Everything about Josef Hoffmann totally explained
Josef Hoffmann (
December 15,
1870 Brtnice,
Moravia –
May 7,
1956 Vienna,
Austria) was an
Austrian
architect and
designer of consumer goods.
Biography
Hoffmann studied at the Higher State Crafts School in
Brno beginning in 1887 and then worked with the local military planning authority in
Würzburg. Thereafter he studied at the
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with
Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer and
Otto Wagner, graduating with a
Prix de Rome in 1895. In Wagner's office, he met
Joseph Maria Olbrich, and together they founded the
Vienna Secession in 1897 along with artists
Gustav Klimt, and
Koloman Moser. Beginning in 1899, he taught at the
University of Applied Arts Vienna. With the Secession, Hoffmann developed strong connections with other artists. He designed installation spaces for Secession exhibitions and a house for Moser which was built from 1901-1903. However, he soon left the Secession in 1905 along with other stylist artists due to conflicts with realist naturalists over differences in artistic vision and disagreement over the premise of
Gesamtkunstwerk. With the banker Fritz Wärndorfer and the artist Koloman Moser he established the
Wiener Werkstätte, which was to last until 1932. He designed many products for the Wiener Werkstätte of which designer chairs, a lamp, and sets of glasses have reached the collection of the
Museum of Modern Art, and a tea service has reached the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Hoffmann's style eventually became more sober and abstract and it was limited increasingly to functional structures and domestic products. In 1906, Hoffmann built his first great work, the
Sanatorium in
Purkersdorf. Compared to the Moser House, with its rusticated vernacular roof, this was a great advancement towards abstraction and a move away from traditional
Arts and Crafts and historicism. This project served as a major precedent and inspiration for the
modern architecture that would develop in the first half of the 20th century, for instance the early work of
Le Corbusier. It had a clarity, simplicity, and logic that foretold of a
Neue Sachlichkeit.
Through contacts with Adolphe Stoclet, who sat on the supervisory board of the
Austro-Belgischen Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, he was commissioned to build the
Palais Stoclet in Brussels from 1905 to 1911 for this wealthy banker and railway financier. This masterpiece of
Jugendstil, was an example of
Gesamtkunstwerk, replete with murals in the dining room by Klimt and four copper figures on the tower by
Franz Metzner. In 1907, Hoffmann was co-founder of the
Deutscher Werkbund, and in 1912 of the
Österreichischer Werkbund. After World War II, he took on official tasks, that of an Austrian general commissioner with the
Venice Biennale and a membership in the art senate.
Selected works
- House for Koloman Moser
- House for the writer Beer-Hoffmann in Vienna
- Sanatorium Purkersdorf
- Villa Primavesi
- Palais Stoclet
- Designer for Villenkolonie Hohe Warte and Werkbundsiedlung Wien in Vienna
- Austrian pavilion at the Venice Biennale
Further Information
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