese modernism.
In Search of a Modern Style The search for a modern Austrian style during the years between 1890 and 1900 went hand in hand with the emancipation from
Historicism. The objects exhibited in this gallery are largely contemporary acquisitions of products from abroad, especially
from the United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, and Germany, where successful steps toward reform had already been taken. Also
included are examples of Japanese applied art, which were likewise viewed as being exemplary. These acquisitions were meant
to help disseminate the stylistic line that the museum considered to be worth emulating, especially at the institutions of
industrial arts training that had been established throughout the monarchy. The impact of this model function can be seen
in individual works by students at these trade schools. The idea of the unity of the arts, borrowed from England and propagated
by the Secession’s founding members, accorded art-status to creatively designed everyday objects; its influence is present
here in works by figures including Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and Joseph Maria Olbrich. As early as 1899, Otto Wagner made his demand for a functionalist style, pointing the way ahead for the development of Viennese
Modernism. This is exemplified here by the first piece of “modern” Viennese furniture, a crockery cabinet he designed
for his own home in 1899. Wagner also stands for the path to Modernism on which Vienna was shortly to embark. Although at
first still largely defined by the curvilinear forms adopted from Belgium and France, which represented a conscious reference
to the era of Ludwig XV, the period beginning in 1900 saw Vienna recall its own national roots to arrive at geometrically
abstracted forms via the local Biedermeier tradition, which at the time was erroneously identified as the first “bourgeois”
style. Moser’s buffet The Rich Haul from 1900 marks this change of direction with regard to design. Finally, Adolf Loos’
alternative road to Modernism, opposing the Secession’s idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), is shown by a
corner seating ensemble from the study of Gustav and Marie Turnowsky’s apartment.
The Viennese Style Loos’ cultural modernism stood in stark contrast to the formal and stylistic Modernism of the Secession, and along with
it, the School of Arts and Crafts and the Wiener Werkstätte, to whom this space is devoted. For Loos, Modernism was a question
of one’s attitude and did not depend on the development of a modern style specified by artists. For him, the idea of
bringing together art and functionality in a utilitarian object was a cultureless act. Otto Wagner was the only individual
whom Loos considered capable of the artistic realization of functionality, since Wagner did not place artistic expression
before traditional craftsmanship. Loos was reacting to the Secessionists’ conviction, adopted by the English Arts and
Crafts movement, according to which beauty—conveyed via artistic design—could improve people’s everyday lives.
The objects exhibited in this space are the result of the Secessionists’ intense efforts from 1897 onward to create a
distinct Austrian style—which, in truth, is a Viennese style. It is based on Moser’s Japanese-influenced art of
surface decoration, the classicist inheritance from the Biedermeier era, and domestic folk art. This new style, first presented
to the public at the 8th exhibition of the Secession in 1900, was disseminated artistically through Hoffmann’s and Moser’s
teaching activities at the School of Arts and Crafts and its implementation by their students. The time period covered in
this room begins with this striking stylistic break and ends with World War I. Nearly all of the exhibited objects are of
artisanal origin and came into being via the patronage of a wealthy, largely Jewish haute bourgeois, from which the Wiener
Werkstätte recruited its customers. During this phase, which lasted somewhat longer than ten years, Viennese applied arts
underwent a volatile process of aesthetic development. This ranged from the early, provocatively geometric and abstract forms
of the Wiener Werkstätte to the design language dominated by classicist elements and a sophisticated culture of vegetal ornamentation
that arose beginning in 1906/07, and on to the rococo-influenced, distinctively architectonic creations of Dagobert Peche.
With the initial battle against Historicism having been won, it was Peche who rose up to challenge the original credo of the
Secession’s founding generation concerning the unity of the arts, propagating the emancipation from utility. His creations
are mainly about artistic expression, with their functionality being a secondary concern. In this respect, they actually come
close to doing justice to Loos’s strict demand that art and functionality be kept separate. The period beginning in 1910
saw Peche joined by a new generation of architects (Josef Frank, Oskar Wlach, and Oskar Strnad), like him educated at the
Technische Hochschule [Technical College] in Vienna (today’s University of Technology), who stepped up to deal with the
changes in society’s requirements that had become evident since 1900, and whose stance toward the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk
[total work of art], was nothing if not critical.
From Viennese Style to International Style This third and final section differs from the two previous ones in that the objects shown are both later-dated and far more
heterogeneous. This simultaneously serves to address a phenomenon that, unlike today, was new in interwar Austria: heterogeneity
of taste can arise once there exists widespread acceptance of a democratic attitude that encourages individual needs, and
this situation entails that the market must cater to a mixed clientele. As such, the enormous social changes in the wake of
World War I represented a new challenge for Modernism. New forms of representation emerged, while specific approaches to solutions
were offered for social classes that, up to then, had scarcely been noticed by the creative world. These solutions took advantage
of the opportunities presented by standardized industrial production, giving rise to a product category that would have to
wait until the 1990s to be considered worthy of inclusion in the collection of a museum of applied arts. Here, the MAK Collection
reflects a situation that corresponds to the reality of Austrian product culture in the interwar years. The period since the founding of the Secession and the antagonistic reaction of Loos and his followers had witnessed the emergence
of a new generation of designers who challenged the old forms of representation and championed the design ideals of international
Modernism. At the same time, Austria remained dominated by the Arts and Crafts tradition of production exclusively by hand
that had been so enthusiastically adopted by the Secessionists—this was in contrast to Germany, which had begun the 20th
century with a positive aesthetic stance toward the opportunities presented by industrial production and had already faced
up to the social realities of the market. An example illustrating this special Austrian situation would be the elaborately
crafted objects acquired for the exhibition Das befreite Handwerk [Liberated Craftsmanship] held in 1934 by the then-Museum of Art and Industry. Even so, the unity of the arts as propagated
by the Secessionists, who accorded the status of artworks to utilitarian objects, had become obsolete. The associated sense
for quality, however, in combination with Loos’ culturally critical ideas, bore fruit by pointing towards a specifically
Viennese solution on the path from a Viennese style to an international style. This was lent striking expression by Josef
Frank’s critical remark, “Tubular steel is not a material; it is a worldview.” But the National Socialists’
1938 seizure of power in Austria and the period of totalitarian rule that ensued meant the suppression of individuality—and
hence, for a time, the end of an independent Viennese design language.
Christian Witt-Dörring
Reinstallation of the MAK Permanent Collection Vienna 1900. Design / Arts and Crafts 1890-1938, since 18.9.2013
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VIENNA 1900. Design / Arts and Crafts 1890–1938 Edited by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, with contributions by Rainald Franz, Sebastian Hackenschmidt, Barbara Karl, Peter Klinger,
Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel, Elisabeth Schmuttermeier, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Johannes Wieninger, and Christian Witt-Dörring,
German/English, 224 pages and appr. 100 color illustrations (Vienna / Munich: MAK Vienna / Prestel Verlag, 2013). Available at the MAK Design Shop for € 9.90.
Curator / Design
The new presentation’s content (since 18.9.2013) was developed by Christian Witt-Dörring together with the museums’ collection curators, and the Viennese designer Michael Embacher was responsible for the individual rooms’ design.
Guided tours
Tour of the MAK and the Permanent Collection Vienna 1900 Sun 4 p.m.
Special guided tours by advance booking: Gabriele Fabiankowitsch, T +43 1 711 36-298,
Related
MAK Collection
Glass Collection
Curator: Rainald Franz
With unique holdings from between the Middle Ages and the present, the MAK’s Glass Collection is among the world’s
most important collections of its kind. The optically and technically impressive products made from fragile materials bring
to life the hand of the artist and the zeitgeist of the epoch.
The MAK is home to an extensive collection of furniture and woodwork, in light of which the artistic and stylistic tendencies
of furniture history—with a focus on Austria and Vienna—can be understood along with the cultural-historical and
political developments of the past nearly 150 years. The collection encompasses over 4,600 objects ranging from small carvings
and ornamental boxes to massive cabinets and whole room interiors.
The holdings of the Metal Collection comprises objects from Europe and North America, dating from the fourteenth century to
the present. From the very beginning, there existed a policy of acquiring contemporary works for the collection as well as
historical objects. The collection covers diverse areas of the applied arts including small-scale sculpture, cutlery, clocks,
jewellery, goldsmith’s art, lamps, astronomy devices and electro-plated reproductions.
With representative holdings of ceramics from Austrian production from the sixteenth century until today, unique groups of
objects such as the legacy of the Wiener Porzellanmanufactur (Vienna Porcelain Manufactory) and the extensive collection of
tiled stoves, hafner ware, and majolica of the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The MAK’s Ceramics Collection is
one of the foremost collections of its type in the world.
