Mid-Century Modern – Visionary Furniture Design from Vienna 9783035624205, 9783035624090

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
I. A History of Viennese Furniture Design from Its Beginnings to 1960
1 Furniture design—a look back: from draftsman to designer
2 Biedermeier—furniture artistry from Vienna
3 Bentwood furniture: Gebrüder Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn
4 Vienna 1900
5 From Bauhaus to International Style
6 Visionary Vienna—letting loose of Loos
7 Glamorous Art Deco and Viennese furniture in Paris
8 A fissure in time—1938 and the consequences for Viennese furniture design
9 The banished visionaries—from Vienna to the US
10 Furniture design of 1950s Vienna
11 Scandinavian furniture and Viennese furniture design in Sweden: Josef Frank
12 Bel Design from Italy
13 Industrially produced furniture in English exile
14 From Vienna to Palestine—furniture design for the newly created State of Israel
15 The intellectual message from Vienna
II. Furniture Designers— Biographies
Oskar Strnad
Ella Briggs
Oskar Wlach
Ernst Lichtblau
Josef Frank
Paul Theodore Frankl
Walter Sobotka
Frederick Kiesler
Paul Engelmann
Richard Neutra
Ernst Freud
Liane Zimbler
Jacques Groag
Felice Rix-Ueno
Felix Augenfeld
Ernst Schwadron
Franz Singer
Friedl Dicker
Bruno Pollak
Jacqueline Groag
Walter Loos
Anna Szabo
Dora Gad
Martin Eisler
Forgotten names
III. Interviews with Experts, Collectors, and Designers
Friedl Dicker & Franz Singer—Georg Schrom on the visionary joint studio
Five generations of design from Vienna—Maria Auböck on the Carl Auböck workshop
IV. Glimpses into Apartments, Houses, and Cafés
A house and garden for the soul—the Krasny house today
The house of a hundred steps—Villa Beer
Designer living room in a museum: Salonplafond
A journey in time back to the 1950s: Café Prückel
When time stands still: original furniture design from the 1950s
The Guesthouse Vienna—a brasserie with Viennese furniture design
A bohemian life above the rooftops of Vienna
Mid-Century Modern furniture design in an elegant palace
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Publishing Information

Citation preview

Mid-Century Modern Visionary Furniture Design from Vienna

Caroline Wohlgemuth

Mid-Century Modern Visionary Furniture Design from Vienna

Birkhäuser Basel

For Leopold, Konrad, and Claire This book is dedicated to all those exiled who could not be written about here.

I

A History of Viennese Furniture Design from Its Beginnings to 1960

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1

Furniture design—a look back: from draftsman to designer From handicraft to industrially manufactured furniture b The Arts and Crafts Movement and its influence on Vienna

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Biedermeier—furniture artistry from Vienna

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Bentwood furniture: Gebrüder Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn Michael Thonet—the success of modern industrial design for furniture b World famous: Thonet’s No. 14 chair c Jacob & Josef Kohn—creativity and innovation

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Vienna 1900 a Viennese Modernism—the phenomenon of the fin de siècle b Architects and artists as furniture designers c Wiener Werkstätte d Antagonist and critic of Jugendstil: Adolf Loos e Early product design from Vienna

25 25 27 28 30 32

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From Bauhaus to International Style The Bauhaus in Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin b Modern tubular steel furniture c Viennese architects and designers in Germany d Banished visions—from the Bauhaus to the US

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35 38 41

Visionary Vienna—letting loose of Loos a New Viennese furniture of the 1920s and ’30s b A new image of women: female architects as designers c Haus & Garten—rooms and furniture for the soul d Bauhaus in the middle of Vienna—the Singer & Dicker joint studio e The Wiener Werkbundsiedlung—the culmination of modern furniture design f The bentwood industry in the 1920s and ’30s

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Glamorous Art Deco and Viennese furniture in Paris

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A fissure in time—1938 and the consequences for Viennese furniture design

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43 50 70 79 88

The banished visionaries—from Vienna to the US The emigration of Modernism b The early emigrants c Driven from Vienna—a forced new beginning in exile d Organic Style—the furniture forms of the 1950s

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10 Furniture design of 1950s Vienna

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Scandinavian furniture and Viennese furniture design in Sweden: Josef Frank

98 98 107 111

12 Bel Design from Italy

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13 Industrially produced furniture in English exile

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14 From Vienna to Palestine—furniture design for the newly created State of Israel

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15 The intellectual message from Vienna

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Contents

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II

Furniture Designers— Biographies

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Oskar Strnad Ella Briggs Oskar Wlach Ernst Lichtblau Josef Frank Paul Theodore Frankl Walter Sobotka Frederick Kiesler Paul Engelmann Richard Neutra Ernst Freud Liane Zimbler Jacques Groag Felice Rix-Ueno Felix Augenfeld Ernst Schwadron Franz Singer Friedl Dicker Bruno Pollak Jacqueline Groag Walter Loos Anna Szabo Dora Gad Martin Eisler Forgotten names

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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

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148 150 152 156 164 166 168 170 172 178 180 184 188 190 194 198 202 206 210 214 216 218 220 224

III

Interviews

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with Experts, Collectors, and Designers

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Friedl Dicker & Franz Singer—Georg Schrom on the visionary joint studio

232 240



Five generations of design from Vienna—Maria Auböck on the Carl Auböck workshop

IV

Glimpses into Apartments, Houses, and Cafés

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A house and garden for the soul—the Krasny house today The house of a hundred steps—Villa Beer Designer living room in a museum: Salonplafond A journey in time back to the 1950s: Café Prückel When time stands still: original furniture design from the 1950s The Guesthouse Vienna—a brasserie with Viennese furniture design A bohemian life above the rooftops of Vienna Mid-Century Modern furniture design in an elegant palace



Bibliography Illustration Credits About the Author Acknowledgments Publishing Information

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2 3 4 5 6 7

Contents

250 260 264 268 272 276 280 284 290 294

294 295 296

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Introduction

It was one of the world’s most creative metropolises and the city of modern design: Vienna 1900. Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos, the trailblazers of Viennese Modernism, are still renowned all over the world. The world’s first so-called designer chair, the No. 14 chair by Gebrüder Thonet, was created in Vienna as well, with over 80 million sold around the globe. Michael Thonet, the inventor of bentwood furniture, is regarded as a pioneer of industrial furniture production and modern furniture design. But scarcely anyone today knows Franz Singer, Ernst Schwadron, Bruno Pollak, Friedl Dicker, or Liane Zimbler—all furniture designers from 1920s and ’30s Vienna. It was the age of Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, Friedrich Torberg, Franz Werfel, and Joseph Roth, whose works were read all over the world; Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg made music history, and Max Reinhardt’s theater productions were internationally acclaimed. The ideas of the thinkers of the Vienna Circle had a decisive influence on the philosophy of the twentieth century. Despite the catastrophic economic and political situation in Austria, the period between the two world wars saw a golden age in art and culture, in music and literature, and in the sciences and the humanities. In this time, Vienna again became an inspiring and visionary cultural metropolis—including in the areas of architecture and furniture design. In addition to Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos, the younger generation of architects, such as Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank, as well as their students—who for the first time also included women—were active as furniture designers. Instead of luxurious, stately villas or apartment buildings, simple residential structures were built and countless apartments renovated. Many architects, aside from their work on social housing projects, became active primarily as furniture designers and interior architects, which led to a flourishing in furniture design. Unlike in turn-of-the-century Vienna, these furniture designers were first and foremost concerned with creating high-quality, elegant, and affordable furniture and thus making the lives of the occupants better and more comfortable. This new age demanded a new furniture design: with their colorful and lightweight furniture, these designers followed an unconventional, typically Viennese path. Particularly in political unstable times, they endeavored to create spaces and furnishings that helped people feel comfortable and find more peace, serenity, and happiness. In Vienna, just as in other major European cities, the end of World War I saw the emergence of a completely new image of women: young, independent women, the first to be admitted to universities and academies, made a name for themselves as furniture designers. Austria’s first female architects, such as Ella Briggs, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, and Liane Zimbler, realized their ideas and formal principles with well-conceived, multifunctional furniture and flexible furnishings, and in their work advocated tirelessly for equal rights for women in society.

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The history of Viennese furniture design, however, is also the story of the flight, the emigration, and the exile of Austria’s intellectual and creative elite. The majority of the modern, visionary female furniture designers in Vienna, as well as Austria’s first female architecture students—like Lisl Scheu Close, Ella Briggs, Liane Zimbler, Anna Szabo, and Dora Gad—came from Jewish families. Countless designers, architects, and artists suffered tragic fates during the Nazi regime and were deported and murdered, including the furniture designer, interior architect, and painter Friedl Dicker, who died at the age of forty-six at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Some were able to flee Vienna in time to escape from the Nazis and establish themselves in Sweden, Brazil, or the US, continuing their careers as designers or teaching at renowned universities. The Viennese architect and designer Ernst Lichtblau fled from Vienna to the US in 1939 and taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, influencing an entire generation of young designers there. The architect and furniture and fabric designer Josef Frank emigrated to Stockholm as early as the end of 1933 and beginning in 1942 taught at the famous New School for Social Research in New York. His exuberantly-hued and imaginative furniture and fabrics from Vienna became known all over the world in the 1930s. Walter Sobotka, another architect and furniture designer from Vienna, fled to New York in 1938 and worked as a designer for Thonet Brothers New York; in 1942, he began teaching interior architecture at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Liane Zimbler, as well, fled to the US in 1938 to escape the Nazis. Ella Briggs, Lisl Scheu Close, and Dora Gad left Vienna already in the mid-1930s and had astounding careers as architects and furniture designers in Great Britain, the US, and Palestine, respectively. By 1938, Vienna had within only a few years lost its best and most creative minds— a fissure in time and an irretrievable loss that ripped through all the arts and sciences, and one that can still be felt today. In addition to all the human tragedies, 1938 spelled an abrupt end to the golden age of Viennese furniture design. As early as the mid-1930s, many architects and furniture designers had left the city in the face of the dire political situation in Germany and Austria and the increasingly unbearable antisemitism there, emigrating to America, Great Britain, or Palestine. After March 1938, it was no longer a matter of emigration but of flight and forced exile—for those affected, leaving the country was possible only under very difficult circumstances. With the banishment of countless intellectuals, scientists, artists, musicians, and their families, the city of Vienna lost its soul in 1938. When one looks at the biographies of the furniture designers who were forced to flee from the Nazis, a wide variety of different fates and life stories becomes apparent. But what they all have in common is that they were uprooted and banished from Vienna, the city where they were born, or where they studied, spent many years, and gained their first professional experience. These are fates that left behind painful scars on the affected families that can still be felt today. Figures like Josef Frank, Ernst Schwadron, and Liane Zimbler had close ties with friends and fellow émigrés from Vienna for their entire lives, and despite their success wrote in their memoirs of how deeply wounded and saddened they were about all that had transpired—but also about their constant homesickness for Vienna. The worldfamous historian and art historian Ernst H. Gombrich said of his native Vienna: “Vienna is my native city, of course, and German my mother tongue. I feel very comfortable with both of them. But when I think for a moment, I would find it ludicrous to say that Vienna is my homeland. I scarcely know anyone there. Who would I call there? I still have maybe two or three acquaintances in Vienna, no more. So while I come from Vienna, it is no longer my home.”01

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With very few exceptions, the exiled furniture designers, the survivors of the Shoah, did not return to Vienna after World War II. Virtually no effort was made by the City of Vienna to invite them back. There was an erroneous impression that these people were very well off in their exile. The returnees were not made to feel welcome in Austria, and Vienna did not attempt to bring the lost families back. In their exile in Stockholm, London, New York, Los Angeles, or Buenos Aires, the furniture designers for the most part were able to draw on the ideas, experience, formal principles, and skills they had acquired in Vienna and thus build a new life. Through their tireless teaching activities at the world’s top universities, they also trained the next generation in furniture design. Richard Neutra, Frederick Kiesler—the early emigrants—and Josef Frank were far ahead of their time. Their visionary furniture creations inspired star designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, Arne Jacobsen, and Gio Ponti. Josef Frank’s unique furniture, fabrics, and lamps, Frederick Kiesler’s Multi-Use Chair, Richard Neutra’s Boomerang Chair, and Martin Eisler’s Reversível Chair are today twentieth-century design icons and the quintessence of Mid-Century Modern furniture design.02 Originals from the 1940s to the 1960s have become coveted collector’s items, fetching record prices at design auctions. A number of their creations have been continuously produced or reproduced by international design companies. With their inexhaustible creativity, the furniture designers from Vienna continued working in exile, disseminating their ideas throughout the entire world.

01 https://gombricharchive.files.word press.com/2011/04/showdoc73.pdf (accessed Sept. 20, 2021). 02 This term was coined by the American journalist and author Cara Greenberg. She used it for the first time as the title of her book Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s, and today it refers to modern furniture design from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Introduction

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“In every minute of our world, millions and billions of thoughts are thought. But all these millions and billions of thoughts expire and vanish in the space of this minute, and already the next one no longer knows anything about them. But among these millions and billions of fleeting, ephemeral, fruitless, and worthless thoughts, one is sometimes born in this time that is special; one that does not vanish but continues to resonate, stimulating and embracing and sweeping up other thoughts with it—an invention, a discovery, an insight; an active and fertile thought that changes our time, our world. Such thoughts are immeasurable, rare; only few are thought in each decade. But upon them rests the change of our intellectual, our moral, our real world.”  —Stefan Zweig, On Sigmund Freud, on the occasion of Freud’s 80th birthday.01

01 Stefan Zweig, Über Sigmund Freud. Porträt, Briefwechsel, Gedenkworte (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1989).

A HISTORY of Viennese Furniture Design

from Its Beginnings to 1960

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a



Furniture design—a look back: from draftsman to designer

FROM HANDICRAFT TO INDUSTRIALLY MANUFACTURED FURNITURE

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, which started in England near the end of the eighteenth century and thus earlier than in the other European countries, the history of furniture design begins as well. It runs parallel to developments in modern technology, in social and economic conditions, and in modern architecture. Furniture reflects the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.02 In Europe, France assumed a pioneering role in furniture design and production. Numerous workshops were founded in the seventeenth century under Louis XIV that specialized in the manufacture of furniture, tapestries, and fabric, and French furniture shaped popular taste in interior décor throughout the European continent until well into the eighteenth century. The larger workshops had their own design departments, while the furniture itself was manufactured in the traditional manner by cabinetmakers or other specialized craftsmen. Sample books were printed and often published in large numbers. This made it possible on the one hand to establish uniform production standards and increase productivity, and on the other to better sell the products. At the same time, these sample books served as advertising material—they were the first sales catalogs. Although the work was still done by hand, specialization, standardization, and division of labor implemented in the large workshops already helped achieve an enormous increase in productivity.03 The invention of the steam engine by James Watts in 1765 heralded the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which radically changed the life of people in England at the end of the eighteenth century and in the rest of Europe in the nineteenth. The steam engine was used to produce energy, with iron and steel production as well as the machine industry gaining in importance as a consequence. The result was industrial mass production, a completely new transport system, and an explosion of the cities. The new means of transport and liberal trade agreements led to a flourishing of international commerce.04 02 Karl Mang, Geschichte des Conception and planning—design—was now separated from producmodernen Möbels (Stuttgart: Verlag tion, which replaced the expensive and time-consuming labor of a craftsperGerd Hatje, 1978), 8. son with cheap machine work. Automated looms and large woodworking 03 Thomas Hauffe, Geschichte des operations brought about decisive changes in people’s living and working Designs (Cologne: DuMont, 2014), 12, 21ff., 38. conditions. The newly created working class who toiled in the factories, of04 Philipp Blom, The Vertigo Years: ten women and children, labored under adverse conditions for low wages, change and culture in the west, resulting in bitter poverty and catastrophic living conditions.05 1900–1914, (London: Phoenix, 2009), 6ff. But demand for factory-produced goods rapidly increased. The facto05 Charlotte Fiell and Peter Fiell, ries turned out largely cheap, poor-quality furniture and domestic products Design of the 20th Century (Cofor the mass market. While technical advances had resulted in new prologne: Taschen, 1999), 6. duction methods and novel appliances and objects, the industrial sector placed no value on the form or aesthetics of the factory-made products, nor on their quality. Industry drew on past historical styles: in the industrial

Furniture design—a look back: from draftsman to designer

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1873 International Ex-

position in Vienna: Thonet furniture: © Wien Museum/Wiener Photographen-Association bottom Sussex chair, wooden chair with freshwater-cane mesh seat; design: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ca. 1865; execution: Morris & Company, London, after 1865, © MAK

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production of furniture, as well, Renaissance and Baroque elements were combined, and cheap, mass-produced furniture was decorated with Gothic Revival or Baroque Revival ornaments. The newly prosperous bourgeoisie loved a representative style; furniture and art objects were to demonstrate wealth and education. The apartments and houses of the upper middle class were typically cluttered, furnished with dark, heavy, and over-proportioned furniture in a jumble of styles. The economic success of these individuals was also to be reflected in the wealth of décor, embellishments, and ornamentation. It was the age of historicism, a style that was very popular in furniture design in Vienna as well.06 Beginning with the Industrial Revolution in England, design was generally taken to mean industrial design, meaning product design.07 The word had a different meaning in France: design is derived from dessiner, the French verb for “to draw,” or dessin, a drawing. The French term dessinateur, for a pattern draftsman, was also frequently used at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the textile industry in German-speaking countries. Thus, in Vienna, as well, the term dessinateur was widespread in the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in the context of fabric design. Not until the mid-twentieth century did the terms design and designer become common German usage. THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT AND b ITS INFLUENCE ON VIENNA The second half of the nineteenth century in Europe was the era of great inventions, of new materials and technologies, and of international expositions. The first international exposition, or world’s fair, was held in London in 1851 and was a venue for exhibiting, viewing, and comparing the cultures and industries of the world’s leading economic nations. The muddled hodgepodge of styles in the industrially manufactured products as well as their poor quality and deficient durability were roundly criticized from the very beginning of the London show. The fifth international exposition was held in Vienna in 1873. It is against this backdrop of the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of mass production that the reform movements emerging in nineteenth-century Europe in art, design, and the arts and crafts are to be viewed.08 London’s “Great Exhibition” of 1851 triggered vehement criticism in England and Europe. One of the fiercest critics of mass production was the British painter, architect, and poet William Morris, born in London in 1834. It was not only the aesthetic ills of historicism but also the social conditions that the newly created working class was living under that Morris condemned so vigorously. For him, the two were closely linked. The artist demanded sweeping reforms in the arts and crafts, a high level of quality for handcrafted products, and an equally high aesthetic standard. This made him one of the founding fathers of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England, 06 Bernhard E. Bürdek, a countermovement to industrial mass production with all its negative Geschichte, Theorie und Praxis der effects.09 Produktgestaltung (Basel: With its principles of a harkening back to craftmanship and a rejection Birkhäuser, 2005), 21; Hauffe (2014), 21ff., 34. of historicism as well as a preference for simple, clear, and organic forms, 07 Bürdek (2005), 13. this movement had a great influence on Jugendstil—the specific kind of Art 08 Hauffe (2014), 28ff. 09 Ibid., 44. Nouveau practiced in Germany and Austria—and particularly on the Secession style in Vienna. William Morris and his followers demanded the highest quality and aesthetic at affordable prices. Morris & Company, the firm he founded in 1861, designed textiles, wallpaper, and furniture that, while they

Furniture design—a look back: from draftsman to designer

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fulfilled these quality and aesthetic criteria, were not affordable for the general public, with the result that the works of the British artist and entrepreneur opposed his own ideals.10 The Arts and Crafts Movement marked the beginning of a development that in the subsequent decades was to have a decisive influence on the history of furniture design and architecture: designers, artists, and architects, but also craft enterprises and entrepreneurs joined forces to create communities in which they worked and studied together to find new solutions to the problems of mass production and industrialization and to put these ideas into practice.11 The Arts and Crafts Movement served as an important impetus for the architects and furniture designers of Viennese Modernism, such as Adolf Loos and Josef Hoffmann. The furniture designers of the 1920s and ’30s in Vienna, like Josef Frank and Oskar Strnad, were also significantly inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement as well as by English interior design.12

left

Kennet cotton decora-

tive fabric; design: William Morris; execution: Morris & Company, London, 1883, © MAK/Branislav Djordjevic right Morris wingback chair, beech, woven cane, and brass, Model No. 6393; design and execution: Gebrüder Thonet, Vienna, ca. 1905, © MAK

10 Elizabeth Wilhide (ed.), Design: The Whole Story (London: Thames & Hudson, 2016), 53. 11 Hauffe (2014), 48. 12 Marlene Ott-Wodni, Josef Frank 1885–1967, Raumgestaltung und Möbeldesign (Vienna: Böhlau, 2015), 36.

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Furniture design—a look back: from draftsman to designer

2

13

Felix Czeike, “Biedermeier,” in Historisches Lexikon Wien, Vol. 1 (Vienna: Kremayr & Scheriau, 1992), 373f.

14 15 16

Ott-Wodni (2015), 47ff. Mang (1978), 11.

Max Eisler: “Das Wiener Möbel gestern und heute,” in Erich Boltenstern, Wiener Möbel in Lichtbildern und maßgeblichen Rissen (Stuttgart: Julius Hoffmann, 1935), VI. 17 Mang (1978), 8.

Biedermeier—furniture artistry from Vienna

A new style of furniture became popular in nineteenth-century Austria and Germany: Biedermeier. This stylistic period, which extended from 1815 to 1848, had particular importance in Vienna: it coincided with the reign of the foreign minister and state chancellor Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich, who played a leading role at the 1815 Congress of Vienna. He was a proponent of the monarchal principle and opposed all national and liberal movements in the Habsburg Empire in his time. Biedermeier refers to the art and culture of the bourgeoisie that emerged at this time—in literature, music, and painting, but also in fashion, interior décor, and furniture design. The name is derived from an invented literary figure, the conventionally bourgeois village schoolteacher Gottlieb Biedermeier, the creation of the German writer Ludwig Eichrodt. This era was characterized by a retreat into the private sphere; as a reaction against the state control and strict censorship of the Metternich police state, bourgeois family life became increasingly important.13 These political and social circumstances left their mark on furniture design as well. The retreat of the middle class into their private homes had direct consequences for the furniture and home furnishings of the time, which were elegant and functional. The aesthetics of this furniture lay in the superb workmanship, the use of high-quality materials, and the organic forms. The center of the home was the living room, in which seating furniture was given a new, room-dividing function. New types of seating furniture were created for the various needs of the occupants and arranged in seating groups.14 The first Biedermeier furniture in Vienna was created according to English models and manufactured by hand by craftspeople or small workshops. Handicrafts were held in high regard in Austria and could look back on a long history. Industrialization and capabilities for mass-producing furniture were not yet widespread in the Habsburg Empire. Vienna did, however, have highly specialized furniture workshops, such as the Danhauser furniture company, which as early as 1808 employed over 130 highly trained cabinetmakers.15 With his company’s products, the Viennese furniture-maker Joseph Ulrich Danhauser greatly influenced the new style of home furnishings in the Austrian capital. The Viennese furniture of the Biedermeier period, in the words of the Viennese art historian Max Eisler, “defined taste and formal style on the European continent.”16 The furniture of the Biedermeier can be seen as a precursor to the modern furniture design of the twentieth century.17 The idea of a central living room and furniture that could be placed in it in a flexible manner was also taken up by the Viennese furniture designers of the first half of the twentieth century, such as Adolf Loos, Oskar Strnad, and Josef Frank.

Biedermeier—furniture artistry from Vienna

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Design for a desk

from the workshop of Joseph Ulrich Danhauser, Vienna, 1814, © MAK bottom Biedermeier chair; design and execution: unknown, Vienna, 1820 to 1825, © MAK

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Biedermeier—furniture artistry from Vienna

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Bentwood furniture: Gebrüder Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn MICHAEL THONET—THE SUCCESS OF MODERN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN FOR FURNITURE

In the mid-nineteenth century, when furniture manufacturers were attempting to use modern carving and turning machines to imitate handcrafted and historic furniture forms, Michael Thonet developed his revolutionary bentwood process, a completely new production method that led to modern forms in the fabrication of wooden furniture. Through the use of steaming processes, the German master cabinetmaker from the Prussian town of Boppard am Rhein was able to bend solid beechwood into a curved shape. The wood was first treated in steam chambers at very high temperatures to make it pliable and then bent through the use of cast-iron clamps. The bent wood was subsequently dried in drying rooms, removed from the clamps, sanded, and its surface treated.18 Michael Thonet, a proponent of industrially made furniture and mass production, pursued the goal of manufacturing high-quality, elegant, and above all lightweight furniture in a cost-effective manner. In the process, he did not conceal the industrial production methods of his wooden furniture but instead made them a principle of his design. As early as 1830, Thonet conducted his first experiments in fabricating furniture from curved wood and continued to refine this process in the following years. However, he was not awarded a patent for his invention in Prussia.19 At an exhibition at the Kunstverein Koblenz in Prussia in 1841, these innovative bentwood chairs came to the attention of the Austrian state chancellor Metternich. At the invitation of Metternich, Michael Thonet traveled to Vienna to present this new furniture out of curved wood to the Austrian imperial court. Michael Thonet was granted the privilege of producing his new bentwood furniture in Austria and in spring 1842 moved to Vienna with his entire family. There, he met the French-British architect Peter Hubert Desvignes, with whom he was to execute large projects such as the renovation and furnishing of the Liechtenstein family’s city palace in downtown Vienna. Thonet also furnished Vienna’s Palais Schwarzenberg with his chairs of bent beechwood.20 In 1849, at the age of fifty-three, Michael Thonet and his five sons opened their own factory for producing bentwood furniture, with its headquarters on Vienna’s Gumpendorfer Straße. The family business soon received large contracts for furnishing coffeehouses, restaurants, hotels, and 18 Mang (1978), 38. 19 Wilhide (2016), 42; Hauffe public buildings. The Thonets, who had perfected their wood-curving pro(2014), 36. cess in Vienna, were able to offer bentwood furniture from solid wood in 20 Wolfgang Thillmann and Bernd outstanding quality and at an unrivaled price. Because other Viennese furWillscheid, Möbeldesign. Roentgen, niture manufacturers were also beginning to use the bentwood technique, Thonet und die Moderne, published in conjunction with an exhibition of the Thonets branded their furniture with a maker’s mark in the form of a the same name (Berlin: Roentgen stamp.21 Museum Neuwied, 2011), 155. 21 Ibid., 19. In 1851, Michael Thonet participated in the Great Exhibition in London, and the following year the family business opened its first shop in Vienna’s city center. The company grew rapidly: by 1853 it had fifty-three employees and had acquired its first steam engine. Thonet turned the furniture

Bentwood furniture: Gebrüder Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn

21

company over to his five sons—August, Josef, Jakob, Michael, and Franz—and the name was changed to Gebrüder Thonet. In 1856, they opened a furniture factory in Koryčany, in a wooded region of Moravia, now in the Czech Republic but at the time part of the Habsburg Empire. The design and final assembly continued to be done in Vienna. In this regard, Michael Thonet proved himself a visionary entrepreneur: he drew up the building plans along with his sons, oversaw the construction of his factories, and even developed the machines himself. In Moravia, where the factory was located, there was an abundance of cheap rural workers, as well as extensive stands of beech trees near the production facility. This variety of wood would be of decisive importance for the industrial production of Thonet furniture.22 b

WORLD FAMOUS: THONET’S NO. 14 CHAIR The Thonet No. 14 chair, designed in 1859, became the “prototype for modern mass-produced furniture and the father of all designer chairs.”23 The famous Vienna Coffee House Chair is considered one of the most successful industrial products of the twentieth century. Over eighty million were sold worldwide, and it was awarded a gold medal at the 1867 International Exposition in Paris. The design was visionary in many regards: The No. 14 chair could be disassembled and packed flat, enabling it to be shipped all over the world at low rates. While early versions of the Thonet chairs were glued together, the No. 14 chair consisted of just six components that were held together by ten screws and two washers. Carefully disassembled, thirty-six chairs could fit into an innovative shipping box measuring one cubic meter, and at the destination, this thoroughly modern chair could be very easily reassembled. The chairs were completely lacking in ornamentation; they were lightweight, of outstanding quality, economical, and ideally suited for mass production and worldwide distribution.24 The family business was innovative in the areas of sales and marketing as well: At this time, the Thonets were already publishing multi-language catalogs with each item of furniture individually numbered to facilitate orders. A worldwide network of sales offices was established in cities including Barcelona, Brussels, Chicago, and New York. Thonet’s modern furniture received numerous prizes at competitions and exhibitions and was regarded as a textbook example of successful mass production.25 With the No. 14 chair, the so-called Wiener Geflecht, or “Viennese mesh,” became known around the world as well. Woven cane has always been prized as an especially sturdy material. Woven-cane seating furniture had a centuries-old tradition, and particularly in England, cane was used quite frequently in furniture production. Michael Thonet was the first to make seats of woven cane or octagon mesh in mass-produced furniture. Today, the Wiener Geflecht is still used by numerous furniture producers in the design and manufacture of chairs, settees, and tables.

c

JACOB & JOSEF KOHN—CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION Viennese furniture was produced in Austria not only by Gebrüder Thonet but also by the Jacob & Josef Kohn furniture company. The beginnings of this firm date back to 1850: that year, the businessman Jacob Kohn and his oldest son, Josef Schaje Kohn, founded a company in Moravia for the production and sale of building timber. The father and son soon opened three matchstick factories and became one of the largest wood businesses in the Habsburg Empire. After the death of the company founder, Josef’s sons Carl, Julius, and Felix joined the business. In November 1867, motivated by the economic success of Gebrüder Thonet in furniture production, the Kohns launched an

22

22

Mang (1978), 42. Hauffe (2014), 38. 24 Mang (1978), 43. 25 Thillmann and Willscheid (2011), 172ff. 23

right Chair No. 1 after the Schwarzenberg chair; design: Michael Thonet, Vienna, ca. 1850; execution: Gebrüder Thonet, Koryčany, ca. 1861, © MAK/Nathan Murrell

26

Stefan Üner, “Gebrüder Thonet,” in Wagner, Hoffmann, Loos und das Möbeldesign der Wiener Moderne, ed. Eva B. Ottillinger (Vienna: Böhlau, 2018), 140. 27 Ibid. 28

Ibid., 142.

enterprise for the manufacture of bentwood furniture. A legal battle with Gebrüder Thonet began. Citing a lack of innovation, the authorities rescinded the Thonets’ patent on the bending of wood for furniture, which the family had been granted in 1856.26 From this time on, Jacob & Josef Kohn were the fiercest competitors of Gebrüder Thonet: they henceforth concentrated on modern design, cost-effective production, and the worldwide sale of bentwood furniture. The business focused on expansion, establishing numerous production facilities, including in Cracow and Warsaw, and a worldwide network of sales locations. Furniture from Jacob & Josef Kohn could be purchased in Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Hamburg, Brussels, Kiev, London, Milan, Rome, Paris, and New York. In 1877, the successful family business from Moravia was named a purveyor to the Spanish court. That same year, Jacob & Josef Kohn opened a sales office in Vienna’s city center, at 3 Burgring, with the company headquarters located nearby on Elisabethstraße.27 After the death of Josef Kohn, his wife, Rosa Kohn, and his youngest son, Johann, entered the business, which was renamed Aktiengesellschaft der Fabrik Wiener Möbel Jacob & Josef Kohn. The furniture company with the ambitious motto “semper sursum”—ever onward—participated in many national and international exhibitions, including the world fairs in Vienna in 1873, in Barcelona in 1888, in Chicago in 1893, and in Paris in 1900.28

Bentwood furniture: Gebrüder Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn

23

left

Poster by Gebrüder

Thonet, Austria, 1876, © MAK/ Katrin Wisskirchen right Chair No. 14; design: Gebrüder Thonet, Vienna, 1859; execution: Gebrüder Thonet, Koryčany, ca. 1900, © MAK/ Georg Mayer bottom Chair No. 14 disassembled; design: Gebrüder Thonet, Vienna, 1859; execution: Thonet-Mundus, after 1919, © MAK

24

Bentwood furniture: Gebrüder Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn

4

Vienna 1900

a

VIENNESE MODERNISM— THE PHENOMENON OF THE FIN DE SIÈCLE

29 http://www.archiv-ikg-wien.at/ archives/juedische-gemeinde-wien (accessed July 16, 2021). 30

Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Matthias Boeckl, and Christian Witt-Dörring (eds.), Wege der Moderne. Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos und die Folgen (Vienna: Birkhäuser, 2015), 112. 31 Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, From Vienna 1900 to the Present (New York: Random House, 2012), 28. 32 Serge Lemoine and Marie-Amélie zu Salm-Salm, Wien um 1900. Klimt | Kokoschka | Schiele | Moser (Stuttgart: Belser, 2005), 40. 33 Ernst H. Gombrich, Jüdische Identität und jüdisches Schicksal. Eine Diskussionsbemerkung (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 2011), 19ff. 34 Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday, trans. Benjamin W. Huebsch and Helmut Ripperger (London: Cassel and Company, 1943), 15.

Vienna 1900

In the period around 1900, Vienna saw an extraordinary intellectual flowering not only in philosophy, painting, music, literature, architecture, and design, but in mathematics, economics, jurisprudence, medicine, and psychoanalysis as well. The city was also experiencing rapid population growth at this time: while some 1.7 million people lived in Vienna in 1900, by 1910 this number had exceeded 2 million. This was the capital of the Habsburg Monarchy, a large European empire with a population of over fifty million people whose countries extended far into the regions of eastern and southeastern Europe. Vienna was the center of power; of media, fashion, and culture; of good taste and design. People from all provinces and crownlands streamed into the imperial capital in the second half of the nineteenth century, including many Jewish families. Through the constitutional laws passed on 21 December, 1867, regulating the basic rights of citizens, all individuals in this multi-national state, including Jews, were guaranteed equality before the law. The Jewish community in Vienna, which in the mid-nineteenth century had counted some 6,000 members, had grown to about 150,000 by 1900.29 Vienna’s liberal and intellectual upper class financed countless building projects in this period and played a crucial role in Viennese Modernism as patrons of the arts.30 A characteristic feature of “Vienna 1900” was the interconnection between the arts—not only painting, sculpture, architecture, and arts and crafts, but also music, theater, literature, and philosophy. It was the Vienna of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, Gustav Mahler, Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler, and Theodor Herzl. Many intellectuals and artists were drawn to Vienna, where great importance was placed on cultural achievements and intellectual brilliance.31 Th amalgamation of different cultural influences had an enormous impact on the city, with this pluralism becoming its characteristic feature: Vienna was the city of cultural diversity and creative dialogue. 32 This astounding intellectual and cultural wealth in Vienna 1900, the phenomenon of Viennese Modernism, would have been unimaginable without the liberal Viennese Jewish community of that time.33 In The World of Yesterday, Stefan Zweig described this era in Vienna as “the age of reason,” as a time of security and prosperity.34 The flourishing imperial capital was nevertheless also characterized by a growing antisemitic sentiment, one that Vienna mayor Karl Lueger, among others, used deliberately as a political strategy. It was in this period, in 1896, that Theodor Herzl, a very popular journalist and editor of the Neue Freie Presse, published his book The Jewish State, thus establishing the idea of a political form of Zionism and of the founding of the State of Israel.

25

The transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, the fin de siècle, took various forms in the different European countries: Art Nouveau in Belgium and France, named after the Paris gallery Maison de l’Art Nouveau; Jugendstil in Germany, after the art magazine Die Jugend, founded in Munich in 1896; Modernisme in Barcelona; Stile Floreale or Stile Liberty in Italy, after the London home furnishing store Liberty and Co., or the Secession Style in Vienna—they were all part of an international movement that manifested itself in every area of art and design.35 In Vienna, as in other European cities as well, a movement was emerging that rejected the conservative artistic establishments of the time. 36 On April 3, 1897, a group of painters, sculptors, and architects that included Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Joseph Maria Olbrich, and Josef Hoffmann founded the Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs, the Vienna Secession.37 Its members stood in opposition to the conservative Gesellschaft bildender Künstler Österreichs, the traditional Künstlerhaus, and rejected the historicist style that was predominant in Vienna. The founding of the Vienna Secession marked the birth of Viennese Modernism. For the first time, Vienna assumed a pioneering role in architecture and made an important contribution to the emergence of a modern building style and modern furniture design that spread far beyond the Austrian borders.38 In 1897/98, the exhibition building of the Secession was built to plans by Joseph Maria Olbrich. That same year, members of the Secession launched the art magazine Ver Sacrum, which served as a far-reaching mouthpiece for the modern ideas of the Secessionists. The Vienna Secession offered young artists the opportunity to present their works to the Viennese, with the goal of raising the local inhabitants’ awareness of modern art. The group organized large-scale international exhibitions that showed works by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Auguste Rodin for the first time in Vienna.39 An exhibition in 1900 of works by the Scottish architect and furniture designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh made a great impression on Viennese architects and designers, particularly Josef Hoffmann. Viennese Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil, could very soon be admired in many places: it adorned houses and public buildings, pictures, posters, books, and jewelry, as well as domestic objects in private households. Although there were many different trends in this regard, the artists had one thing in common: their rejection of historicism. They vehemently opposed ornate decoration, copies of historic styles, and inferior industrially produced goods. Very much following the model of the Arts and Crafts Movement, they sought new, simple, modern, and aesthetic forms. The artists frequently drew on forms from nature: organically curved lines, stylized plant forms, floral elements, and both symmetric and geometric shapes found their way into architecture, furniture-making, arts and crafts, and all areas of design. The representatives of Jugendstil responded to mass-produced goods and historicism by aiming to design every area of life, from buildings and pictures to furniture, wallpaper, fabric, and tableware. Buildings, their rooms, and all furniture and other objects contained therein were to form a Gesamtkunstwerk, a complete work of art.40 Vienna 1900 assumed for a time the role of the cultural capital of Europe: the most exciting composers, painters, architects, and designers of this era lived and worked in Vienna.41

26

right Poster for the XII Exhibition of the Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs at Vienna’s Secession; design: Alfred Roller; execution: Albert Berger, both Vienna, 1901, © MAK

35 Wilhide (2016), 92; Hauffe (2014), 48ff. 36 Vienna’s Künstlerhaus was built between 1865 and 1868 and henceforth served as an exhibition space

for artists. It was originally operated by the Genossenschaft der bildenden Künstler Wiens, the professional association of painters, sculptors, and architects in Vienna, which later changed its name to Gesellschaft bildender Künstler Österreichs. 37 Thun-Hohenstein, Boeckl, and Witt-Dörring (2015), 102. 38 Felix Czeike, “Secession,” in Historisches Lexikon Wien, Vol. 5  (Vienna: Kremayr & Scheriau, 1997), 188. 39 Lemoine and Salm-Salm (2005), 39. 40 Hauffe (2014), 49. 41 Kandel (2012), 26; Blom (2009), 66.

b

42

Thun-Hohenstein, Boeckl, and

Witt-Dörring (2015), 64. 43 Ursula Prokop, “Josef Frank und der kleine Kreis um Oskar Strnad und Viktor Lurje,” in Josef Frank: Against Design, eds. Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Hermann Czech, and Sebastian Hackenschmidt (Vienna: MAK, Birkhäuser, 2015), 48. 44

Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Hermann Czech, and Sebastian Hackenschmidt (eds.), Josef Frank: Against Design (Vienna: MAK, Birkhäuser, 2015), 14. 45 Prokop, in Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 48ff.

Vienna 1900

ARCHITECTS AND ARTISTS AS FURNITURE DESIGNERS Otto Wagner was one of the first architects in Vienna to occupy himself with the achievements of modern engineering and the use of new industrial manufacturing methods and materials. But the architect was interested not only in technical changes but also social ones. In his early works, Otto Wagner was in large part a devotee of historicism. In 1894, at the age of fifty-three, he was named professor of architecture at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) and that same year became Vienna’s city planner. With his design and construction of Vienna’s Stadtbahn rail system, he left an indelible mark on Vienna 1900. In his book Moderne Architektur, which was aimed at his students as well as the critics of his buildings, he demanded that the new age be given not imitations of historical styles but rather a new style, a “functional style.”42 From 1899 to 1905, Wagner was a member of the Vienna Secession, whose exhibitions showed his designs for furniture and interior furnishings on several occasions. With the Post Office Savings Bank, built on Vienna’s Georg-Koch-Platz between 1904 and 1912, Wagner created his most modern and important structure. It is considered a key work of European Modernism. There was not yet a dedicated training program in Vienna for product or furniture design, which was still the domain of the architects. The academies for architecture in Vienna were simultaneously the educational institutions for aspiring furniture designers of the time, who were trained at the School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule, today the University of Applied Arts Vienna), the Polytechnic Institute of Vienna (Technische Hochschule, the predecessor of the University of Technology), or at the Academy of Fine Arts. In the course of his nearly forty years of teaching, Carl König— architect, professor of architecture, dean and beginning with the 1901/02 academic year also the rector of the Polytechnic Institute—influenced an entire generation of architects and furniture designers. Many of his students, who included Oskar Strnad, Felix Augenfeld, Josef Frank, Frederick Kiesler, Richard Neutra, and Rudolph Michael Schindler, came from Jewish Viennese families, as did Carl König himself: he was Vienna’s first and only Jewish professor of architecture.43 Unlike Otto Wagner, who broke with historicism, Carl König was convinced that a thorough study of the past was the prerequisite for a new and modern kind of architecture. A number of people around Otto Wagner, who taught at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna until 1918, had antisemitic views,44 and some of Wagner’s students later became committed Nazis.45 Josef Hoffmann, who studied and later worked with Wagner and admired him unconditionally, began teaching at the School of Arts and Crafts in 1898. He brought about a radical rethinking process in Vienna with regard to the design and production of everyday objects, furniture, interior furnishings, and architecture. Although Hoffmann viewed himself primarily as an architect, he was significantly more productive as a designer. As an alternative to the organic Jugendstil forms, he—whom the Viennese gave the nickname “Square Hoffmann”—developed a fondness for geometric forms and grid patterns as well as for the generous use of black and white.

27

In the early twentieth century, exhibitions of Japanese art began being held all over Europe, including in Vienna, and Josef Hoffmann fell under the influence of traditional Japanese forms. From 1898 to 1936 he taught architecture at the School of Arts and Crafts as well as instructing his students in the areas of interior architecture and furniture design. Another architect was very influential for the designers of the next generation: Oskar Strnad. He began teaching form theory classes at the School of Arts and Crafts in 1909 and as of 1914 taught architecture alongside Josef Hoffmann. There was a lively exchange of ideas among both the students and the professors of the architecture schools. 46 The students of König, Hoffmann, and Koloman Moser, who taught at the School of Arts and Crafts as well, but also those of Strnad devoted themselves intensively to questions of furnishings and the design of furniture. This period in Vienna was characterized by a spirit of new beginnings in the area of furniture design.47 c



WIENER WERKSTÄTTE

In June 1903, Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and the Austrian industrial­ ist Fritz Waerndorfer founded the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) as a production collective of fine artists with the objective of reforming the decorative arts in Austria. Their models were the British Arts and Crafts Movement and the ideas of the Scottish architect and furniture designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. In the arts and crafts as well as in furniture design, a clear and geometric formal language developed that was character­ ized by right angles and stringent lines. The Wiener Werkstätte worked closely together with the Secession and the School of Arts and Crafts. The collective designed and produced furniture, books, posters, cards, lamps, fabric, jewelry, and paper goods in its own workshops in Vienna as well as in collaboration with other highly specialized companies, and marketed these goods internationally. In 1904, the enterprise opened its own cabinetmaking workshop but produced only a small amount of the furniture; instead, renowned Viennese cabinetmakers and interior decorators such as Portois & Fix, Anton Herrgesell, Friedrich Otto Schmidt, and Johann Niedermoser were contracted to produce the furniture, which was then exhib­ ited and sold in the showrooms of the Wiener Werkstätte.48 Although furniture and other craft objects from the Wiener Werkstätte were manufactured only in small numbers, they soon became well known internationally and were in great demand far beyond the boundaries of Vienna. The Wiener Werkstätte had its headquarters on Heumühlgasse in Vienna’s Wieden and Neubau districts and opened sales offices on Kärntner Straße and Graben; these were followed by branch offices in Berlin, Zurich, and New York City.49 The Wiener Werkstätte developed exclusive decorating concepts for interiors in which every detail was harmonized. The exquisite objects were produced by craftspeople in the Wiener Werkstätte studios, while external manufacturers were carefully vetted by the artists and designers before given a commission. Thus, glass was produced for the Wiener Werkstätte by the Viennese glassworks J. & L. Lobmeyr, porcelain by the manufacturer Augarten, and fabric by the Backhausen textile company. The successful positioning of the Wiener Werkstätte as a brand was at that time something completely new.50 In 1916, Dagobert Peche, the highly imaginative artist and representative of the Wiener Werkstätte, established an artists’ workshop, an open,

28

left

Design No. 4427 for

a fabric pattern; design: Josef Hoffmann, Vienna 1902; execution: Johann Backhausen & Söhne, © Backhausen Archive right Design No. 5041 for a rug; design: Josef Hoffmann, Vienna, 1904; execution: Johann Backhausen & Söhne, © Backhausen Archive bottom Design No. 7741 for a rug; design: Josef Hoffmann, Vienna, 1910; execution: Johann Backhausen & Söhne, © Backhausen Archive

46 Eva B. Ottillinger (ed.), Wohnen zwischen den Kriegen. Wiener Möbel 1914–1941 (Vienna: Böhlau, 2009), 46. 47 Eva B. Ottillinger (ed.), Wagner, Hoffmann, Loos und das Möbeldesign der Wiener Moderne (Vienna: Böhlau, 2018), 22ff. 48 Ottillinger (2009), 47. 49 Gabriele Fahr-Becker and Angelika Taschen, Wiener Werkstätte, 1903–1932 (Cologne: Taschen, 2015), 12ff. 50 Wilhide (2016), 102ff.

Vienna 1900

29

experimental art laboratory of the Wiener Werkstätte that during World War I was used primarily by women to develop their artistic potential. The focus was on the design of fabrics, wallpaper, and pillows as interior decoration elements, but also of jewelry, handbags, and decorative paper. The exuberant, wildly colorful fabric patterns and wallpaper designs of Felice Rix, Maria Likarz, and Mizi Friedmann anticipated the vibrant patterns of the 1950s and ’60s. Compared with those of other countries, the fabric designs of the Wiener Werkstätte were extraordinary; numerous companies wanted to act as the company’s agent and market the fabrics of the Wiener Werkstätte abroad.51 d

ANTAGONIST AND CRITIC OF JUGENDSTIL: ADOLF LOOS He was the great antagonist and a vehement critic of the decorative Jugendstil and of the Wiener Werkstätte: Adolf Loos. Born in Brno (now in the Czech Republic) in 1870 as the son of a stonemason, Adolf Loos studied building engineering in Dresden and then spent three years in the US, where he made ends meet by doing odd jobs, including working as a furniture draftsman and designer. He became acquainted with modern skyscraper architecture in New York and Chicago, where he visited the 1893 Columbian Exhibition. In 1896, he settled in Vienna, where he worked as an interior architect and a critic at the Neue Freie Presse newspaper. At the beginning, he also published articles in Ver Sacrum, the art magazine of the Vienna Secession, but soon broke with the leading architects of the Secession at the time. He began his career as a consultant with the prestigious Viennese interior designer Friedrich Otto Schmidt, whose Atelier für Zimmerdekoration (Studio for Interior Decoration) was concerned primarily with copying antique furniture, but under the influence of Loos turned to modern interior design.52 Interior design was the central element of the life of Adolf Loos. In Vienna, he designed private villas, apartment complexes, office buildings, shops, interior decor, and furniture. The business premises he designed for firms such as the exquisite men’s clothier Knize on Vienna’s Graben, the Manz bookshop on Kohlmarkt, the Café Museum, and the famous American Bar, stand as prototypes of modern interior architecture.53 The year 1911 saw the erection of another manifest of Viennese Modernism in the very center of Vienna: Loos’s residential and commercial Goldman & Salatsch building at 3 Michaelerplatz, right across from the Neo-Baroque wing of Hofburg Palace. 54 The finished building triggered a veritable scandal: The Viennese called the building with the unadorned façade “the house without eyebrows” and “a beast of a house.” Even during 51 Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, construction, protests led to a building freeze ordered by the authorities. It Anne-Katrin Rossberg, and Elisabeth Schmuttermeier (eds.), Die is said that after the completion of the so-called Loos House, the elderly Frauen der Wiener Werkstätte Emperor Franz Joseph never again used the palace’s Michaelerplatz exit (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2020), 96ff. 52 Ottillinger (2018), 76ff. and even had the windows of the Hofburg facing the square nailed shut so 53 Ibid. 55 he would not have to look at that “horrid” building. 54 Lemoine and Salm-Salm As a critic of arts and crafts, Adolf Loos waged a public crusade against (2005), 38. 55 Martina Pippal, Kleine KunstJosef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte. Loos did not see furniture and geschichte Wiens (Munich: Beck, articles of everyday use as objets d’art—he made a clear distinction be2000), 196ff. tween utilitarian objects on the one hand and artworks and the works of ar56 Thun-Hohenstein, Boeckl, and chitects on the other.56 In his famous works Ornament und Verbrechen Witt-Dörring (2015), 162. (Ornament and Crime) and Wie man eine Wohnung einrichten soll (How One Should Furnish an Apartment), Adolf Loos—following the ideas of Otto Wagner—bitterly opposed any form of decoration on buildings, utilitarian

30

left

Interior view of the

salesroom of the Wiener Werkstätte at 15 Graben, Vienna, ca. 1907; © MAK right Looshaus on Michaelerplatz; design: Adolf Loos for the men’s clothier Goldman & Salatsch, Vienna, 1909; © MAK

57 Felix Czeike, “Looshaus,” in Historisches Lexikon Wien, Vol. 4 (Vienna: Kremayr & Scheriau, 1995), 89. 58 Ottillinger (2018), 51, 97ff. 59 Ruth Hanisch, “Die unsichtbare Raumkunst des Felix Augenfeld,” in Matthias Boeckl (ed.), Visionäre & Vertriebene. Österreichische Spuren in der modernen Architektur, published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at Kunsthalle Wien, 1995 (Berlin: Ernst & Sohn, 1995), 228, 327.

Vienna 1900

objects, or furniture.57 For Loos, the focus was always on the needs of the residents of the building or the apartment; he vehemently rejected the idea of having a house or apartment furnished by an architect as a complete work of art. Adolf Loos closely followed English models in designing his cantilever armchair, inspired by the New Shaped Easy Chair produced by London’s Hampton & Sons. Loos used this chair, which was executed by the Friedrich Otto Schmidt furniture shop, in various interiors in Vienna, including in his building on Michaelerplatz.58 From 1912 until the outbreak of World War I, Adolf Loos taught at the Bauschule, a private school he operated himself. Felix Augenfeld was one of his first students, along with Rudolph Michael Schindler, Richard Neutra, Paul Engelmann (Adolf Loos’s later assistant), Otto Breuer, Jacques Groag, and Ernst Freud. The Loos students did not, however, meet in a lecture hall or classroom, but rather at the Café Museum, which Loos had furnished, for walks through the city, in apartments whose interiors he had designed, or in bars and cabarets. Instruction at the “Loos school” was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, as many of the young students had to enlist for military service. After the war, Loos continued teaching in Vienna until he moved to Paris in 1923. Adolf Loos’s ideas had a decisive influence on the development of furniture design in the mid-twentieth century—in Vienna but also well beyond the Austrian borders.59

31

e

EARLY PRODUCT DESIGN FROM VIENNA Viennese Modernism was characterized by a creative collaboration between architects, artists, highly specialized entrepreneurs, and discerning clients. It was the leading architects in Vienna at the time—Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, and Koloman Moser, the designers of the Wiener Werkstätte—but also their critic Adolf Loos who discovered the new expressive possibilities of the bentwood process developed by Michael Thonet. Through a refinement of this technique, it became possible at this time to bend wood into nearly right angles. Metal reinforcements on heavily stressed members were used to protect the furniture. The result was new furniture forms that conveyed a stringent and functional impression.60 While Gebrüder Thonet were pioneers in wood-bending and the industrial production of modern furniture, their competitors Jacob & Josef Kohn concentrated their efforts on close collaboration with Vienna’s best and most creative people in the design of their furniture. In 1899, Adolf Loos designed a chair for the Café Museum that was manufactured by Jacob & Josef Kohn. For this model, Loos optimized existing series models, drawing inspiration from Thonet’s No. 14 chair as well as from Model No. 248 from the Kohn catalog. The new chairs were lightweight without sacrificing stability. Loos, who was always concerned with the effect of colors in the rooms he furnished, had the chairs stained red and the coffeehouse walls covered with green wallpaper. The red color of the chairs provided the furnishings with an important color accent.61 Josef Hoffmann also worked closely with Jacob & Josef Kohn, designing complete model rooms for the company that were shown at international exhibitions in cities like Turin and London. Furniture that Hoffmann designed for the Sanatorium Purkersdorf and the Cabaret Fledermaus, as well as his Sitzmaschine chair, were executed by Jacob & Josef Kohn. Through its visionary furniture design, Kohn succeeded in making bentwood furniture—with which people were familiar largely from coffeehouses, restaurants, or theater and concert halls—“socially acceptable,” and it soon began appearing in private homes as well. In addition to its long years of collaboration with the most prominent architects of the time, such as Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Koloman Moser, and Josef Hoffmann, the company began early on working with a lesser-known designer as well: Gustav Siegel. At Josef Hoffmann’s recommendation, this young Vienna-born architect, who studied with Hoffmann at the School of Arts and Crafts, was hired by Kohn as its head designer. For the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, Siegel designed a modern wingback chair that was a great success; this was the first so-called “Architektenmöbel”—furniture by architects,62 and it completely modernized the design of bentwood furniture. Gustav Siegel’s modern forms were also taken up by Otto Wagner for the furniture of his Post Office Savings Bank and the office he designed for the daily newspaper Die Zeit in Vienna. The functional furniture Otto Wagner created for the bank demonstrates his understanding of modern, industrial production. Gebrüder Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn included the armchair for the bank in their general product line and manufactured it in various models. The price of one of these chairs was between 18 and 34 crowns, depending on the model.63

32

60 Thillmann and Willscheid (2011), 197. 61

Ottillinger (2018), 77ff. Sebastian Hackenschmidt and Wolfgang Thillmann, Bugholz, vielschichtig. Thonet und das moderne Möbeldesign, ed. Christoph Thun-Hohenstein and Sebastian Hackenschmidt (Vienna: MAK, Birkhäuser 2020), 180. 63 Thillmann and Willscheid (2011), 312. 62

left

Three-legged stool

after an Egyptian model; design: after Adolf Loos; execution: unknown, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2019 right Chair No. 255 for the Café Museum; design: Adolf Loos, Vienna, 1898; execution: Jacob & Josef Kohn, Vsetín, 1899, © MAK

Gebrüder Thonet also soon included an additional model in its sales catalog that was reminiscent of Gustav Siegel’s design. Thonet’s so-called Wiener Sessel—or Viennese chair—mentioned for the first time in the 1904 Thonet catalog as desk chair No. 201, was enthusiastically received in Vienna but also internationally. The Swiss-French architect and furniture designer Le Corbusier used the Wiener Sessel to furnish not only France’s Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris but also many houses and apartments. “Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created,” the architect enthused.64 Gebrüder Thonet reached its sales peak in 1912 with nearly two million pieces sold, of which nearly two-thirds were chairs. They were exported all over the world, particularly to Russia, France, Germany, and North and South America. In 1900, Jacob & Josef Kohn employed some 6,300 workers in several factories, which were able to turn out over 5,000 pieces of furniture per day. Despite Kohn’s strongly profit-oriented business policy, creativity and innovation were always part of its company philosophy. The enterprise was one of the first businesses to collaborate with the most distinguished designers and architects of Viennese Modernism, such as Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, Adolf Loos, and Gustav Siegel. Furniture design was thus given a completely new and innovative touch.65 But not only Jacob & Josef Kohn and Gebrüder Thonet were focusing on creative and close collaborations with the artists of Viennese Modernism and thus at a very early stage on what today is generally referred to as product or industrial design. Smaller, highly specialized furniture companies and other craft enterprises such as the Backhausen fabric producer,

64

Quoted in Hauffe (2014), 38.

65

Ottillinger (2018), 97ff.

Vienna 1900

33

founded in Vienna in 1851, the J. & L. Lobmeyr glassworks, and the Augarten porcelain company also placed great importance on working with designers and artists from Vienna. The roots of early product and industrial design can be found in this city. Design played a crucial role in Vienna 1900.66 Viennese Modernism was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of World War I in 1914. In November 1918, the Habsburg Empire became the Republic of Austria, and that same year also saw the deaths of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Koloman Moser, and Otto Wagner. Carl König had died in Vienna already in 1915. Thus did an historical era in Vienna come to an end. The city’s influence on the development of European furniture design was nonetheless enormous. One the one hand, the Wiener Werkstätte provided important impetus to the Deutscher Werkbund, founded in 1907 as a federation of artists, architects, and businesspeople, as well as to the Bauhaus in Weimar. On the other, the extravagant and decorative design principles of people like Dagobert Peche and Koloman Moser had a considerable influence on Art Deco in France; the Wiener Werkstätte became the most important source of inspiration for this style. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Vienna was one of the world’s most important centers for design and handicrafts. The works of the Wiener Werkstätte, with its close collaboration between designers and furniture manufacturers, but also the ideas of Adolf Loos shaped the development of modern furniture design far beyond the borders of Europe.67

66 Elana Shapira (ed.), Design Dialog: Juden, Kultur und Moderne (Vienna: Böhlau, 2018), 11. 67 Markus Whiffen, Frederik Koeper, and Fritz Baumeler (eds.), Amerikanische Architektur 1607– 1976, 2nd rev. ed. (Lucerne: ars pro toto 2009), 325.

34

Vienna 1900

5

a

From Bauhaus to International Style

THE BAUHAUS IN WEIMAR, DESSAU, AND BERLIN

In April 1919, the German architect Walter Gropius founded the “Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar” and with it the most influential art and architecture school of the twentieth century. The school was created through a merger of the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts and the School of Arts and Crafts, also located in the area. Gropius, who was a member of the Deutscher Werkbund as well, saw the Bauhaus as a working group that would interconnect all design and art disciplines. He called for doing away with all boundaries between artists and artisans; the goal was to bring about a total unification of art, crafts, and industry. At the Bauhaus, teaching was done according to a completely new art-education concept, with all fields of product design covered, from furniture and lamps to tableware and rugs. All students attended a mandatory foundation course in which great importance was placed on interdisciplinary education. The focus was on the experimentation with color, form, and material, with manual and artistic skills taught with equal emphasis. The Bauhaus school began operating in 1919 with seventy-nine male and eighty-four female students.68 The Swiss painter Johannes Itten was among the first teachers that Walter Gropius engaged for the Bauhaus, at the recommendation of his wife, the Vienna-born Alma Mahler-Gropius. There were a number of connections between the Bauhaus in Weimar and Vienna. Through his marriage to Alma, Gustav Mahler’s widow, Gropius had a close relationship to top Wingback chair No. 6516a, beech and leather, for the city. For him, the time with Alma—the couple had had a love affair even the Austrian Post Office while Mahler was still alive—was very conflicted and the emotional vicissiSavings Bank; design: Otto tudes of their relationship were presumably burdensome. Gropius and Wagner, Vienna, 1904; execuAlma Mahler, who at the time was having an affair with Oskar Kokoschka, tion: Gebrüder Thonet, Bistrița, married in Berlin on August 18, 1915, and a year later their daughter Manon 1906, © MAK was born in Vienna. The marriage and their child became a challenge for bottom Desk chair No. 9; Gropius, as during the war he was able to see his wife and child only on design: after Gustav Siegel/ short sojourns in Vienna. When Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Weimar, Jacob & Josef Kohn; execution: he was still married to Alma; out of his love for their daughter, Manon, he reGebrüder Thonet, both Vienna, fused for many months to agree to a divorce. The marriage of Walter Gropica. 1900, © MAK us and Alma, who was now having an affair with the writer Franz Werfel in Vienna, ended in divorce in October 1920.69 Johannes Itten, who had moved from Vienna to Weimar, exerted a decisive influence on the Bauhaus with his didactic approach and significantly shaped its educational program with his foundation course. Itten had been 68 Winfried Nerdinger, Walter director of a private art school in Vienna from 1916 to 1919, and a group of Gropius. Architekt der Moderne (Munich: Beck, 2019), 107ff.; his students followed him to the Bauhaus, including the craftsman Carl Hauffe (2014), 108ff.; Wilhide Auböck, the later interior architect and designer Franz Singer, and the fu(2016), 126-129. 69 Nerdinger (2019), 114. ture painter, interior architect, and furniture designer Friedl Dicker. Walter Gropius and Johannes Itten were adamant that art should no longer be taught in a purely academic and theoretical manner; it should rather emerge from the inner selves of the students spontaneously and intuitively.

From Bauhaus to International Style

35

Johannes Itten taught according to an esoteric pedagogical philosophy championed by the Mazdaznan movement, according to which the students’ physical, emotional, and intellectual powers were to be activated. In Weimar, he quickly succeeded in surrounding himself with a nearly cult-like group of followers.70 The very existence of the Bauhaus can be attributed to Walter Gropius’s energy and commitment, but also to his talents as a writer and speaker. From the very time the school was founded, he constantly searched for ways to have the designs of the students produced not just in the school’s workshops but also by external industrial enterprises. Gropius hoped that this would provide the opportunity to generate revenue for the Bauhaus through contracts with the industrial sector. Johannes Itten’s successor, the Hungarian painter, furniture designer, and stage designer László Moholny-Nagy, also encouraged his students to create designs suitable for industrial production and to experiment with materials such as tubular steel, plywood, and industrial glass. In this period, students at the Bauhaus created modern lamp designs, but also pottery objects whose simple forms made them suitable for industrial production.71 The painters Paul Klee, Georg Muche, Oskar Schlemmer, and Wassily Kandinsky were also instructors at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Establishing priorities in the areas of art, crafts, and industry was a frequent source of heated arguments among the teachers, artists, and students.72 The political, economic, and social tensions of the interwar period ran high at the Bauhaus as well. In 1925, under pressure from the new conservative government of the province of Thüringen, the art school in Weimar was forced to close. It moved to Dessau, occupying a new purpose-built school designed by Walter Gropius that was equipped with impressive workshops.73 The close collaboration that Gropius strove for between the Bauhaus and industry for the series production of goods for the modern world fit well with the economic interests of the city.74 b

MODERN TUBULAR STEEL FURNITURE In 1925, the 23-year-old Austro-Hungarian furniture designer Marcel Breuer was named head of the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus as a “young master.” Breuer, born in the Hungarian city of Pécs in 1902, had studied at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts for several weeks in 1920. He then dropped out and began training as a cabinetmaker in the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Breuer, who created a number of avant-garde pieces of wooden furniture, designed his first tubular steel chairs in the mid-1920s. Those created under his direction at the Bauhaus in Dessau and produced by Thonet in Frankenberg represent a milestone in the history of furniture design. The club chair he designed in Dessau in 1925, the B 3 armchair made by Thonet, later known as the Wassily Club Chair, is regarded as the first modern tubular steel chair. Marcel Breuer established another milestone with his SS 32 cantilevered chair of 1928. Thonet was one of the first furniture producers to react to this new trend and quickly began manufacturing tubular steel furniture. In 1929, Thonet bought Standard-Möbel, of which Marcel Breuer was the co-founder, and which specialized in the production of tubular steel furniture; in 1932 it acquired the Desta company as well.75 For his modern cantilevered chairs made of tubular steel, the young furniture designer Breuer—very much in keeping with the tradition of Gebrüder Thonet—frequently utilized Wiener Geflecht, the sturdy Viennese woven-cane mesh, for the backs and seats.

36

70 Ibid. 71

Hauffe (2014), 108ff. Nerdinger (2019), 114. 73 Wilhide (2016), 126-129. 74 Nerdinger, (2019), 176.​ 75 Hackenschmidt and Thillmann (2020), 205ff.​​ 72

From Bauhaus to International Style

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Wassily Club Chair, Model B 3, curved, chromed-plated tubular steel;

design: Marcel Breuer, Germany, 1925; execution: Thonet-Mundus, Frankenberg, 1930 to 1935, © MAK

Thonet also soon began producing upholstered tubular steel furniture, the so-called K Line, which became popular mass-produced items. Marcel Breuer’s Thonet-produced chairs became design classics that were to have an enormous impact on international furniture design and furniture production in the following decades. Many European architects who wished to be regarded as modern produced tubular steel furniture at the end of the 1920s and in the 1930s. The tubular steel chair designed in 1927 by the Austrian Bruno Pollak and originally manufactured in Vienna was also mass produced in the 1930s by the English furniture company Practical Equipment Ltd (PEL) at Accles & Pollock’s Paddock Works in Oldbury under the name RP6 and was sold by the millions.76 During this period, the training at the Bauhaus increasingly shifted to industrial design. The basic principles of Bauhaus production were inexpensive mass production and the design of functional products for a broad stratum of society. Furniture was to be produced industrially and inexpensively, with its form and material appropriate to the times: transparent, lightweight, and variable, it was to be suitable for furnishing small flats as well. Very much in keeping with the concept of functionalism, a piece of furniture or an article of use was to fulfill its purpose in a practical manner and be durable, inexpensive, and visually attractive. Foundations for a new kind of design were laid at the Bauhaus that would have a lasting effect on modern furniture and industrial design all over the world. Despite international recognition, the Bauhaus suffered from massive internal disputes and financial difficulties. In 1928, the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer succeeded Walter Gropius as director of the Bauhaus, and Meyer completely restructured the Bauhaus, incorporating architecture into the curriculum. He organized a number of lecture series with philosophers from the Vienna Circle, among them the economist Otto Neurath, to discuss current developments in science, business, and philosophy at the Bauhaus. As the new director of the Bauhaus, Meyer also concluded licensing contracts with industrial enterprises for wallpaper, fabric, lamps, and furniture that were successfully marketed together under the Bauhaus brand.77 c

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Model SS 32; design:

Marcel Breuer, Germany, 1928; execution: Thonet-Mundus, Frankenberg, 1929, © MAK

VIENNESE ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS IN GERMANY

bottom Tubular steel chair; design: Bruno Pollak, Vienna,

When Johannes Itten moved from Vienna to Weimar in 1919 to begin teaching at the Bauhaus there, a number of his Vienna students followed him, including the architecture student Otto Breuer, the then 21-year-old Friedl Dicker, Franz Singer, Anny Wottitz, Margit Téry and her later husband Bruno Adler, and Carl Auböck. After studying for a short time at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts, Marcel Breuer also moved to Weimar at the beginning of the 1920s. László Moholy-Nagy, who would succeed Johannes Itten at the Bauhaus, moved from Vienna to Weimar via Berlin at the beginning of the 1920s. Several artists from the Vienna group who moved to the Bauhaus with Johannes Itten became renowned furniture designers in Vienna in the interwar period. Friedericke “Friedl” Dicker, born in Vienna in 1898, studied textile art from 1915 to 1916 at the School of Arts and Crafts and from 1916 to 1919 attended Itten’s private art school in Vienna. In this period, she also met Anny Wottitz, and the two craftswomen collaborated on bookbinding

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1927; execution: Josef & Leopold Quittner, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2016

76

Dominic Bradbury, Mid-Century Modern Complete. Design des 20. Jahrhunderts (Cologne: DuMont, 2014), 300f. 77 Hauffe (2014), 119.

78

Ute Maasberg and Regina Prinz, Die Neuen Kommen! Weibliche Avantgarde in der Architektur der Zwanziger Jahre, 2nd ed. (Hamburg: Junius Verlag, 2005), 79ff. 79 Ibid. 80 Ott-Wodni (2015), 94, 101. 81

Ottillinger (2009), 35ff.

projects. At Itten’s art school, Friedl Dicker also met her later business partner Franz Singer. During her time at the Bauhaus, Dicker did bookbinding work and produced toys and in Lyonel Feininger’s workshop learned the technique of lithography. Dicker’s favorite painter, Paul Klee, taught at the Bauhaus beginning in 1921, and she attended his lectures every day; her acquaintance with Paul Klee and his art would continue to influence Dicker for her entire life.78 Dicker also worked together with Franz Singer in Lothar Schreyer’s Bauhaus theater group. The director Berthold Viertel soon invited the two young artists from Vienna to participate in theatrical performances. After they completed their studies at the Bauhaus, Dicker and Singer founded the Werkstätten Bildender Kunst in Berlin, specializing in toys, jewelry, bookbinding, textiles, graphics, and stage sets. In 1925, Dicker and Singer returned to Vienna and opened a group studio, where Dicker worked primarily as an interior architect and furniture designer and Singer as an architect. Their visionary furnishings and furniture soon became the quintessence of modern furniture design and were known far beyond the borders of Austria.79 Anny Wottitz returned to Vienna from Weimar in the mid-1920s, became a successful bookbinder, and occasionally worked together with Friedl Dicker. For financial reasons, Carl Auböck was not able to remain long at the Bauhaus in Weimar and went to Czechoslovakia to work as a silversmith. Together with his son, Carl Auböck II, he was influential as a furniture designer in the interwar period and then again in the 1950s in Vienna. The Vienna-born Otto Breuer studied at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute and attended Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule. In 1919, he went to the Bauhaus in Weimar but returned to Vienna a year later and finished his architecture studies there. Breuer designed a great deal of furniture and home furnishings in Vienna. In addition to the Bauhaus, the Deutscher Werkbund was also active in the field of architecture and furniture design. Under the direction of the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, this association mounted the 1927 Werkbund exhibition and built the Weissenhof housing exhibition in Stuttgart. For this project, Mies invited seventeen international architects to design model homes, including Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Josef Frank. Frank was the only Viennese to design a complete house for the housing exhibition. A number of furniture designers from Vienna— Oswald Haerdtl, Walter Sobotka, Oskar Wlach, and Franz Schuster—were invited to furnish the model houses and apartments.80 Frank furnished his house with furniture from his Haus & Garten shop in Vienna. Another architect also used Viennese chairs in his interior design: Le Corbusier, who furnished his model house with bentwood chairs by Gebrüder Thonet. In the mid-1920s, a communal housing project was started in Frankfurt under the direction of the architect and urban planner Ernst May, and the Viennese architects Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Anton Brenner, and Franz Schuster went there to further develop their humanitarian ideas in the “New Frankfurt” project.81 Schütte-Lihotzky, one of the first women to study architecture in Vienna, trained with Oskar Strnad at the School of Arts and Crafts. At the beginning of the 1920s, she worked with Adolf Loos in Vienna as an architect and furniture designer and was active throughout her career

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Standardized furnish-

ings of the Frankfurt Kitchen: cast-iron double sin, cupboards, work surfaces, and aluminum and wooden drawer-containers; design: Margarete SchütteLihotzky, Frankfurt, 1927; execution: Grumbach, Frankfurt, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2019 bottom Frankfurt Kitchen; design: Margarete SchütteLihotzky, Frankfurt, 1927; photographer: Hermann Collischonn, © KAUAK

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in the areas of social housing and housing developments. In 1926, May hired the young Viennese woman to work with him at the building commission in Frankfurt. It was during this time that Schütte-Lihotzky designed her Frankfurt Kitchen, the first modern fitted kitchen, which made her world famous.82 In the interwar period, this functional kitchen became a central theme in furniture design as well as in the feminist movement. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s idea was to make daily housework easier and quicker for the working woman; the Frankfurt Kitchen was installed in over 12,000 households, largely in social housing projects in Frankfurt. She thus ushered in the trend toward modern built-in kitchens, which spread throughout the world in the 1950s.83 In addition to her famous kitchen, Schütte-Lihotzky also planned residential buildings, schools, kindergartens, and public facilities. She designed a wide range of furniture as well as devoting herself intensively to the industrial production of furniture.84 d

82

BANISHED VISIONS— FROM THE BAUHAUS TO THE US

Maasberg and Prinz (2005) 61ff.

83

Tulga Beyerle and Karin Hirschberger, Designlandschaft Österreich 1900–2005 (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2006), 100. 84 http://www.architektenlexikon. at/de/580.htm (accessed July 16, 2021). 85

Hauffe (2014), 121ff. Fiell and Fiell (1999), 344. 87 Hauffe (2014), 117, 122. 86 88

Nerdinger (2019), 11.

Political battles between the right and left were raging not only throughout Germany in the interwar period but also at the Bauhaus. In 1930, Hannes Meyer was fired, and his successor, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who shifted the educational emphasis to architecture, tried to depoliticize the Bauhaus. But this attempt failed: the art school lacked the required financial resources, and after a short-term move to Berlin, the Bauhaus was closed in 1933 for good by the Nazis, who had in the meantime assumed power. Most of the Bauhaus instructors were no longer permitted to teach in Germany by order of the Nazis, and teachers as well as students were ousted and forced to emigrate. By this time, the Bauhaus style was known far beyond the German borders. The new materials in furniture design, such as tubular steel, as well as the typically simple, unadorned forms of the Bauhaus provided impetus for the creation of a modern, international style.85 The International Style in architecture and furniture design had evolved from the ideas of Bauhaus in the 1920s and by the middle of the twentieth century had spread throughout the entire world. The name was first mentioned in 1932 in the title of a book by the American art critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922, which accompanied an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art under its director at the time, Alfred Barr.86 Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, László Moholy-Nagy, and Marcel Breuer emigrated to the US. They taught at the most prestigious American universities and influenced to a great degree the development of the International Style. Before the outbreak of World War II, the center of Modernism shifted to the United States, and the Bauhaus’s impact on design and architecture was particularly great there. The emigration of many of the Bauhaus’s teachers, who then taught at various American universities, perpetuated the school’s influence on an international level. László Moholy-Nagy emigrated to the US in 1937 and that same year founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago, the predecessor to the Chicago Institute of Design. The US, as well, was now to have an educational institution for training designers of the next generation for modern industry.87 Walter Gropius emigrated to London in 1934 and in 1937 moved to the US, where he trained several generations of architects and designers at Harvard University.88

From Bauhaus to International Style

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Marcel Breuer, as well, was not permitted to continue working in Nazi Germany; he emigrated to England, where he worked for the Isokon Furniture Company and designed a number of pieces of furniture in laminated plywood, some of which is still produced today. Breuer followed Gropius to the USA, where he, as well, taught design at Harvard University. One of his students there was Florence Knoll, who in the 1950s became one of America’s most important furniture designers. In addition to teaching, Breuer continued working as an architect and furniture designer and planned numerous buildings in the US, such as New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art.89 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the last director of the Bauhaus, emigrated to the US in 1937. He became the director of the Illinois Institute of Architecture in Chicago and had a successful career as an architect and furniture designer for the Knoll furniture manufacturer. The Barcelona Chair, his most famous furniture design, was successfully produced in the US beginning in 1948 by Knoll International. Mies had designed this chair in collaboration with Lilly Reich, who from 1908 to 1911 had worked at the Wiener Werkstätte under Josef Hoffmann. It was originally made for the German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition in 1929. Hans Knoll, another emigrant from Germany, founded the Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company in 1938, only a month after his arrival in New York. Its collaboration with expelled Bauhaus artists helped make the company one of America’s leading producers of designer furniture. Many Jewish Bauhaus students emigrated to Palestine in the 1930s. At this time, a veritable Bauhaus boom was taking place in Tel Aviv. In the 1930s and ’40s, some 4,000 structures in Bauhaus style or International Style were built there. The city of Tel Aviv, founded in 1909, thus has the largest ensemble of Bauhaus buildings in the world and since 2003 has been a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.90

89

Bradbury (2014), 206ff. Not all Bauhaus students were forced to emigrate: the Austrian architect and master builder Fritz Ertl studied architecture from 1928 to 1931 at the Bauhaus in Dessau. As deputy director of the SS Central Construction Management, he planned the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. 90

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From Bauhaus to International Style

6

a

Visionary Vienna— letting loose of Loos

NEW VIENNESE FURNITURE OF THE 1920S AND ’30S

The collapse of the Habsburg Empire, the founding of the Republic of Austria under the first state chancellor of the new republic, Karl Renner, in 1918, as well as the general hardship after World War I and the daily devaluation of the currency altered the working conditions of everyone, and this included the furniture designers in Vienna. While before World War I, Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos were designing houses and furniture for Vienna’s upper classes, now, after the end of the war, they were faced with completely new challenges. The housing situation in Vienna after 1918 was catastrophic. Countless refugees were streaming into the city, and housing was extremely scarce. It was not unusual for one-room apartments to be occupied by ten or more people. The Habsburg Empire had fallen apart, and the young Republic of Austria was struggling on every front. Vienna was ruled by the Social Democrats from 1918 to 1934, and they carried out social housing projects on a massive scale in “Red Vienna,” as the city’s working-class districts were known. Thus began a reform project whose objective was to significantly improve the overall living and housing situation in the Austrian capital. By 1934, some 400 municipal housing complexes with about 65,000 apartments had been built, structures that drew attention far beyond the national borders. While furniture and art objects by the Wiener Werkstätte had in the past been conceived with the upper class in mind, the approach of Vienna’s furniture designers now changed radically. In the interwar period, several generations of architects worked side by side; Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos, who were both forty-eight years old at the end of World War I, were now joined by the younger generation of architects: Oskar Strnad, Josef Frank, and their fellow students from the university.91 In Vienna, a very characteristic type of modern furniture design developed in these years, one that was distinctly different from the international 91 Josef Hoffmann taught architectrends, from functionalism and the Bauhaus style. Instead of luxurious, ture at the School of Arts and Crafts stately villas or apartment buildings, simple residential structures were built until 1936. In 1923, Adolf Loos and many apartments were renovated. The result was that many Viennese moved to Paris, where he lived until 1928. He then returned to Vienna architects, apart from their work on social housing projects, became active and died there in 1933. The Wiener primarily as furniture designers and interior architects. This led to a flourishWerkstätte had to close for financial ing of interior architecture and furniture design at this time, and the creative reasons: production was halted in 1931 and in 1932 bankruptcy potential of architects and furniture designers seemed inexhaustible. The declared. new age demanded new furniture that was distinguished by a diversity of 92 Ursula Prokop, Zum jüdischen forms, lightness, sophisticated details, and outstanding quality and Erbe in der Wiener Architektur. Der Beitrag jüdischer ArchitektInnen craftsmanship.92 am Wiener Baugeschehen 1868– For the younger generation of architects, the idea of the “Gesamt1938 (Vienna: Böhlau, 2016), 109; kunstwerk,” the complete synthesis of the arts championed by the Wiener Ottillinger (2009), 18. Werkstätte, was no longer relevant. A separation between art on the one hand and the function and form of furniture on the other was taken for granted by this group. These designers were much more concerned with the

Visionary Vienna—letting loose of Loos

43

issue of affordable living: furniture was to be affordable for everyone, with comfort and individuality given higher priority than luxury and prestige. It is notable that a number of architects who were active as furniture designers, such as Oskar Strnad, Oswald Haerdtl, and Carl Auböck, completed training in the crafts in addition to their architecture studies at the School of Arts and Crafts, the Polytechnic Institute, or the Academy of Fine Arts. The furniture designers of this time were firmly rooted in Austria’s centuries-old craft tradition.93 The interior-design movement that developed in Vienna in the 1920s was known as Neues Wiener Wohnen, or New Viennese Living. The Vienna-born architect and furniture designer Erich Boltenstern was the first to write about “New Viennese Furniture” and “New Viennese Living” in his 1935 book Wiener Möbel in Lichtbildern und maßgeblichen Rissen.94 A group of architects who were friends from their student days at the Polytechnic Institute or at Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule—Oskar Strnad, Josef Frank, Oskar Wlach, Hugo Gorge, and Viktor Lurje—worked together on projects, mounted exhibitions, designed furniture, and discussed their professional work among themselves. This group had already exhibited furniture together at the 1911 winter show of the Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie (Austrian Museum of Art and Industry), works that would be influential for the typically Viennese style of home furnishings of the 1920s and ’30s known as Wiener Wohnraumkultur.95 Walter Sobotka, Ernst Lichtblau, Jacques Groag, Paul Engelmann, Ernst Freud, and Felix Augenfeld, as well as Austria’s first female architects, Ella Briggs, Liane Zimbler, and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, made a name for themselves in these years as visionary furniture designers and gained recognition throughout Europe. It is noteworthy that the leading figures of Wiener Wohnraumkultur were largely architects and designers from Jewish families, many of whom had studied with Carl König, the first and only Jewish professor of architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute. It is no longer possible to say with any certainty whether the close bonds in this group were due to their training together at the Polytechnic Institute, to the time they spent together at Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule, or to their common Jewish heritage. In view of the ever-increasing antisemitism in Vienna at this time, it was a delicate balancing act for the Jews of the city to integrate into Viennese society while at the same time retaining their Jewish identity. With the timeless and elegantly proportioned Viennese furniture and interior décor of this time, the Viennese Jews, according to the art historian Elana Shapira, created their own identity in the middle of Vienna: places of peace; a home.96 In terms of interior and furniture design, they all followed similar principles, very much in accord with Adolf Loos: They rejected the idea of a home as a complete work of art; furniture should fit the needs of the occupants, with old and new furniture combined in an unfussy manner. A piece of furniture was to be comfortable, moveable, functional, light, and flexible. With their furniture and interior décor, these young designers also always focused on the social aspect: the improvement of the overall living and housing conditions of the occupants. Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank were among the pioneers of Neues Wiener Wohnen. The Viennese art historian Max Eisler, the intellectual mentor of the group surrounding Strnad and Frank, referred to Frank as the founder

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93 Thun-Hohenstein, Boeckl, and Witt-Dörring (2015), 140. 94 Erich Boltenstern, Wiener Möbel in Lichtbildern und maßgeblichen Rissen (Stuttgart: Julius Hoffmann, 1935) VI; see Ott-Wodni (2015), 71. 95 Prokop in Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 50. 96 Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 14; Elana Shapira, Sinn und Sinnlichkeit, Der Architekt Josef Frank und seine jüdische Klientel, in Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 60ff; Prokop, in ThunHohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 48ff.

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Boudoir for the Kunst-

schau at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry; design: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1927, © KAUAK bottom Living room in the exhibition “Wiener Raumkünstler” at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, Vienna, 1929/30; design: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, © MAK

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of the modern furniture design of this period in Vienna. Strnad had an unconventional and modern conception of living and home décor: he planned houses, painted watercolors, designed furniture, glassware, stage sets, and costumes, and furnished film sets. He published many essays and with his theories was instrumental in creating a basis for Wiener Wohnraumkultur.97 During his architecture studies with Carl König at the Polytechnic Institute, Strnad met Josef Frank, Oskar Wlach, and Walter Sobotka, who would become his professional colleagues and lifelong friends. After completing his studies, he became an independent architect, interior architect, and furniture designer and opened a joint office with Wlach. The two young architects participated in many competitions and planned their first houses. Several villas in Vienna date from this period, including the Stephan Hock house on Cobenzlgasse and a house for the writer Jakob Wassermann, both in the district of Döbling.98 At the age of thirty, Oskar Strnad began teaching at the School of Arts and Crafts. His teaching activities and his many lectures became an important part of the life of this versatile architect. His ideas about furniture design and home furnishings were heavily influenced by English models: furniture, in his view, was to be light, the goal being “a maximum of peace and comfort.”99 While Strnad did not receive any major building contracts in these years, he did enjoy considerable success as an interior architect and furniture designer. During this period, he also became an internationally sought-after stage designer, creating countless sets for the Volkstheater and State Opera in Vienna, for the Salzburg Festival, and for theaters in New York and Moscow. As a professor at the School of Arts and Crafts, the imaginative and perceptive Strnad fundamentally altered the thinking of his students— from Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Oswald Haerdtl, Felix Augenfeld, Otto Niedermoser, and Erich Boltenstern to Ernst Plischke—and influenced an entire generation of young furniture designers in Vienna.100 Josef Frank, who also studied architecture with Carl König at Vienna’s 97 Ott-Wodni (2015), 368. 98 https://www.architektenlexikon. Polytechnic Institute, met Adolf Loos while still a student. Loos’s ideas had at/de/635.htm (accessed July 26, a decisive influence on Frank’s work. Like Loos, Frank vehemently rejected 2021). the idea of staging interior design as a complete work of art. Following his 99 Erich Boltenstern, Die Wohnung studies, he first worked as a freelance architect and furniture designer in a für jedermann. Vorschläge für die Durchbildung und Verwendung loose working group with Oskar Strnad and Oskar Wlach. From 1919 to einfacher Möbel für die heutige 1925 Frank taught structural theory at the School of Arts and Crafts.101 Wohnung, Entwürfe aus der Fach klasse für Architektur an der KunstJosef Frank and Oskar Wlach also knew each other from their architecgewerbeschule in Wien unter der ture studies with Carl König at the Polytechnic Institute. In the mid-1920s, Leitung von Professor Dr. Oskar these young architects became involved in social housing projects for the Strnad (Stuttgart: Julius Hoffmann, City of Vienna. Like Josef Frank and Oskar Strnad, Wlach was a founding 1933), Foreword. 100 Friedrich Stadler (ed.), Vertriemember of the Österreichischer Werkbund (Austrian Association of Craftsbene Vernunft II. Emigration und Exil men). In 1925, closely following English models, Frank and Wlach estabösterreichischer Wissenschaft lished the Haus & Garten home furnishings company, which soon became 1930–1940 (reprint, Münster: LIT Verlag, 2004), 629. the first name in furnishings and furniture design in Vienna. Frank, who also 101 http://www.architektenlexikon. wrote numerous theoretical papers on furniture design, strictly rejected soat/de/146.htm (accessed July 26, called furniture sets; instead, he promoted the use of light and moveable 2021). 102 Matthias Boeckl (ed.), Visionäre pieces of furniture that could be placed freely and independently of each & Vertriebene. Österreichische other in a room. His furniture was characterized by simple, organic forms; Spuren in der modernen Architektur, his seating furniture was made to conform to the human body shape and published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at Kunstsize, while the furniture designer generally equipped his cupboards, comhalle Wien, 1995 (Berlin: Ernst & modes, and cabinets with tall, slender legs.102 Sohn, 1995), 348; Ott-Wodni (2015), 51ff. Two other architects were part of the circle surrounding Oskar Strnad, Josef Frank, and Oskar Wlach: Viktor Lurje and Hugo Gorge. Lurje, who also studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute, became an independent designer after finishing his studies, creating posters, glassware,

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ceramics, and furniture. In the 1920s, he worked for a brief time for the Gebrüder Schwadron ceramics company and the Wiener Werkstätte while also teaching under Josef Hoffmann at the School of Arts and Crafts.103 Hugo Gorge, who studied architecture at both the Polytechnic Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts, met Oskar Strnad while still a student, and the two became friends for life. Gorge also worked as Strnad’s assistant at the School of Arts and Crafts. In the interwar period, he designed interiors in Vienna as well as furniture and other craft objects. His unpretentious, well-conceived furniture was shown at numerous exhibitions in Europe. Gorge’s furniture reflected the zeitgeist—it was a reaction to the circumstances of the time as well as to the needs of the occupants. “Only the inspiration provided by the present day can be fertile for our work. We honor the good old things, because they were created the same way,” wrote the then 38-year-old designer on the subject of “the present.”104 Walter Sobotka also studied architecture with Carl König. After completing his studies, the young Viennese architect worked for Karl Korn, a prominent building firm at the time, and beginning in the mid-1920s was active in Vienna as a freelance architect and furniture designer. He furnished a large number of apartments and houses there and planned two apartment complexes for the City of Vienna. As an interior architect and furniture designer, he was an important figure in Wiener Wohnraumkultur. Sobotka published theoretical writings on the subject of home furnishing and furniture design as well. He was also involved with Haus & Garten, but only for a very brief time. Sobotka was friends not only with Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach but also with his professional colleagues Jacques Groag, Felix Augenfeld, and Karl Hofmann, and they worked together from time to time as well. His light, elegant furniture became the quintessence of Wiener Wohnraumkultur.105 Ernst Lichtblau studied architecture with Otto Wagner at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts. After his studies, the young architect taught technical drawing for furniture-making at the state school of crafts and participated in many design and architecture exhibitions of the Österreichischer Werkbund, which he had co-founded in 1912.106 As of the mid-1920s, he was active primarily as a freelance architect and furniture designer. Like Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank, Lichtblau had a penchant for comfortable, light furniture made of wood. In 1925, he founded the Ernst Lichtblau Werkstätte Ges.m.b.H, creating design products for everyday use. As an architect he was committed to social causes and was involved in several subsidized housing projects for the City of Vienna. At the end of the 1920s, he became director of the recently founded BEST, the Beratungsstelle für Inneneinrichtung of the Österreichischer Verband für Wohnungsreform (Advisory Board for Interior Decoration of the Austrian Association of Reformed Housing) and in this position worked closely with Josef Frank. A 103 Ott-Wodni (2015), 71. permanent exhibition at BEST showed model apartments as well as af104 http://www.architektenlexikon. fordable furniture and domestic objects. Lichtblau and Frank worked closeat/de/178.htm (accessed July 22, ly together at the Österreichischer Werkbund as well. Lichtblau, Frank, and 2021). 105 Prokop (2016), 130. Walter Sobotka shared a long and deep friendship.107 106 Boeckl (1995), 337. Paul Engelmann studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute. He 107 http://www.architektenlexikon. was one of the first students, along with Rudolph Michael Schindler, Richat/de/357.htm (accessed July 21, ard Neutra, Ernst Freud, Jacques Groag, and Felix Augenfeld, to attend Ad2021). olf Loos’s Bauschule, and he later worked for Loos. Through Loos, the young architect also met Ludwig Wittgenstein and at the end of the 1920s built Palais Stonborough, in Vienna’s third district, for the Wittgenstein

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left

Dining room in the

exhibition “Die neuzeitliche Wohnung – Die Mietwohnung” at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, Vienna, 1930/31; design: Walter Sobotka; execution: J. Spira; photographer: Julius Scherb, © KAUAK

family. In the 1920s and ’30s he designed a great deal of interior décor and furniture in his hometown of Olomouc, now in the Czech Republic.108 Ernst Freud, born in Vienna in 1892 as the fourth child of Sigmund Freud, also studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute and attended Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule. Together with his boyhood friend and fellow student Richard Neutra, he undertook many study trips and in 1913 moved to Munich to continue his studies at that city’s Polytechnic Institute. After completing his studies, he moved to Berlin, where he worked as a freelance architect. At the beginning of the 1930s, Freud, along with Karl Hofmann, and Felix Augenfeld, renovated the weekend home of his sister Anna Freud and designed a great deal of furniture.109 Jacques Groag moved from Olomouc to Vienna to study at the Polytechnic Institute and at Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule. At the end of the 1920s he began working independently as an architect and furniture designer, built single-family homes, and designed apartments and furniture. He collaborated with Loos on the Villa Moller, on Starkfriedgasse in Vienna’s Währing district; with Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer on the design of the Heller tennis clubhouse in Hietzing; and with Paul Engelmann on Palais Stonborough, all among the most modern and visionary architecture projects of the time. Groag specialized in interior and furniture design and was close friends with Felix Augenfeld.110 Felix Augenfeld also studied architecture with Carl König and attended Adolf Loos’s Bauschule. After finishing his studies, he worked independently as an architect and furniture designer, starting a joint studio with his friend and former fellow student Karl Hofmann.

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108

Myra Warhaftig, Sie legten den Grundstein. Leben und Wirken deutschsprachiger jüdischer Architekten in Palästina 1918–1948 (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1996), 252. 109 https://deu.archinform.net/ arch/3326.htm (accessed July 21, 2021). 110 http://www.architektenlexikon. at/de/182.htm (accessed July 21, 2021).

Hofmann, three years his senior, also studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute. In addition to working on several large building projects in Vienna and Brno, now in the Czech Republic, the two young architects also designed a great deal of home furnishings and furniture. They renovated and furnished tiny apartments as well. The furnishing of very small apartments for working singles presented the interior architects of this period with new challenges in furniture design. Augenfeld and Hofmann also designed stage sets for theaters, including in London under the direction of Max Reinhardt, and worked on successful theater productions with Oskar Strnad. The personal contact with Strnad had a significant influence on the work of Augenfeld. Augenfeld was very close to the Freud family and even designed Sigmund Freud’s desk chair. In their interior design—particularly for small apartments—the two young architects were proponents of multifunctional furniture. They used built-in furniture as well as fold-out cupboards and light, portable chairs, also utilizing very vibrant colors. In addition to drawing on furniture and fabrics from Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach’s Haus & Garten home furnishings company, Augenfeld and Hofmann also used furniture of their own design in their interiors. This architecture duo created sideboards, built-in cupboards, and secretaries, using variously structured, precious woods for their surfaces.111 Otto Breuer also studied architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute as well as being a student of Adolf Loos. In 1919, he spent a semester studying at the Bauhaus in Weimar and in the 1920s operated a home furnishings business in Vienna and designed numerous pieces of furniture.112 Through their teaching activity at the School of Arts and Crafts, Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank were immensely influential for the young generation of furniture designers. Oswald Haerdtl studied architecture with Strnad and later became Josef Hoffmann’s assistant. In 1922, Haerdtl began teaching at Vienna’s School of Arts and Crafts, where he was to remain for thirty-eight years. He also worked in Josef Hoffmann’s private workshop, later took over as its director, and finally became Hoffmann’s business partner. In this time, 111 Ottillinger (2009), 131; Boeckl he designed a large number of tables, chairs, chandeliers, mirrors, and other (1995), 327. furniture and domestic items. After the death of Strnad in 1935, Haerdtl took 112 https://www.architektenlexikon. over teaching Strnad’s architecture class and in 1938 also began teaching a at/de/63.htm (accessed July 24, 2021). new class in commercial and industrial design. Oswald Haerdtl’s designs 113 Adolph Stiller, Oswald Haerdtl. shaped furniture design in Vienna until the end of the 1950s.113 Architekt und Designer 1899–1959. Ernst Plischke was another student of Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank. From the collection of the Architekturzentrum Wien; catalog published At the age of twenty-five, he started his own architecture firm in Vienna. His in conjunction with an exhibition of first contract was designing the furnishings for the Vienna apartment of the the same name (Salzburg: Anton ceramic artist Lucie Rie. At the end of the 1920s, Plischke often collaboratPustet, 2000), 21, 33; Ingrid Holzschuh and Monika Platzer ed with Frank. He was primarily active in furnishing apartments and design(eds.), Wien. Die Perle des Reiches. ing furniture. Plischke also worked together with his younger sister Grete Planen für Hitler, published in conFrey, a textile designer in Vienna who designed drapery and furniture fabjunction with an exhibition of the same name (Zurich: Park Books, rics for furnishing his apartments.114 2015), 87. Walter Loos, the son of a furniture dealer, began studying with Josef 114 https://www.architektenlexikon. Hoffmann and Josef Frank at the School of Arts and Crafts in 1921. In the at/de/468.htm (accessed July 22, 2021). mid-1920, Walter Loos lived in Paris, where he met and later worked with 115 https://www.architektenlexikon. Adolf Loos (the two were not related). When Walter Loos returned to Vienat/de/363.htm (accessed July 22, na, he started his own business as an architect and furniture designer. He 2021). 116 Martin Eisler, excerpt from the designed furniture and furnished apartments and worked together with academic course, Collection and Walter Sobotka and Jacques Groag.115 Archives of the University for Ap plied Arts Vienna. Martin Eisler, the son of the Viennese art historian Max Eisler, who was a close friend of Josef Frank, was another of Oskar Strnad’s most gifted students. In 1934, immediately after completing his studies, he started his own business as an architect and furniture designer in Vienna.116

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Ernst Schwadron, a son of the successful building contractor Viktor Schwadron and founder of the Brüder Schwadron ceramics company, studied only one year—from 1918 to 1919—at Vienna’s School of Arts and Crafts and attended Michael Powolny’s workshop for ceramics. When he entered the School of Arts and Crafts, however, he stated that his desired career was “architect.”117 Ernst Schwadron had grown up surrounded by architects and artists and in the 1920s and ’30s had a successful career as an interior architect and furniture designer; he built private homes and designed many shops and even a cinema in Vienna. He frequently collaborated with the ceramic artist Vally Wieselthier in creating his interiors. Schwadron designed all of his furnishings himself, making use of space-saving and light furniture such as room dividers, custom-made sideboards, and folding doors.118 The focal point of the young architects of Wiener Wohnraumkultur was furnishings and furniture design. The timeless forms and lightness of their many furniture designs and carefully thought-out interiors—very much in the spirit of Adolf Loos—had a great influence on home décor in Vienna. Furniture design from 1920s and ’30s Vienna was very popular not only in the city but also all over Europe. A NEW IMAGE OF WOMEN: FEMALE ARCHITECTS AS DESIGNERS

b

In Vienna, as in other major European cities, the end of World War I saw the emergence of a completely new image of women. Young, independent women with university degrees were making a name for themselves as artists, architects, and furniture designers. Vienna’s School of Arts and Crafts, founded in 1867, played an important role in this regard. It was the only state educational facility at that time where women were allowed to study.119 In that period in Vienna, women could receive training in the arts or crafts in one of some thirty-five private art schools. In October 1868, in the first academic year of the School of Arts and Crafts, seven of the seventy-eight students were women. There was a large number of applicants because the education program at the School of Arts and Crafts was both a high-quality and an inexpensive alternative to a private art school.120 However, the school’s policy of equal access for men and women was soon rescinded and reinstated only in 1900. From the end of World War I until 1938, the number of women at the School of Arts and Crafts then increased until they made up over half of all students.121 After the end of World War I, women were finally granted access to the universities. The areas of building and architecture, however, were particularly male dominated. Compared with other European countries, Austria was relatively late in allowing female students to study architecture. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna did not accept women until 1920. Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute had begun accepting female students a year before, but their numbers were very small: in the 1919/20 academic year, some 65 women studied at the Polytechnic Institute, but only 20 were fully enrolled. This represented 0.4 percent of the student population. In 1937 this number rose to 40 women, compared with 3,000 men. Thus, in the 1930s, women made up only 2.3 percent of all students at the Polytechnic Institute. The Academy of Fine Arts, as was mentioned, opened its doors to women for the first time in the 1920/21 academic year; in the 1922 winter semester, 25 of the school’s 241 students were women.122

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117

Boeckl (1995), 343.

118 Ibid. 119

Prokop (2016), 192. Bernadette Reinhold, “‘Weibliche artistische Arbeitskräfte’ in spe. Frauenstudium an der frühen Kunst-

120

gewerbeschule, Ein unbequemer Rückblick,” in Gerald Bast, Anja Seipenbusch-Hufschmied, and Patrick Werkner (eds.), 150 Jahre Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien. Ästhetik der Veränderung (Berlin: De Gruyter, Edition Angewandte, 2017), 158. 121 Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, “Beruf: ’Frau Architekt.’ Zur Ausbildung der ersten Architektinnen in Wien,” in Marcel Bois and Bernadette Reinhold (eds.), Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Architektur. Politik. Geschlecht. Neue Perspektiven auf Leben und Werk (Vienna: Edition Angewandte, book series of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Birkhäuser, 2019), 38. 122 Reinhold in Bast, Seipenbusch-Hufschmied, and Werkner (2017), 158.​

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“One-Room Apartment” in the exhibi-

tion “Wiener Raumkünstler” at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, Vienna, 1929/30; design: Ernst Lichtblau; execution: Möbelfabrik

bottom Christmas show at the Künst-

Anton Hergesell; metal furniture: Josef &

lerhaus; design: Ernst Lichtblau,

Leopold Quittner; fabrics: Paul Würzel; light

Vienna, c. 1930; photographer: Julius

fixtures: Melzer & Neuhardt, © MAK

Scherb, © KAUAK

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In interwar Vienna, a number of female architects and artists assumed a pioneering role in interior architecture and furniture design. Although they did not have an easy time of it, numerous women were able to successfully establish themselves as architects, designers, and businesswomen in Vienna in the 1920s and ’30s, which would have been unimaginable before World War I. The first female architects and furniture designers were predominantly young, modern women from Jewish families. They were university-trained, cosmopolitan, and staunch feminists; they were champions of women’s rights and social housing, and demonstrated not only inexhaustible creativity but also enormous personal perseverance. The female architecture students at the School of Arts and Crafts devoted themselves first and foremost to designing furniture, interior décor, and simple houses. Although the title was not officially conferred, the first female architecture students, such as Ella Briggs and Margarete SchütteLihotzky, signed their plans self-assuredly with the designation “architect.”123 Beginning in 1937, only those who had passed the examination for civil engineers were permitted to bear the title of “architect.” In 1938, Liane Zimbler became the first woman to pass the civil engineering test in Vienna.124 Ella Briggs, born in Vienna in 1880 as Ella Baumfeld, began studying with Koloman Moser and Johann Hrdlicka at the School of Arts and Crafts in 1901. After completing her studies, she lived for several years in New York City, where she gathered her first experience in furniture design and construction. There, she married Walter Briggs, a journalist and Austrian military attaché from Vienna who was based in the US. In New York, she designed and furnished, among other things, the common rooms of the Deutsches Theater. After five years in Manhattan, Ella Briggs, who referred to herself as an architect, returned to Vienna, where she designed furniture, worked as an interior architect, and participated in exhibitions in Austria and abroad. She presented her furniture designs in Vienna in 1914 in a craft exhibition at the Neuer Wiener Frauenclub (New Vienna Women’s Club) as well as at the Austrian Association of Women Artists. At this time, she was also working for the prominent Viennese furniture maker Sigmund Jaray. In 1918 she enrolled in the Polytechnic Institute in Munich to study architecture, completing her studies in 1920 with a degree in engineering, thus becoming Austria’s first female architect. Briggs was already forty years old at the time. The following year, she also became the first female member of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects. In Vienna, she was involved in many subsidized housing projects and in 1925 was commissioned by the City of Vienna to plan the Pestalozzi-Hof in Döbling, for which she designed small, pre-furnished apartments. Briggs and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, who was seventeen years her junior, were the only two women to be given building commissions for “Red Vienna.” They designed the décor and furniture to be functional, utilitarian, and flexible: they wanted their furniture design to contribute to the improvement of the general housing situation, and particularly of the lives of working women.125 Elisabeth Nießen, born in Bielitz—now the town of Bielsko-Biała in Poland—in 1884, studied architecture at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna from 1913 to 1917, becoming the first women to officially graduate from that school in architecture. She devoted herself primarily to the design of furniture and interiors.126

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123

Ibid., 40. Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, Ein Leben, zwei Karrieren. Die Architektin Liane Zimbler, in Boeckl (1995), 295ff.

124

125

Maasberg and Prinz (2005) 97ff. Plakolm-Forsthuber in Bois and Reinhold (2019), 42.​

126

127

Stadler (2004), 629ff.

128 https://www.werkbundsiedlung-

wien.at/biografien/rosa-weiser (accessed July 27, 2021). 129

Katharina Hövelmann, Bauhaus in Wien? Möbeldesign, Innenraumgestaltung und Architektur der Wiener Ateliergemeinschaft von Friedl Dicker und Franz Singer (dissertation, University of Vienna, 2018), 99ff.; Plakolm-Forsthuber in Bois and Reinhold (2019), 341.

130

Verena Sander, Felice “Lizzi” Rix-Ueno. Der Japonismus kehrt heim (diploma thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2018), 8. 131 Ibid. 132

Stadler (2004), 629ff.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, born in Vienna in 1897, began studying architecture in 1915 with Oskar Strnad, who fundamentally shaped her way of thinking. At the beginning of the 1920s she started working with Adolf Loos in Vienna as an architect and furniture designer. From the very beginning of her career, she occupied herself with the areas of social housing and housing developments. An important role in her professional life was played by the settlement movement in Vienna, in which architects such as Loos and Josef Frank were also important figures. In 1927 she designed her Frankfurt Kitchen, the first modern fitted kitchen. In the middle of the twentieth century, her functional kitchen became a central theme in furniture design as well as in the feminist movement.127 Rosa Weiser, born in Salzburg in 1897, was another of Oskar Strnad’s female architecture students. Beginning in 1927 she spent several years working for Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach as a furniture designer for Haus & Garten.128 Friedl Dicker, born in Vienna in 1898, attended the Graphische Lehrund Versuchsanstalt (Higher Institution for Graphic Education and Research) in Vienna before studying textile art from 1915 to 1916 at the School of Arts and Crafts. At the same time, she attended Johannes Itten’s private art school, later following Itten to the Bauhaus in Weimar. In the mid-1920s, after finishing her studies at the Bauhaus, she and her friend Franz Singer, whom she had met at Itten’s school, opened a joint studio in Vienna. Dicker worked primarily as an interior architect and furniture designer, and Singer as an architect. As furniture designers, they were far ahead of their time: their designs and their furniture were characterized by spatial economy, multifunctionality, and individuality, as well as chromaticity and material diversity. The visionary creations of Dicker and Singer soon became the paragon of modern Viennese furniture design and known far beyond Vienna.129 Felice “Lizzi” Rix attended the Higher Institution for Graphic Education and Research in Vienna, where she also met Liane Zimbler, a classmate who would later become a successful architect and furniture designer. While still a student of Josef Hoffmann at the School of Arts and Crafts, she worked as a designer for the Wiener Werkstätte, primarily designing fabrics and books. After her studies, she became a freelance designer but continued to create numerous fabric patterns for Hoffmann.130 In Vienna, Lizzi Rix met the Japanese architect and designer Isaburo Ueno, who was also studying with Josef Hoffmann and working in his studio. They married in 1925 and moved to Kyoto the following year. There, the young couple founded the Ueno Architectural Office; he planned buildings, while she was responsible for the entire interior architecture. Rix-Ueno had a successful career in Japan as an interior architect and as a fabric, product, and furniture designer. In the mid-1920s she traveled to Vienna several times to continue her work for the Wiener Werkstätte, also taking part in several exhibitions in Austria.131 Jacqueline Groag, born in Prague in 1903 as Hilde Pick, studied architecture with Josef Hoffmann at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna.132 After finishing her studies there, she launched her own business as a furniture and fabric designer while also working for the Wiener Werkstätte. Wed to the civil servant Karl Ludwig Blumberger in her first marriage, she earned an international reputation as a fabric designer under the name Hilde Blumberger or Hilde Bloomberg. She went to Paris in the early 1930s and

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received commissions from leading French fashion companies like Chanel and Lanvin. In 1931 she met her second husband, Jacques Groag, and moved back to Vienna with him. Her inventive rugs and fabric patterns were presented at numerous international exhibitions. Jacqueline Groag became one of Europe’s most prominent fabric designers in the twentieth century.133 In the 1919/20 academic year, a small group of women began studying architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute. The first female architects in Vienna were committed to social causes and championed women’s rights and the improvement of conditions for working women of that time; their furniture designs were visionary in many respects. Interestingly, the first women to study architecture at the Polytechnic Institute came from Jewish families. Liane Zimbler, born in Moravia as Juliane Fischer, enrolled at that school in 1930/1931 as an audit student; she was thirty-eight years old at the time. It is unclear where she had studied previous to this, but already at the age of twenty-four she had been active as an architect and furniture designer in Vienna and marked her designs with the stamp “Architekt Liane Zimbler.”134 Beginning in 1916, she designed furniture as an employee at the Carl Bamberger AG furniture factory in Vienna. In the following years, she increasingly devoted herself to interior design, adapting and modernizing many apartments in Vienna and furnishing business premises. In the mid-1920s she became an independent architect and furniture designer and opened her own studio, which was soon so successful that she opened another office in Prague. The young architect was also a member of the Wiener Frauenkunst association of female artists, president of the Association for Housing Reform, and gave lectures in Vienna and Paris.135 Liane Zimbler was not only a successful architect and furniture designer but also a staunch feminist. In creating her rooms and furniture, she was primarily concerned with designing living rooms, kitchens, and furniture in a functional and economical manner to fit the needs of a working woman or a working couple. An important focus of her work was the construction and furnishing of very small apartments for the working woman with functional furniture and spaces that had to serve both her private and her working life. Along with Oskar Strnad, Josef Frank, Ernst Lichtblau, and Felix Augenfeld, she was one of the leading figures of Wiener Wohnraumkultur.136 Leopoldine Schrom studied from 1923 to 1931, with several interruptions, at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute and was thus one of five women who were enrolled in the architecture program in 1923. In 1925, Anna Szabo, seven years her elder, also began studying at the Polytechnic Institute. In 1929, Szabo and Schrom went to work at the joint studio Singer & Dicker, where the two young architects designed furnishings, remodeled commercial premises, and created prototypes for furniture.137 Eugenie “Jenny” Pillat studied at the Polytechnic Institute as well and in 1934 also joined Singer & Dicker.138 Karola Bloch suffered greatly from the misogynistic attitudes toward female students at the Polytechnic Institute and in 1931 moved to Berlin and then to Zurich, where she completed her architecture studies in 1934. Bloch was married to the Viennese philosopher Ernst Bloch. In the mid-1930s, the young architect and designer lived in Prague, where she designed furniture and interior décor together with Friedl Dicker.139

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133

Ursula Prokop, Das Architekten-

und Designer-Ehepaar Jacques und Jacqueline Groag. Zwei vergessene Künstler der Wiener Moderne (Vienna: Böhlau, 2005), 13, 55ff. 134 Some biographies mention her studying at the School of Arts and Crafts; however, the Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna has no record of this. 135 Plakolm-Forsthuber in Boeckl (1995), 295ff. 136

Prokop (2016), 198ff. Hövelmann (2018), 116ff. 138 Hövelmann (2018), 117. 139 Plakolm-Forsthuber in Bois and Reinhold (2019), 46. 137

right Interior furnishings, exhibition of the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts; designs and interior architect: Liane Zimbler; wall design: Maria StraussLikarz; fireplace: Herta Bucher, Vienna, c. 1930; photographer: Martin Gerlach jun., © KAUAK

140

Ibid., 47.

Among the first female students who studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute was also a small group of Zionists: Helene Roth, born in Vienna in 1904, was one of the first female graduates of the Polytechnic Institute and in the mid-1930s emigrated to Palestine. Dora Siegel, born in Transylvania in 1912, studied architecture in Vienna from 1930 to 1934 and graduated with a degree in architecture and mechanical engineering. In Vienna, Dora met her first husband, Heinrich Goldberg, who also studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute. The young couple married in Vienna in 1936 and emigrated that same year to Tel Aviv. Both Roth and Goldberg were able to establish themselves as successful interior architects and furniture designers and had astounding careers.140

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c

HAUS & GARTEN—ROOMS AND FURNITURE FOR THE SOUL Inspired by English models, Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach opened their Haus & Garten interior design firm in downtown Vienna on June 16, 1925. The exhibition space and salesroom were located at 5 Bösendorferstraße, in downtown Vienna very near the Musikverein and the Künstlerhaus. The architects themselves moved into a studio on Königsklostergasse, in the sixth district; the office later moved to 5a Museumstraße in the seventh district. Their mutual friend from their student days, Walter Sobotka, was also briefly involved in Haus & Garten. Beginning in 1926, Frank and Wlach ran the business as equal partners. As the company’s artistic director, Josef Frank designed countless pieces of furniture and fabric samples for the business, created interiors, and planned houses and gardens. Oskar Wlach acted as the general manager; he, as well, designed furniture and interior décor for their business but was always overshadowed by his friend and business partner.141 The product line of Haus & Garten was broad, ranging from furniture, fabrics, lamps, rugs, and garden furniture to small décor items like ceramics and glassware. In planning their houses, the two architects were responsible not only for the architecture, the complete interior design, and the furniture, but with some projects also for the garden landscaping.142 Josef Frank furnished his rooms according to his unconventional motto: “One can use everything that one can use”—as if he created his interior designs entirely by chance.143 His philosophy with regard to home furnishings greatly influenced Viennese interior design in the 1920s and ’30s. The walls of the apartments and houses he furnished were always painted white. Frank, who rejected the use of tubular steel in his furnishings, preferred moveable pieces of furniture made of wood that could be positioned in a room freely and independently of each other. He designed his furniture with tall, narrow legs, and he often equipped his graceful secretaries and tables with a folding mechanism so they could be used flexibly in a living space. The occupants of the home were to utilize the furniture in a variety of ways and place every object exactly where it was needed. He often painted his chairs, vitrines, and chests in bright colors. Frank also designed colorfully patterned fabrics with plant and flower designs for their own shop. In his home furnishings, he used these fabrics for furniture, lampshades, and draperies. Brass or colorfully painted lamps in a wide variety of forms were to ensure a cozy atmosphere. Furnishings were designed to be comfortable, and the occupants were supposed to feel at home, relaxed, and at peace.144 Haus & Garten soon became Vienna’s premiere shop for home furnishings and furniture design. Immediately after the founding of the business, in 1925, Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach showed their furniture designs for Haus & Garten at the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. They installed a Café Viennois there and exhibited their furniture and fabrics—to the delight of the French press! The business very quickly became well known throughout Europe. The furniture and home décor created by this Viennese company could be found at many Austrian and international exhibitions and was featured in numerous architecture magazines.145

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141 142

Ott-Wodni (2015), 51ff.

Prokop (2016), 114ff.; Iris Meder, Der Garten bestimmt den Innenraum, in Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 156ff. 143 Josef Frank, “Der Gschnas fürs G’müt und der Gnschas als Problem,” 1927, in Tano Bojankin, Christopher Long, and Iris Meder, Josef Frank. Schriften, Vol. 1 (Vienna: Metroverlag, 2012), 298. 144 Prokop (2016), 114ff.; OttWodni (2015), 86ff.; Iris Meder in Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 156ff. 145 Ibid.

In his designs for furniture for Haus & Garten, Josef Frank placed great importance on top-quality materials and superior workmanship. The company did not produce its furniture itself; rather, it worked together with over forty external, carefully vetted, highly specialized craft businesses that executed the furniture designs of the two architects. One of these businesses was the J.T. Kalmar Leuchten lamp company, founded in Vienna in 1881 by the Viennese designer and entrepreneur Julius Theodor Kalmar. Kalmar, who had studied design with Josef Hoffmann at the School of Arts and Crafts and at the Birmingham School of Art in England, worked closely with Haus & Garten. A close collaboration also existed between Frank and the fabric producer Backhausen. The furniture designs were executed by cabinetmakers including Anton Kral, Karl Schreitl, and Franz Breit and produced in small numbers for Haus & Garten.146 The first prestigious commission for Haus & Garten was for the interior design, furnishing, and garden landscaping of the Krasny house at 5 Fürfanggasse, on the elegant Hohe Warte in Döbling. In 1927, Otto and Agathe Krasny commissioned Arnold Karplus, who at this time was just starting his career as a freelance architect in Vienna, to build the house for them. Arnold Karplus’s eldest son, 18-year-old Gerhard, was studying at the Polytechnic Institute at the time and assisted his father with this project. Karplus, in turn, contracted Haus & Garten to see to the furnishings. When Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach joined the project, the house was already under construction, and they therefore had to work with the existing floorplan in executing their interior design. Although Haus & Garten was responsible “only” for the interior design, the furniture, and the garden landscaping, this project was among the most important that Haus & Garten ever carried out. Frank and Wlach designed the entire interior, from the stairs, wall units, several bedrooms, the dressing room, study, and living room to the bathrooms, kitchen, pantry, dumbwaiter, and the terrace and garden.147 The interior architecture of the Krasny house reflected Josef Frank’s philosophy regarding home décor and his principles in terms of furniture design: the center of the house was designed as a multifunctional, generously proportioned living room. Through the use of patterned, floor-length drapes, the different living areas—dining room, living room, and music room—could be separated from each other. Light, moveable furniture made of wood from the Haus & Garten product line was arranged around an open fireplace designed by Frank. A chaise longue, several wooden armchairs, and a sofa served as comfortable places to relax. Most of the furniture came from the Haus & Garten collection, while Frank designed some pieces, such as the secretary in the study, the table in the foyer, and the glass-front bar cabinet, especially for the Krasny house. The Aralia fabric, which the architect also designed for this project, was included in the Haus & Garten collection and used in other furnishings as well and shown in many exhibitions. The complete furnishings were to have a calming, relaxing, and pleasing effect on the occupants of the house.148 Josef Frank was able to realize another of his design principles in this house: the indivisible connection between interior and exterior, between house and garden. The garden should serve as an extension of the house, which in turn should be opened to the garden. Every level was to have its own terraces, and the garden, as well, was to be designed in a terraced and structured manner.

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Floor lamp, brass,

partially painted white, cloth lampshade; design: Josef Frank for Haus & Garten; execution: J. T. Kalmar, both Vienna, c. 1930, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2016

146

Prokop (2016), 126ff.; OttWodni (2015), 52ff., 203ff. 147 Marlene Ott-Wodni, “Das Haus Krasny auf der Hohen Warte. Eine Manifestation der Internationalen Moderne in Wien,” in Steine sprechen, Zeitschrift der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Denkmal- und Ortsbildpflege, No. 147/148 (Vienna: 2014), 48. 148 Ibid., 49.

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Living room of the Krasny house; designs, interior architecture, and furniture: Josef

Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1928; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK

top R. Aralia fabric with screen printing; design: Josef Frank for Haus & Garten, Vienna, c. 1928, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2016 bottom R. Chair Type B, cherry, bamboo, and plaited cord; design: Josef Frank for Haus & Garten, Vienna, c. 1925, © Dorotheum Visionary Vienna—letting loose of Loos

Vienna, 2014

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Staircase in the foyer

of the Krasny house; designs, interior architecture, and furniture: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1928; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK center Foyer of the Krasny house; designs, interior architecture, and furniture: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1928; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK bottom Design for a telephone table, with rubbed varnish and black linoleum top, for the Krasny house; Josef Frank for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1928, © MAK right Kitchen/pantry in the Krasny house; design: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1928; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK

149

Iris Meder in Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 160ff. 150 Ibid.

For the landscape design, the architect worked closely with the gardener Hanny Strauß, who operated a nursery on Peter-Jordan-Straße in Döbling. Strauß was known in Vienna at that time for her English-style gardens, full of color and unconventional in their layout with flowering shrub beds.149 Josef Frank designed delicate, graceful garden chairs and tables of thin, white-painted metal bars. The delicate garden furniture was not to take way any light and to cast very little shadow. On the gleaming white façade of the house, according to Frank, one should see only the shadow of the trees. The generously laid-out, four-level, white house—consisting of cubic, overlapping structural shells with an open staircase, several terraces, and a flat roof—situated in a spacious garden with a breathtaking view of the city drew a great deal of attention in Vienna and beyond when it was completed in 1928. It became a textbook example of modern villa architecture of the late 1920s.150 Particular notice was paid to Haus & Garten’s interior design and garden landscaping, which was depicted in numerous architecture magazines, such as Innendekoration and Moderne Bauformen. “This garden alone suffices to recognize what the intention ultimately is here. For its form unites clarity and

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Living room of the Krasny house; designs, interior architecture,

and furniture: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1928; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK

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Guest room with secretary in the Krasny house; designs: Josef Frank and Oskar

Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1928; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK

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Secretary, Makassar

ebony with restored rubbing varnish; design: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1925, © MAK

151

Max Eisler, “Werkstätten Haus & Garten in Wien,” in Innendekoration, November 1930.

152

Iris Meder (ed.), Josef Frank. Eine Moderne der Unordnung (Salzburg: Anton Prustet, 2008), 48. 153 Ott-Wodni (2015), 208. 154 Ibid. 155

Boeckl (1995), 348; Ott-Wodni (2015), 54. 156 “Historisches Grundbuch der Stadt Wien,” Bezirksgericht Döbling, Fürfanggasse 5; entry from May 23, 1938; annexation by the German Reich Treasury (Army).

intimate movement, reason, and beauty,” wrote the art historian Max Eisler enthusiastically in an essay for the magazine Innendekoration. 151 Gio Ponti also showed several rooms of the Krasny house in his magazine Domus. When it was completed in 1928, it was regarded as Vienna’s most modern villa. Josef Frank, the mastermind behind this project, infused the house with something extraordinary and magical and gave its rooms a soul. His idea that “The house will presumably not produce a new society with its form, but it can certainly help encourage people to think more freely” can be clearly felt in the rooms of the Krasny house.152 Shortly after the Krasny house was completed in 1928, in addition to a number of apartment renovations and exhibitions, another large-scale architecture project followed for Haus & Garten. In 1929, Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach planned a house on Wenzgasse in Hietzing for the Viennese shoe-sole producer Julius Beer, his wife Margarethe, and their three children. In this villa, measuring nearly 7,000 square meters, the two architects implemented the idea of an open floor plan, and here, as well, they were concerned with merging the interior with the exterior, the house with the garden.153 Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach furnished the house with light furniture made of wood and colorful fabrics from Haus & Garten. The glass-front bar cabinet they had designed for the Krasny house was used in the Beer house as well in a slightly different size. The similarities between the furnishings of the two houses are unmistakable, be it in the selection of the wood floors or the design of the staircases, kitchen cabinets, wall units in the bedrooms, or doorhandles. The Beer house was completed in 1931 and today is not only among the most important projects of Haus & Garten but also a milestone in the annals of twentieth-century architecture.154 At the end of 1933, Josef Frank and his wife emigrated to Stockholm, and Oskar Wlach continued to successfully run the business in Vienna. Until 1938, Frank returned to Vienna frequently and during this period remained active as a designer for Haus & Garten. He wanted to move the company headquarters from Vienna to London, but Wlach was adamantly opposed to the idea. In the mid-1930s, Wlach was able to further expand exports of furniture and fabrics, opening branch offices in Prague, Milan, Paris, and Chicago. Haus & Garten also presented its furniture designs at the 1936 Milan Triennale and the following year at the international exposition in Paris. Wlach and Frank’s designs for Haus & Garten made the Viennese furniture of the 1920s and ’30s very popular all over Europe, and the customers of Haus & Garten came from far and wide to visit what many enthusiasts regarded as the most beautiful interior design shop in all of Europe.155 The regular customers and clients of Haus & Garten, such as the Krasny, Karplus, Beer, Bunzl, Blitz, Epstein, and Tedesko families, were friends of Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach or related to them. The year 1938 spelled an abrupt end to this golden age of Viennese furniture design. Otto and Agathe Krasny fled to America in 1938, and in May 1938 their house was confiscated by the Nazis.156 The childless couple never returned to Vienna. In 1939, Arnold Karplus and his wife Else emigrated to the US as well. Their son Gerhard and daughter Ruth had already fled to New York City in 1938 and the younger son Hans to South America. Arnold Karplus died in Venezuela in 1943 at the age of sixty-six.

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Living room of the Beer house; designs, architecture, interior architecture, and furniture: Josef

Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1931; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK

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Dining room of the Beer house; designs, architecture, interior architecture, and furniture: Josef

Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1931; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK

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Living room of the Beer

house; designs, architecture, interior architecture, and furniture: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1931; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK bottom Parlor on the second level of the Beer house; designs, architecture, interior architecture, and furniture: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1931; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK

The Beer house stood empty during World War II. In 1940, Julius and Margarethe Beer fled from Vienna to New York City, where Julius Beer died soon after his arrival. Their daughter Helene had already emigrated in 1938 with her husband Rudolf Sternschein to Scotland, and in 1939 their son Henry Beer reached New York as well via Scotland. The youngest of the three siblings, Elisabeth Beer, was deported to Minsk in 1942 and murdered in Maly Trostenets. Margarethe Beer returned to Vienna after the war, and Henry Beer was stationed in Austria as a US soldier.157 In 1938, Oskar Wlach emigrated to New York City as well. After the Nazis seized power in Austria in March 1938, Haus & Garten was immediately “Aryanized” and the shop was taken over by Julius Theodor Kalmar and his brother Josef Kalmar as so-called Aryanizers.158 The precise circumstances of the Aryanization can no longer be reconstructed today. Wlach and Frank’s shop was not returned to them after the end of World War II, and the petition for restitution that Oskar Wlach submitted at the beginning of the 1950s was rejected. The families subsequently agreed on a settlement.159 Hanny Strauß, who designed all the gardens for Haus & Garten, fled with her family to Palestine in 1938.

157

Tano Bojankin, Das Haus Beer und seine Bewohner, in Meder (2008), 105ff. 158 Prokop (2016), 128. 159 Ott-Wodni (2015), 54; Prokop (2016), 129.​​

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d

BAUHAUS IN THE MIDDLE OF VIENNA— THE SINGER & DICKER JOINT STUDIO In 1923, after graduating from the Bauhaus, the young designers Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer founded the Werkstätten Bildender Kunst in Berlin, a joint fine-arts studio specializing in stage sets, bookbinding, textiles, graphics, and children’s toys. In the mid-1920s, Dicker moved from Berlin back to Vienna. There, she opened a studio at 2 Wasserburggasse in the ninth district, where she produced woven fabrics and handbags, assisted by Martha Hauska. Singer followed her to Vienna in February 1925. He initially worked in a studio space in his apartment at 18 Schadekgasse in the sixth district but that same year joined Dicker’s studio on Wasserburggasse. Soon the joint studio flourished: together, they planned houses, apartments, shops, and a kindergarten, and designed a great deal of furniture, lamps, rugs, and fabrics. Dicker worked primarily as an interior architect and furniture designer and Franz Singer as an architect. With their interior furnishings, Dicker was responsible for selecting colors and materials; she experimented with new forms, color combinations, and fabrics and created the characteristic atmosphere in the spaces she furnished.160 As furniture designers, both were visionary: together, they designed innovative furniture and fabrics with which they furnished over fifty interiors in Vienna alone. Franz Singer worked out rational, technical solutions and signed the designs with his name. The design, the surfaces, the colors, the fabrics: this, however, was all the influence of Friedl Dicker. The belt webbing, furniture upholstery, rugs, and bedspreads were all hand-manufactured by Dicker, who had studied textile design at the School of Arts and Crafts and attended the workshop for weaving at the Bauhaus.161 According to Leopoldine Schrom, a long-time employee, Friedl Dicker’s contribution in the area of furniture design in the joint studio was considerable. She did not, however, document or sign her work and was overshadowed by her partner.162 Franz Singer and Friedl Dicker, who were not architects themselves, hired students or graduates of Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute to assume responsibility for the technical details. The joint studio in Vienna employed various designers between 1925 and 1938. Bruno Pollak worked there beginning in 1927,163 and Anna Szabo joined the studio in 1929 and became one of Singer and Dicker’s longest serving employees. As the studio was receiving a large number of orders by the end of the 1920s, Szabo also recruited her university friend Leopoldine Schrom to work there. Singer and Dicker left the drawing of the furniture as well as the perspective drawings to their employees. Hans Biel, another graduate of the Polytechnic Institute, worked at the studio from 1931 until his emigration to London in 1934. Euge160 Hövelmann (2018), 106. nie “Jenny” Pillat joined the studio in 1934 and remained until 1936. Be161 Ibid. cause most of the drawings were unsigned, attributing them to a certain 162 Interview with Georg Schrom on employee is difficult. The students designed furnishings, planned commerFebruary 21, 2021; Hövelmann cial renovations, and produced furniture drawings and prototypes for furni(2018), 100ff. 163 Werner Röder and Herbert A. ture; they were very involved in the design process of furniture, room Strauss, Biographisches Handbuch furnishings, and buildings. Szabo, Schrom, and Pillat were among the first der deutschsprachigen Emigration women to study architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute.164 nach 1933–1945, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Research Foundation The Singer & Dicker studio produced a remarkable amount of furniture for Jewish Immigration (New York: between 1925 and 1938. The pieces designed in the studio’s first years corK. G. Saur Verlag, 1999), 215. 164 Hövelmann (2018), 117.​ responded to the creative principles of the Bauhaus: the structure made of geometric formal elements, an emphasis on design, the use of various types of wood, the colorful painting, and the use of colored jute belts, woven cane, and hand-woven fabrics are some of these. Franz Singer and

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Design for a garden room, Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer,

Vienna, c. 1927, Sammlung GS, © FS

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Friedl Dicker continually refined these elements, however. Their furniture pieces were “quick-change artists”: they often implemented folding and sliding functions in their work, enabling them to design stackable and telescoping chairs, sofas, tables, beds, and chests that could be used in a variety of ways. Their furniture was nearly always multifunctional and was distinguished by its ability to be freely combined with other pieces. The optimal use of the existing space was particularly important in small apartments.165 While the furniture was initially constructed individually, at the beginning of the 1930s, the studio started producing some designs in small series. The furniture was sketched, produced usually in the form of models, built as prototypes, and then manufactured in Vienna. In addition to wood and plywood, the two designers also experimented with tubular steel. For the seats of the chairs, colorful jute belts or woven cane—the typical Viennese mesh— was used. The result was a series of stacking chairs and cantilevered chairs for children as well as adults with a special feature typical for Franz Singer: the crossed base. At the Wiener Raumkünstler 1929/30 exhibition, Singer’s tubular steel furniture, the “growing chairs,” was presented for the first time. Dicker and Singer collaborated with selected cabinetmakers, such as the Professor Hartmann furniture factory.166 For their projects, they also designed lamps, which were manufactured by J.T. Kalmar in Vienna, as well as tiled stoves and other home furnishings.167 The joint studio’s commissions came from its extensive network of acquaintances and friends in Vienna. Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer were friendly with many from Adolf Loos’s circle, such as the Moller family, who occupied a Loos house on Starkfriedgasse in the eighteenth district, and Max Ermers, the art historian, journalist, and director of the city’s Siedlungsamt. Like that of Haus & Garten, their clientele was largely from Vienna’s Jewish upper class. In 1927, Dicker and Singer furnished an apartment for the Koritschoner family in the fourth district. The furniture of mahogany and birch was complemented with linoleum and leather. Through imaginative color design, new forms, and special material, extraordinary furniture was created that was presented that same year at the Kunstschau Wien 1927. Their friend and former fellow student Anny Moller-Wottitz also had Singer and Dicker furnish a bedroom with tubular steel furniture in the Loos villa she occupied. The two designers had a great fondness for using “modern” materials in their furniture design, such as black opal glass, tubular steel, linoleum, and colorful jute straps.168 In 1928, Franz Singer and Friedl Dicker were commissioned to plan and furnish Hans Heller’s tennis clubhouse in Hietzing, for which the studio designed a special tubular steel chair. In 1930 they were commissioned to design all of the furniture for a Montessori kindergarten in the Goethehof in Vienna’s twenty-second district. The special challenge of this project was to create multifunctional children’s furniture for each individual room. All the chairs and tables were 165 Ibid., 176. 166 Ibid., 190ff. designs by the studio and made of wood or chrome-plated tubular steel, 167 Georg Schrom and Stefanie with seats of woven cane for the chairs. Thanks to the modern furnishings, Trauttmansdorff, Franz Singer, the kindergarten became a model project for “Red Vienna.” Friedl Dicker: 2 × Bauhaus in Wien The studio’s designs of the business premises for the Confiserie Garri(Vienna: Hochschule für angewandte Kunst, 1988), 98ff. do & Jahne and the Lore Kriser fashion house were also among the loveliest 168 Ibid. in the city.169 In 1931, the studio designed a garden house and its furnish169 Schrom and Trauttmansdorff ings for Alice Moller in the garden of the Loos house on Starkfriedgasse. (1988), 10, 26ff.​ The Gästehaus Auersperg-Hériot, built between 1932 and 1934 on Rustenschacherallee, in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district, was another prestige proj­ ect of the joint studio and the culmination of Franz Singer’s work. The entire

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Design for the “Kistenkasten,” Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer,

Vienna, c. 1927, Sammlung GS, © FS

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Design for a multifunc-

tional tubular steel chair, Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer, Vienna, c. 1930, Sammlung GS, © FS bottom Design for nesting seating furniture, Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer, Vienna, c. 1927, Sammlung GS, © FS Top R. Design for a bathroom cabinet, Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer, Vienna, c. 1927, Sammlung GS, © FS Bottom R. Design for a stacking tubular steel chair and stool with crossed bases, Franz Singer, Vienna, c. 1930, Samm­ lung GS, © FS

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left

Gästehaus Auer-

sperg-Hériot, Vienna, 1934, Sammlung GS right Design for the tennis clubhouse for Hans Heller; Franz Singer, Vienna, c. 1928, Sammlung GS, © FS

furniture and all furnishings, from the lamps to the doorhandles, were designed by the studio, with the assistance of Hans Biel, Leopoldine Schrom, and Anna Szabo, and executed by highly specialized handicraft businesses. Friedl Dicker was presumably no longer involved in this project. 170 Immediately after its completion, the Gästehaus Auersperg-Hériot was depicted in international magazines: the Spanish newspaper Viviendas put it on its cover, Gio Ponti reported on it in his architecture magazine Domus, and even London’s Architectural Review and The Studio wrote about the Viennese studio’s modern furniture design.171 In 1927, Bruno Pollak designed a stacking tubular steel chair that was initially produced in small numbers by the steel-furniture manufacturer Josef & Leopold Quittner. This was the first piece of tubular steel furniture designed by the Singer & Dicker studio.172 Pollak’s chair was made of chrome-plated and painted tubular steel with a seat out of woven cane, wooden slats, or fabric. Quittner also produced a stacking chair with armrests, a stool, and a table by Bruno Pollak. This furniture design led to a dispute between Pollak and his employer, the studio director Franz Singer. Singer wanted to have the patent for Pollak’s stacking tubular steel chairs registered under his own name, which presumably led to Pollak’s departure from the studio.173 In February 1929, Pollak registered the patent for the stacking tubular steel chairs under his name in Austria and subsequently

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170 171

Hövelmann (2018), 306.

Schrom and Trauttmansdorff (1988), 10, 26ff. 172 Hövelmann (2018), 195. 173 The exact circumstances of this dispute can no longer be determined. In his business documents, below the name BP Stühle u. Tische, Bruno Pollak continued to give 2 Wasserburggasse in Vienna’s ninth district as the address of the joint studio.

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Poster of the tennis

courts for Hans Heller; Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer, Vienna, c. 1928, Sammlung GS, © FS bottom Plan for the parlor of the Auersperg-Hériot residence; Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer, Sammlung GS, © FS

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also in Denmark, France, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and the US. He marketed his furniture under the name BP Stühle u. Tische. Pollak continued to refine his stacking tubular steel chair, improving its ergonomics by having it manufactured with a backrest that was slanted slightly backwards and a seat with a depression. This reworked version came onto the market in 1931. The chair was shown at the XX. Wiener Jubiläums-Frühjahrsmesse in Vienna. Two years later, the British furniture company Practical Equipment Ltd. acquired the rights from Pollak to produce his chairs.174 By the beginning of the 1930s, Singer & Dicker was one of Vienna’s most sought-after architecture and design studios. The collaboration between the two designers and their relationship were complicated, however, and marked by many personal conflicts. In 1931, Friedl Dicker opened her own studio in Vienna on Heiligenstädter Straße in Döbling, while Franz Singer moved his studio back to his apartment on Schadekgasse in the sixth district. After Singer’s emigration to Great Britain in 1934, Leopoldine Schrom took over operating the studio in Vienna. Both Singer and Dicker continued to work for the Vienna studio until 1938. Anna Szabo also continued to help out while also working as a freelance architect. Singer remained in exile in London and never returned to Vienna. He became a consultant for John Lewis in London and worked as a freelance architect and furniture designer together with Hans Biel, his former employee from Vienna, who had emigrated to London in 1934. In England, Singer’s stacking chairs from Vienna were mass produced and sold well.175 Bruno Pollak went to London in the mid-1930s and became a soughtafter furniture designer in England. The year 1938 spelled an abrupt end to the joint studio. Not only were nearly all the employees—Hans Biel, Bruno Pollak, Anna Szabo, Martha Hauska-Döberl, Richard Erdös, Wolfgang Roth, and Will Winternitz— forced to emigrate, but all of the studio’s clients—such as the Moller and Koritschoner families, the publisher Epstein, the candy producer Heller, and the director of the Montessori kindergarten, Hedy Schwarz—had to leave the country that year as well. Leopoldine Schrom, who in 1934 had taken over the Berger & Ziegler studio in Vienna from two architects who emigrated to Israel, closed down the Singer & Dicker Singer & Dicker studio in 1939 in consultation with Franz Singer. Friedl Dicker emigrated to Prague in 1934 and continued her work there as an interior architect and fabric designer. She also devoted herself to giving drawing lessons to children.176

174

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175

Hövelmann (2018), 195ff. Hövelmann (2018), 114.

176

Ibid., 1166f.​​

e

THE WIENER WERKBUNDSIEDLUNG— THE CULMINATION OF MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

In 1912 the Österreichischer Werkbund was founded, following the model of the Deutscher Werkbund. This was a federation of artists, architects, designers, businesspeople, and craftspeople whose aim it was to beautify and refine commercial and industrially manufactured products. Through the creative collaboration between art, industry, and artisans, the quality of machine-made products was to be improved and made affordable for a broad stratum of society. Among the 178 founding members of the Werkbund were prominent Viennese artists such as Gustav Klimt and Koloman Moser, architects like Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos, and all leading figures of the Neues Wiener Wohnen movement, including Josef Frank, Ernst Lichtblau, and Oskar Strnad. The School of Arts and Crafts and numerous Austrian companies and handicraft businesses like the J. & L. Lobmeyr glassworks, the lamp manufacturer J.T. Kalmar, and the Hagenauer art workshop joined the Österreichischer Werkbund as well.177 After World War I, the Österreichischer Werkbund focused primarily on the promotion of public housing. From the very beginning there were frequent disputes among the members and breakaway tendencies. Josef Hoffmann and other members of the board resigned from the Österreichischer Werkbund in 1920 and a year later founded the Wiener Werkbund. In 1928, however, the members of the Wiener Werkbund rejoined the Österreichischer Werkbund. Frank, forty-three years old at the time, and Hoffmann, some fifteen years his senior, were named vice presidents. Frank, Walter Sobotka, Oswald Haerdtl, and Otto Neurath—philosopher, member of the Vienna Circle, and founder of the Österreichischer Verband für Siedlungs- und Kleingartenwesen (Austrian Settlement and Allotment Garden Association)—were the driving force behind the activities of the Werkbund. The 1930 Werkbund exhibition at the Austrian Museum for Applied Art and Industry showed industrially-produced furniture and domestic objects as well as handicrafts.178 Hoffmann, the exhibition’s artistic director, designed a coffeehouse, Lichtblau a tourist pavilion, Sobotka a hotel lobby, and Haerdtl a factory hall. Karl Hofmann and Felix Augenfeld furnished a modern espresso bar, Josef Frank a tea salon, and Hugo Gorge a confectionary shop. Visitors were especially attracted to the modern design of the rooms and the clear, simple furniture.179 In 1931, under the direction of Josef Frank, the Österreichischer Werkbund mounted the exhibition The Good, Cheap Object, in which economical, factory-made household articles and furniture were shown.180 In 1932, the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung in Hietzing was realized, following the model of the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart. Frank assumed responsibility for the overall planning. He invited a total of seventy-six architects, interior architects, and landscape architects to design seventy model homes, complete with interior furnishings. Among the participants were Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, Oswald Haerdtl, Ernst Lichtblau, Hugo Gorge, Mar177 Ott-Wodni (2015), 94ff, 101. garete Schütte-Lihotzky, Walter Loos, Oskar Strnad, Walter Sobotka, Ju178 Ibid. lius Jirasek, Jacques Groag, Ernst Plischke, and Richard Neutra, who at 179 Ott-Wodni (2015), 102ff. that time was already living in America. Gerrit Rietveld from Holland, André 180 Meder (2008), 62. 181 Ott-Wodni (2015), 104. Lurçat from France, Hugo Häring from Germany, and Gabriel Guévrékian from Teheran were among the few international architects whom Frank invited to participate in Vienna’s Werkbundsiedlung project.181

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top

Espresso Bar in the

Werkbund exhibition at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, Vienna, 1930; design: Felix Augenfeld and Karl Hofmann; photographer: Bruno

The seventy model homes in Hietzing were to serve as examples of modern living and of housing developments of the future.182 Six women participated in the project: As the sole female architect, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky planned houses No. 61 and 62. The Viennese designer Ilse Bernheimer, Oskar Strnad’s personal assistant, designed the entire interior of the houses No. 15 and 16, using Bruno Pollak’s tubular steel furniture. Rosa Weiser was responsible for the interior design of Gerrit Rietveld’s houses. Ada Gomperz and Leonie Pilenski collaborated on the furnishing of the Häring house, while Grete Salzer designed the garden of the house planned by Jacques Groag.183 Over 200 businesses participated in the architecture project, making their products available for model furnishings of the houses, including modern household and kitchen appliances. Furniture by the Thonet company and lamps by J.T. Kalmar were also exhibited. Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach’s interior-design shop Haus & Garten supplied the complete furnishings for three model homes. In the catalog for the exhibition, Josef Frank expressed his ideas about interior décor and furniture design this way: “As far as the furnishings of a small house go, they are very unproblematic. Cabinets should be installed

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Reiffenstein, © MAK

182

Meder (2008), 62.

183 https://www.werkbundsiedlung-

wien.at/architektinnen (accessed July 22, 2021).

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Poster for the Werkbundsiedlung, Joseph Binder,

Vienna, 1932, © Joseph Binder/MAK

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in as large a scale as possible to compensate for the lack of attic space. Everything else should be easily moved, with no connection between the pieces and without any kid of uniformity in form, material, or color, so that everything can be substituted and added to at any time. The only thing that is important for the furniture is that it does not take up more space than befits its utility value. What kind of objects they are, whether old or new, is completely irrelevant.”184 Unlike the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, the model homes in Hietzing were furnished very much in accord with the philosophy of Josef Frank, with lightweight furniture of wood, or colorful upholstered furniture combined with cheerfully patterned drapery fabric and white-painted walls. The small houses were to be given a homey and cozy atmosphere. By international standards, Frank was following a different path at that time, a “typically Viennese” one.185 The Werkbundsiedlung was the most extensive demonstration of modern Wiener Wohnkultur in the period between the two world wars. At its opening in 1932, it was referred to by the Neue Freie Presse as “the largest building exhibition in Europe.”186 It is regarded as the culmination of Josef Frank’s work in Vienna. As a staunch Social Democrat, he was committed to improving living conditions within society through modern housing developments. Very much in the spirit of his friend Josef Frank, Otto Neurath wrote in Die Form about the project that it was to show the visitors “how one will probably live most contentedly in the near future in real apartments.”187 Nevertheless, the housing development was severely criticized by Josef Frank’s detractors. He was accused of having too few Austrian architects participate in the project, and the antisemitic press in Vienna even wrote about a “Tel Aviv in Lainz constructed by Jewish building tricksters.”188 The subsequent history of the Österreichischer Werkbund also clearly illustrates the political and social situation in Vienna at the beginning of the 1930s: Arguments regularly broke out among the members regarding the direction the Werkbund was to take. Josef Hoffmann and his followers, all proponents of a traditional and elite kind of handicraft, rejected modern industrial trends.189 The political climate in Vienna became more heated after the Nazis seized power in Germany. Under Engelbert Dollfuß, Austrian federal chancellor from 1932 to 1934, the country was dominated by a civil-war-like atmosphere and becoming politically polarized. Violence in the streets and demonstrations were everyday occurrences.190 Antisemitism within the population became unbearable, and even within the Österreichischer Werkbund, animosity toward Jewish architects and furniture designers was increasingly palpable. The result was a renewed split in the group: Several members, including Josef Hoffmann, founded the Neuer Werkbund Österreich, which barred Jews from becoming members. Josef Hoffmann and Josef Frank broke with each other once and for all. Frank and his Swedish wife moved to Stockholm in 1933, and in 1938, the “old” Werkbund was dissolved by the Nazis.191

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top Werkbundsiedlung, house No. 25–28; design: André Lurçat, Vienna, 1932; photographer: Martin Gerlach jun., © Wien Museum bottom Werkbundsiedlung, house No. 49, living area; design: Adolf Loos, Vienna, 1932; photographer: Martin Gerlach jun., © Wien Museum

184 https://www.werkbundsiedlung-

wien.at/ausstellung-1932/innenein richtung (accessed July 21, 2021). 185 Ott-Wodni (2015), 107. 186 http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgicontent/anno?apm=0&aid= nfp&datum=19320603&seite=06 (accessed July 21, 2021). 187

Otto Neurath, “Die internationale Werkbundsiedlung als Ausstellung,” in Die Form, 1932, 208– 217, quoted here in Meder (2008), 62. 188 Der Kampfbund, June 11, 1932, No. 24, quoted in Prokop, in ThunHohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 56. 189 Ott-Wodni (2015), 107. 190

Robert Keil (ed.), Architektur Wohnkultur Kunst Austria 1930– 1940 (Vienna: Amartis Verlag, 2012), 11. 191 Ott-Wodni (2015), 108; Meder (2008), 20.

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Werkbundsiedlung, Vienna, 1932; photographer: Martin Gerlach jun., © Wien Museum

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Werkbundsiedlung, house No. 12, living area; design: Josef Frank,

Vienna, 1932; photographer: Martin Gerlach jun., © Wien Museum

Top

Werkbundsiedlung, house No. 25–28; design: André Lurçat, Vienna,

1932; photographer: Martin Gerlach jun., © Wien Museum

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f

THE BENTWOOD INDUSTRY IN THE 1920S AND ’30S The collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the aftermath of World War I plunged the entire furniture and bentwood industry into a severe crisis. In 1907, still before World War I, several small Austrian producers of bentwood furniture merged and joined Mundus AG, founded by Leopold Pilzer, a successful furniture manufacturer from Galicia. The company had its headquarters in Vienna. In 1914, Mundus acquired a majority share of the Viennese bentwood producer Jacob & Josef Kohn and formed Mundus-Kohn AG. Wood was a rare commodity in the war years, and the bentwood industry’s export business completely collapsed in this period. For Gebrüder Thonet, the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire also meant that after the war, their production facilities and forests were now located in Hungary, Poland, and newly created Czechoslovakia. The company struggled with massive financial difficulties. In 1923, Mundus and Thonet merged, making Thonet-Mundus AG, with its headquarters in Vienna, the largest furniture producer in the world. The international furniture company now consisted of twenty production locations with over 10,000 employees, which continued to operate under Pilzer’s direction. The fusion was a success: in the following years, Thonet put a number of new models on the market and was able to pick up on its pre-war success.192 In the second half of the 1920s, the Bauhaus discovered a new material for the design and production of furniture: steel tubing. A creative and intensive collaboration with the Bauhaus in Dessau began, and in the 1930s, Thonet became the world’s leading producer of tubular steel furniture, using designs by Marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The form and silhouette of bentwood furniture also changed in this period parallel to the modern designs of tubular steel.193 The fondness of furniture designers in Vienna for curved wood continued unabated in these years. In spring 1929, Thonet-Mundus organized a contest at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna in order to find new ideas

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Left

Armchair Model No. A

403 F; design: Josef Hoffmann, Vienna 1927; execution: ThonetMundus, Vienna, c. 1930, © MAK right Settee, beech, and plywood; design: Josef Hoffmann and Oswald Haerdtl; execution: Jacob & Josef Kohn, both Vienna, c. 1930, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2014

192

Hackenschmidt and Thillmann (2020), 48ff. 193 Ottillinger (2009), 49.

Left

Advertising stamp of

the Thonet company on its 100th anniversary, Vienna, 1930, © MAK Right Armchairs and stool, red-painted bent beechwood and Viennese mesh; execution: Thonet-Mundus, Vienna, c. 1930, © Dorotheum 2019

and innovative forms for bentwood furniture. In its search for new classic designs, the company organized another competition that same year, this one on an international level. Over four thousand ideas were submitted by furniture designers. The distinguished jury members included Josef Frank, Pierre Jeanneret, Gerrit Rietveld, Adolf Schneck, and Gustav Siegel. The Finnish architect and furniture designer Alvar Aalto also took part in the competition, and while the then-28-year-old did not win a prize, he was soon to become one of the most influential furniture designers of the mid-twentieth century.194 Josef Frank, who was very opposed to tubular steel furniture, designed various bentwood furniture models at the end of the 1920s and beginning of the 1930s for Thonet-Mundus AG, which were then produced in series. He designed chairs and armchairs of painted beech, stools with belt webbing or Viennese mesh, and small tables. The model homes of the Werkbundsiedlung were furnished largely with bentwood furniture—particularly Frank’s colorfully painted models—produced by Thonet-Mundus.195

194 Thillmann and Willscheid (2011), 197. 195 Ott-Wodni (2015), 106, 305ff.

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Café Viennois at the

Austrian Pavilion of the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes; design: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten; photographer: Bruno Reiffenstein, © MAK Bottom Room for fashion and related trades at the Austrian Pavilion of the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes; photographer: Bruno Reiffenstein, © KAUAK

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Glamorous Art Deco and Viennese furniture in Paris

In 1925, the French government mounted one of the largest exhibitions for art, design, and architecture that the world had ever seen, held in Paris from April to October. At the beginning of the 1920s, an opulent and luxurious design style emerged in France that quickly spread throughout the world: Art Deco. Le Corbusier first used this name for the style moderne in a series of articles in his magazine L’Esprit Nouveau under the title 1925 Expo: Art Déco about the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Not until the end of the 1960s did the term Art Deco come into widespread use.196 Art Deco had its zenith in the interwar period, and its influence was felt throughout the entire design world—from fashion, photography, and the fine and applied arts to architecture, interior furnishings, and furniture design. The representative, the sumptuous, and the decorative moved back into the limelight. Precious and exotic materials such as bronze, silver, ebony, and ivory were superbly crafted by hand. The designers created novel and opulent furniture, glassware, metalworks, lamps, fabrics, and wallpaper. Their greatest sources of inspiration—apart from Art Nouveau and African, Egyptian, and Chinese art—were the handicrafts of the Wiener Werkstätte. Josef Hoffmann’s geometric and symmetrical designs and the extravagant and opulent artworks of Dagobert Peche and Koloman Moser had a direct influence on French Art Deco.197 The Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, which nearly attained the dimensions of a world’s fair, reflected the artistic, political, and industrial situation of the post-war period. Artists and businesses but also government institutions presented their ideas about the industrial or artisanal production of domestic objects and furniture and about architecture. The invited countries exhibited their pavilions between the Dôme des Invalides and the Grand Palais. Of the twenty-one participating nations, most of them were from Europe; Germany did not take part in the Paris exhibition. The US also turned down the French government’s invitation to take part in the Paris Exposition, and the reason for this sounds incredible today: in the opinion of Herbert Hoover, the US secretary of commerce and later president of the United States, the US at that time, in 1925, had no modern design that could be exhibited in Paris.198 Austria, on the other hand, participated with great success in the exhibition. Josef Hoffmann designed the Austrian Pavilion along with the youn­ ger architects Max Fellerer and Oswald Haerdtl. Hoffmann also invited 196 https://artdecosociety.uk  Frederick (at that time Friedrich) Kiesler to exhibit in Paris. In the Grand (accessed July 21, 2021). Palais, Kiesler presented his futuristic vision of a free-floating city: the City 197 Wilhide (2016), 157. in Space. Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach, with their recently founded interi198 Thun-Hohenstein, Boeckl, and or-design shop Haus & Garten, as well as Oskar Strnad, Hugo Gorge, and Witt-Dörring (2015), 245ff. Ernst Lichtblau also presented their furniture at the Exposition. The Austrian Pavilion and the works of Hoffmann, Haerdtl, Frank, and Wlach attracted an unexpected amount of attention and were praised by the French press

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as highlights of the Paris exhibition. Frank and Wlach presented a terrace café in the Austrian Pavilion: the Café Viennois. The exhibited Viennese furniture was very well received in Paris.199 Le Corbusier furnished his avant-garde Pavillon de L’Esprit Nouveau— a modern counter-design to the opulent Art Deco creations—with furniture from Vienna: Thonet’s Wiener Sessel. Together with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, he presented in his pavilion an industrially-produced living space of the future furnished with functional furniture. Thonet’s Wiener Sessel became a favorite piece of furniture of the French avant-garde architects of the time.200 Inspired by the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, along with Pierre Jeanneret and the furniture designer Charlotte Perriand, created modern, industrially manufactured tubular steel furniture, unlike the handcrafted, lavish Art Deco furniture. The world-famous tubular steel chaise longue by this designer trio was also produced by Thonet in the late 1920s.201 The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Mo­ dernes, which was attended by sixteen million visitors, made Art Deco known far beyond Paris. This design style quickly took America by storm as well. The skyscrapers erected in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s, such as Manhattan’s Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, and the Chrysler Building, were built and furnished in Art Deco style, while the world’s largest Art Deco quarter was constructed in Miami Beach. The outbreak of World War II marked the end of Art Deco in Europe, although it persisted in the US until the late 1950s. The 1937 Paris Exposition, held from May 25 to November 25 in the French capital, was another success for the participating furniture designers from Vienna. Oswald Haerdtl was responsible for the Austrian Pavilion, and Josef Hoffmann presented his “room furnishings for a great star.” Josef Frank, who by this time was already living in Stockholm, designed the terrace of the Swedish Pavilion and exhibited furniture and fabric designs for Svenskt Tenn—with great success. Parallel to this, he and Oskar Wlach, who in those years was running the Vienna business alone, presented a furnished living room in the Austrian Pavilion with furniture and fabrics from Haus & Garten. Jacqueline Groag showed her visionary fabric patterns as well, with her fabric design winning a gold medal.202

Top

Interior furnishings

and furniture of the Austrian Pavilion at the 1937 international exposition in Paris; designs: Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach for Haus & Garten, © KAUAK Bottom Austrian Pavilion at the 1937 international exposition in Paris; pavilion design: Oswald Haerdtl; photographer: Julius Scherb, © KAUAK

199

Prokop (2016), 233. Boeckl, and Witt-Dörring (2015), 246. 201 Fiell and Fiell (1999), 409. 200 Thun-Hohenstein,

202 Ott-Wodni

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(2015), 221.

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8

A fissure in time— 1938 and the consequences for Viennese furniture design

“You all know how the tragedy began. It was when in Germany National Socialism emerged, whose motto from the very first day was: stifle. Stifle all voices except one. Eradicate all manifestations of free speech in whatever form it takes: artistic, literary, journalistic,” wrote Stefan Zweig—who had already emigrated from Salzburg to London in 1934—in 1941 about the devastating consequences of National Socialism. 203 Until spring 1938, the renowned Austrian writer had traveled several more times back to his hometown of Vienna. What transpired in the days following the “Anschluss” in Vienna “was unprecedented in Jewish history—Germany was a velvet paw compared with this murderous blow,” wrote Stefan Zweig in spring 1938 in a letter to his friend, the German writer Arnold Zweig. “The Viennese, the Austrian Jews were, after all, much more homogeneous in their structure than the German Jews; they belonged to the city—they had helped create and shape Vienna.”204 The consequences of the Nazis’ entry into Austria in March 1938 were devastating for all the country’s Jews. In his book Stadt ohne Seele: Wien 1938, the historian Manfred Flügge describes with great precision the dramatic upheaval, the radicalization that very quickly took place within society after the so-called “Anschluss” and the tragic fate of the Viennese Jews.205 A few harrowing facts: Immediately after the German troops marched into Austria on May 12, 1938, there were pogroms, brutish riots, countless imprisonments, and deportations all over the country. At the same time, the “Nuremberg Race Laws” were enacted and widespread dispossessions, “Aryanizations” of Jewish property, robbery, looting, and abuse took place. The violent treatment of Jewish men, women, and children culminated in the November pogroms on November 9–10, 1938, with over 6,500 random arrests in Vienna alone. In these years, Vienna was home to Europe’s second-largest Jewish population, after Paris, numbering over 200,000, but March 12, 1938, spelled a sudden end to this flourishing community and the city’s cultural golden age. Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, Josef Frank, and Franz Singer had recognized the impending danger and left the city already in the mid-1930s. Between March 1938 and May 1939, some 130,000 Jews fled Vienna to escape the Nazis. Innumerable people did not flee in time: over 65,000 Viennese Jews were deported and murdered; very few survived the Shoah, hidden by friends or relatives in the city.206 Vienna lost its best and most creative minds in 1938. It was a fissure in time that ripped through all the arts and sciences, and one that can still be felt today. Max Reinhardt, Joseph Roth, Friedrich Torberg, Ernst Gombrich, Karl Popper, and Stefan Zweig—to mention only a very few of the names that even at that time were known all over the world—were able to emigrate in time. After March 12, 1938, “escape” was a more apt word. With

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203 Stefan Zweig in his 1940 essay “Das große Schweigen,” in Stephan Resch (ed.)/Stefan Zweig, “Worte haben keine Macht mehr”: Essays zu Politik und Zeitgeschehen 1916–1941 (Vienna: Sonderzahl Verlag, 2019), 182. 204 Stefan Zweig in a letter to Arnold Zweig in spring 1938, in Stefan Litt (ed.)/Stefan Zweig, Briefe zum Judentum (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, Suhrkamp Verlag, 2020), 258. 205 Manfred Flügge, Stadt ohne Seele. Wien 1938 (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2018), 10ff. 206 Ibid.

207 Oswald

Oberhuber, Gabriele Koller, and Gloria Withalm, Zentralsparkasse und Kommerzialbank Wien (eds.), in cooperation with the Academy of Applied Arts Vienna, Die Vertreibung des Geistigen aus Österreich. Zur Kulturpolitik des Nationalsozialismus (Vienna: Academy of Applied Arts Vienna, 1985), 197. 208 Ibid.,

624; Stadler (2004), 623.

209 Marcel

Bois and Bernadette Reinhold (eds.), Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Architektur. Politik. Geschlecht. Neue Perspektiven auf Leben und Werk (Vienna: Edition Angewandte, book series of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Birkhäuser: 2019), 42. 210 Boeckl (1995), 349. 211 Röder and Strauss (1999), 215. 212 Boeckl (1995), 327ff. 213 Ott-Wodni (2015), 359. 214 http://www.architekten

lexikon.at/de/1437.htm (accessed August 1, 2021). 215 https://www.architektenlexikon. at/de/468.htm (accessed July 1, 2021).

the expulsion of countless artists, writers, journalists, university professors, politicians, teachers, doctors, lawyers, philosophers, actors, musicians, theater owners, operators of coffeehouses, restaurants, and shops, industrialists and entrepreneurs, artisans and craftspeople, students, and families with their children, the city of Vienna lost its soul in 1938. Many great names from the field of architecture and furniture design— such as Josef Frank, Franz Singer, Friedl Dicker, Bruno Pollak, Ernst Freud, and Ella Briggs—left the city as early as the mid-1930s because of the unbearable antisemitism and political situation in Germany and Austria. The majority of the architects and furniture designers who at the beginning of the 1930s represented the modern and progressive Vienna, the leading figures of Wiener Wohnkultur, were forced to flee Vienna after the “Anschluss.”207 By 1938, Vienna had in the course of only a few years lost nearly its entire intellectual, modern, and visionary architects and furniture designers.208 Oskar Strnad died in 1935 in Bad Aussee and was spared the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis. Ella Briggs had moved from Vienna to Berlin at the end of the 1920s. Life became unbearable for her after the Nazis seized power; she returned to Vienna in 1935 and in 1936 emigrated to London.209 Jacques Groag and his wife, Jacqueline Groag, fled from Vienna to Prague in 1938 and the following year on to London. Many of the creative minds behind the visionary joint studio Singer & Dicker left the Austrian capital in the mid-1930s. Franz Singer, Hans Biel, and Bruno Pollak moved to London in 1934 and after 1938 never returned to Vienna. Anna Szabo fled from Vienna to Budapest and survived the war there in hiding. Karola Bloch moved from Vienna to Prague in the mid-1930s, where she designed furniture and interior décor together with Friedl Dicker. In 1937, the entire Bloch family emigrated to the US.210 Dicker also left Vienna for Prague in 1934, but the highly talented designer and artist did not survive the Shoah: she was murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp on October 9, 1944.211 After Josef Frank’s emigration to Stockholm, Oskar Wlach continued to run their joint business Haus & Garten in Vienna; it was “Aryanized” in 1938. The Frank and Wlach families survived the Holocaust in New York City, as did Walter Sobotka and Ernst Lichtblau. On February 21, 1938, only a few weeks before the “Anschluss,” Liane Zimbler became the first woman to pass the civil engineering exam in Vienna. Her studios in Vienna and Prague were both closed down in 1938; in April 1938 she fled with her family to the US by way of London. Felix Augenfeld and Ernst Schwadron were also able to leave in time, emigrating from Vienna in 1938, first to Paris and London and then to the US.212 Otto Breuer’s entire estate and business were confiscated by the Nazis after the “Anschluss.” The architect attempted to take his own life on November 9, the night of the November pogroms in Vienna, but was unsuccessful. Only a few days later, he hanged himself at the Sanatorium Purkersdorf. He was forty-one years old.213 Viktor Lurje fled from Vienna to Shanghai in fall 1938 and in the early 1940s moved to India, where he was active as an interior architect and furniture designer. He died in Jaipur in 1944.214 Together with his wife, Anna, Ernst Plischke emigrated to New Zealand in 1939. Walter Loos and his wife, Fridl, were able to flee from Vienna via London to New York in March 1938. In 1940 the couple moved to Buenos Aires. The 25-year-old Martin Eisler also fled to that city from Vienna in 1938.215

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After the “Anschluss” in March 1938, teaching ceased for several days at all Austrian universities, academies, and schools; all private schools were closed indefinitely. The School of Arts and Crafts resumed operations on March 21, 1938.216 In the following weeks, the Nazis undertook an institutional “cleansing,” and all Jewish students and teachers were barred from the School of Arts and Crafts. At the beginning of the 1937/38 academic year, 485 students attended the school; 52 of them were forced to leave between March and July 1938. In summer 1938, 85 more students were expelled, followed by another 22 in the 1938/39 academic year. Many professors were also suspended. While in the 1937/38 academic year, the School of Arts and Crafts counted a total of thirty-two instructors—fifteen professors, thirteen teachers, and four assistants—in March 1938, seven of them were dismissed, among them the professors Theodor Otto Georgii, Albert Paris Gütersloh, Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann (Hermine Zuckerkandl’s husband), Otto Prutscher, and Hilda Schmid-Jesser.217 At the Academy of Fine Arts, thirteen instructors were fired directly after the “Anschluss,” including the architects Clemens Holzmeister and Erich Boltenstern. The Polytechnic Institute also experienced a severe upheaval in March 1938, when some 10 percent of the teaching staff was suspended on “racial” or political grounds. Jewish students there were prohibited from continuing their studies and as of October 1938 were even barred from entering the Institute. The number of Jewish students fell from 215 in the 1937/38 winter semester to 16 in the summer of 1938.218 Matters were even more dire with the jurisprudence faculty in Vienna, where more than half of the professors and lecturers lost their authorization to teach in 1938; in the department of medicine, it was nearly 70 percent.219 One group of architects and furniture designers from Vienna spent World War II in exile in Turkey. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky emigrated together with her husband, Wilhelm Schütte, to Istanbul in 1938 and taught there at the State Academy of Fine Arts. In December 1940, she returned to the city of her birth and joined a Communist resistance group opposing the Nazi regime.220 On January 22, 1941, she was arrested by the Gestapo in Vienna and sentenced to ten years in prison, from which she was freed by Canadian troops in 1945.221 “It was a complete failure of the intellectual elite, of the educated middle class,” wrote Schütte-Lihotzky about the year 1938.222 Anna-Lülja Praun worked in Istanbul from 1938 to 1940 in Clemens Holzmeister’s studio and in 1942 returned to Vienna. A year later, her former partner Herbert Eichholzer was persecuted and executed as a member of the resistance and a Communist.223 Not only the expulsion and murder of countless architects and furniture designers, but also the expropriation of many furniture businesses meant an irretrievable loss in the history of Viennese furniture design. Leopold Pilzer, primary shareholder of Thonet-Mundus AG, fled Vienna in 1938 to escape the Nazis. The brilliant businessman first moved to Zurich and later emigrated to the US. Thonet-Mundus, with its headquarters on Vienna’s Stephansplatz, was at the time the world’s largest furniture manufacturer with twenty-two production locations, thirty-seven sales offices, and over 10,000 employees; after the Nazis seized power in Austria, the company was dissolved. Leopold Pilzer exchanged his stock with the Thonet brothers; the Thonet family was returned its shares for the Austrian and German market. Pilzer retained the rights for France, England, and the US and in

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216 Sophie Köhldorfer, Die institutionelle “Säuberung” der Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien als

Folge des “Anschlusses” 1938 (diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2019), 50. 217 Ibid., 50f., 66ff., 91. 218 https://gedenkbuch.wu.ac.at/ assets/Uploads/Literatur/Berger. pdf (accessed July 1, 2021). 219 https://www.juridicum.at/ fakultaet/geschichte/ (accessed August 9, 2021); Michael Hubenstorf, Österreichische ÄrzteEmigration, in Stadler (2004), 359. 220 Maasberg and Prinz, 66. 221 http://www.schuette-lihotzky. at/msl.htm (accessed January 1, 2021). 222 Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Zeitzeugin, in Stadler (2004), 632. 223 Ibid.

North America founded Thonet Industries, with factories in York, Pennsylvania; Sheboygan, Wisconsin; and Statesville, North Carolina.224 The Möbelfabrik Carl Bamberger AG, at 25 Schönbrunner Straße in Vienna’s fifth district, was another company that was “Aryanized” in 1938. Paul Bamber­ ger, Carl Bamberger’s son, fled to New York City in 1938 and founded the Interiors by Paul Bamberger furniture company in Manhattan. The company on Schönbrunner Straße continued to be operated by the Mathias Brunngraber carpentry shop until 1982. The prominent Möbelfabrik Sigmund Jaray in Vienna was also confiscated by the Nazis in 1938.225 Along with the expelled Jewish architects and furniture designers, a large number of their clients, the Jewish upper class, were forced to emigrate as well. Apart from all the human tragedies, 1938 spelled an abrupt end to the golden age of Viennese furniture design. After the “Anschluss,” in addition to all the looting and destruction that took place in Vienna, some 33,000 businesses, 60,000 apartments, and countless pieces of property, savings books, artworks, and furniture were stolen. Only very few refugees succeeded in taking their belongings with them into their exile. The ceramic artist Lucie Rie took her furniture, designed by Ernst Plischke, with her from Vienna to London. The Imperial Furniture Collection purchased her furniture after her death in 1999 and brought it back to Vienna. Sigmund Freud, as well, took a number of pieces of furniture with him when he emigrated to England in June 1938. The legendary couch from his practice on Berggasse and his desk chair, designed by Ernst Lichtblau, are today found in London’s Freud Museum.226

224 Thillmann and Willscheid (2011), 223. 225 http://david.juden.at/kultur zeitschrift/70-75/75-soxberger.htm (accessed July 10, 2021). 226 https://www.freud.org.uk (accessed July 10, 2021).

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a

The banished visionaries— from Vienna to the US

THE EMIGRATION OF MODERNISM Even before the outbreak of World War II, the center of Modernism had shifted to the US— in the 1940s and ’50s America became the land of design. Many fields of the arts and sciences there, including architecture and design, greatly profited from the immigrants and refugees who came from Europe in the 1930s.227 The opening of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan in 1929 represented a milestone in the history of furniture design. The American art collector Abby Rockefeller was a driving force behind the establishment of the country’s first museum for modern art and design. By 1934, the young museum had already assembled an extensive design collection. The MoMA and its first director, the 27-year-old art historian Alfred Hamilton Barr, were the first contact point for many artists and designers who fled Europe in the 1930s to escape the Nazis. Through its exhibitions, competitions, and publications, the MoMA soon became the international measure of all things in modern art and design.228 In the US in the 1930s, another factor was added to the modern design ideas from Europe: design became an important element in marketing. While World War I massively impaired the economic and technical development of European countries, the US boasted the highest technological level of all industrialized nations in the 1920s and ’30s. For American industry, apart from sophisticated marketing concepts, the attractive design of their products became increasingly important, with design becoming a decisive competitive advantage. In contrast to Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, where there was always a social aspect to the reform movements in terms of industrial production and product design, design in the US became first and foremost a marketing factor. After the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the subsequent global economic crisis, the goal was to stimulate consumer spending by American households; from this time on, consumer goods were styled. Streamline design became the favored form for American mass-produced goods. The streamlined form, the result of aerodynamic research in automobile and aircraft construction, symbolized the faith in progress and optimism about the future in the US and was implemented in the styling of various industrially manufactured products.229 It is significant that the first industrial designers in the US came from the ad industry. One of the most popular designers of this time was Raymond Loewy. Loewy’s father, the journalist Maximilian Loewy, was born in Vienna and grew up in France. Raymond Loewy emigrated to New York City shortly after World War I. His Coca-Cola bottle and red and white Lucky Strike logo became milestones in the history of design. Loewy founded 227 Wilhide (2016), 254. three design firms—in New York, London, and Paris—and also designed a 228 Hauffe (2014), 186. great deal of furniture.230 229 Hauffe (2014), 154, 160, 166, Another designer from Vienna made a name for himself in the US as 186. 230 Ibid., 160ff. well: Joseph Binder. After completing his studies at the School of Arts and Crafts, Binder ran a successful graphic art studio in Vienna, designing lo­ gos for Arabia Café, Julius Meinl, Thonet, and the Werkbundsiedlung. At the end of the 1930s, he went to New York City, and after the “Anschluss,”

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Poster for the 1939

New York World’s Fair, The World of Tomorrow, Joseph Binder; execution: Grinnell Litho. Co., Inc., New York City, © Joseph Binder/MAK right Poster for Thonet, Joseph Binder, Vienna, 1930, © Joseph Binder/MAK

231 Anita

Kern, Bernadette Reinhold, and Patrick Werkner (eds.), Grafikdesign von der Wiener Mo­ derne bis heute. Von Kolo Moser bis Stefan Sagmeister. Aus der Sammlung der Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien (Vienna: Springer, Edition Angewandte, 2010), 94ff. 232 https://www.moma.org/art-

ists/560 (accessed July 1, 2021). (1995), 8ff.

233 Boeckl

234 Wilhide

(2016), 159.

he settled there permanently and founded a design studio. That same year, Binder won first prize in a poster competition for the 1939 New York World’s Fair and overnight became one of America’s best known graphic artists. Millions of copies of his poster were printed and displayed in the US. Now the major American ad agencies also began taking an interest in the graphic artist from Vienna. One of his most important clients was the U.S. Navy.231 In the 1940s and ’50s, Binder took part in many poster competitions, including for the MoMA, which regularly exhibited his works.232 Due to the difficult economic and political situation in Austria and the blatant antisemitism they experienced there, important architects and designers emigrated from Vienna to the US in 1920s. For Richard Neutra, Frederick Kiesler, Paul Theodore Frankl, and the young Elizabeth Scheu Close, America provided an inexhaustible source of stimulation and offered new career opportunities. After Hitler seized power in Germany in January 1933 and in Austria in March 1938, the US represented a safe place of refuge and the possibility of a new start for the designers and artists who were expelled from these countries.233 Until well into the 1920s, there was scarcely any design “made in the USA.” While at the beginning of the twentieth century, furniture in colonial revival or historicist style was still fashionable, this changed drastically in the 1930s. The immigrants from Europe brought with them into their exile not only years of experience but also modern ideas and new formal principles in furniture design.234 In 1933, a large number of Bauhaus teachers and students emigrated to the US, including Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, László Moholy-Nagy,

The banished visionaries—from Vienna to the US

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b

and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In 1938, the entrepreneur Hans Knoll emigrated to the US as well, fleeing from Stuttgart via London to New York City. That very same year he founded the Hans Knoll Furniture Company there, which through its collaboration with numerous Bauhaus designers became one of the most innovative furniture design companies in the country.235 Europe’s loss of an important segment of its intellectual and creative elite was America’s gain. 236 Only few of the immigrants, however, were able to pick up their professional careers again at the point where they had been abruptly interrupted by the Nazis. THE EARLY EMIGRANTS A number of architects and designers from Vienna made astounding careers for themselves in the US in the 1920s and ’30s. Josef Urban brought Viennese design to America as early as the beginning of the twentieth century. The imaginative Vienna-born architect, furniture designer, and set decorator went to New York City in 1911 and opened a design studio there. The multitalented Urban provided the capital for the founding of the Wiener Werkstätte of America Inc. and in 1922 furnished the company’s salesroom on Fifth Avenue. The business initially enjoyed tremendous success: most of the furniture and design objects from Vienna sold out in the first few days. The New York customers revered Josef Hoffmann and were enraptured by the eccentric furniture and fabric designs of Dagobert Peche and Josef Urban. Even the American media tycoon William Randolph Hearst was an enthusiastic patron of the Wiener Werkstätte in Manhattan. The success was short-lived, however, and financial difficulties forced the store to close again in 1924.237 Urban designed twenty-five sets for Hearst’s Cosmopolitan film productions and was active in New York and Miami as an architect, interior architect, and furniture designer. In the late 1920s, he designed, among other things, the base of the William Hearst Building in New York, the luxurious Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and one of the first buildings in International Style, the New School for Social Research in Greenwich Village.238 This private university had a close relationship with Europe from the very beginning. The New School established the University in Exile in 1933, with over 180 emigrated scientists from Europe involved in its founding. Distinguished figures such as Hannah Arendt, Erich Fromm, Max Wertheimer, and Josef Frank taught at this university, which in the ensuing years also became a meeting place for intellectuals, scientists, and artists from Vienna.239 The Viennese architect and furniture designer Paul Theodore Frankl emigrated to the US in 1914. Frankl, who had studied architecture in Vienna, Paris, Munich, and Berlin, designed bookcases that were modeled after the skyscrapers of Manhattan. He became very successful in New York with his Skyscraper Furniture, which he sold along with other handicrafts from Vienna at his Frankl Galleries on 48th Street in Manhattan. Frankl’s bookcases, armchairs, wardrobes, and desks were depicted in many home furnishing and architecture magazines, and his gallery soon became a social hub of the city. Even Eleanor Roosevelt bought furniture here. The designer opened another store in Beverly Hills, where his customers included such luminaries as Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Alfred Hitchcock. Paul Theodore Frankl’s furniture was so popular that

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Tulip Chair; design:

Eero Saarinen, 1953; execution: Knoll, Sammlung CW

235 Bernd Polster and Tim Elsner, Design Lexikon USA (Cologne: DuMont, 2002), 230. 236 Bradbury

(2014), 306f. and Taschen

237 Fahr-Becker

(2015), 95. 238 Fiell and Fiell (1999), 700. 239 Peter M. Rutkoff and William B. Scott, New School: A History of the New School for Social Research (New York: Free Press, 1986), 110ff.

by the end of the 1920s, it was being copied and even mass produced by other furniture manufacturers.240 Until well into the 1950s, his designs were among the most popular furniture of the Hollywood stars, and today the pieces remain coveted collector’s items.241 Another architect and furniture designer to emigrate from Vienna to the US in the early twentieth century was Richard Neutra, who came from a family of entrepreneurs. He had studied architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute and attended Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule. Loos piqued Neutra’s interest in modern American architecture, motivating the young architect to emigrate to the US with his wife. In October 1923, the couple made the journey by ship to Manhattan. Richard Neutra was thirty-one years old at the time. In fall 1924 he began working for the prominent Chicago architecture firm Holabird & Roche, enabling him to gain insights into the American method of building and the city’s impressive skyscraper architecture.242 In Chicago, the young Viennese also met Frank Lloyd Wright, and the renowned American architect invited Neutra to visit his studio in Taliesin, near Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the Neutras then lived for a time. At the beginning of 1925, the Neutras moved to Los Angeles, taking up lodgings with a friend of Neutra’s from Vienna, Rudolph Michael Schindler, who had also studied at the Polytechnic Institute and Adolf Loos’s Bauschule and emigrated to the US in 1914. 243 Neutra helped out in Schindler’s office, particularly as a draftsman, and the two architects collaborated on projects for architecture competitions.244 But Neutra soon set out on his own path. After he was granted an architecture license in 1926, he opened his own studio in Los Angeles and built numerous houses in the area in the International Style. At the age of thirtysix, the architect attained international acclaim with the Lovell Health House, which he built in Los Angeles in 1929. This house, planned for the American physician Philip Lovell, was one of the first residences in the US built with an all-steel frame made of prefabricated elements, making it an early masterpiece of California Modernism.245 It was shown in 1932 at the Modern Architecture: International Exhibition at the MoMA and depicted in architecture magazines around the world, becoming one of the most important residential buildings of the twentieth century.246 Richard Neutra usually designed the entire interior furnishings of his houses himself; for this visionary artist, architecture and furniture design were inextricably linked. While Neutra created his furniture as individual pieces for his clients in California, some models were produced in small series. His 1942 Boomerang Chair became a design classic and the quintes240 Wilhide (2016), 159. sence of furniture design in the Mid-Century Modern Style. A number of 241 Fiell and Fiell (1999), 256. Neutra’s furniture designs were produced in small series only long after his 242 Boeckl (1995), 339. death.247 243 Ibid.; Prokop (2016), 236. 244 David Schreyer and Andreas Josef Hoffmann’s son, Wolfgang Hoffmann, who studied with Oskar Nierhaus, Los Angeles Modernism Strnad at the School of Arts and Crafts and worked as an interior architect Revisited. Häuser von Neutra, and furniture designer at his father’s studio, emigrated to New York in 1925. Schindler, Ain und Zeitgenossen Josef Urban presumably invited the 25-year-old designer from Vienna to (Zurich: Park Books, 2019), 13; Boeckl (1995), 339. work for him in Manhattan. The demand in the US for high-quality handi245 Ibid. crafts and superbly designed furniture had increased dramatically following 246 https://www.moma.org/ the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts des Arts Décoratifs et Industriinteractives/exhibitions/2016/ spelunker/constituents/234/ els Modernes in 1925. (accessed July 13, 2021); Boeckl This enabled Wolfgang Hoffmann and his wife, Pola, a former student (1995), 339. 247 Fiell and Fiell (1999), 510. of Josef Hoffmann at the School of Arts and Crafts, to start their own business shortly after their arrival in Manhattan, opening a design studio on Madison Avenue. The two young designers created domestic articles and furniture made of metal as well as extravagant fabrics. The Hoffmanns’

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designs were very popular at the end of the 1920s and in the 1930s and were shown at numerous exhibitions and at the American Designers’ Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum, and Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.248 Frederick Kiesler and his wife, Stefanie, emigrated to New York City in 1926. The artist, designer, and theater architect had first studied at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute and then painting and graphic art at the Academy of Fine Arts. In the 1920s, he worked for a short time with Adolf Loos. He was responsible for many visionary creations in the areas of furniture design, architecture, and exhibition design, including for the Guggenheim Museum, and from 1937 to 1942 was the director of the Laboratory for Design Correlation in the School of Architecture at Columbia University in New York.249 His sculptural furniture designs, such as the Two-Part Nesting Table, created in the late 1930s, and the Multi-use Chair that he designed in 1942, were far ahead of their time. Kiesler’s table designs foreshadowed the kidney tables that became popular in the 1950s. His futuristic designs led to the emergence of Biomorphism and Organic Style in 1950s furniture design.250 Josef Urban, the Hoffmanns, Paul Theodore Frankl, and Frederick Kiesler collaborated on the organization and execution of several design exhibitions.251 The young architect Elizabeth “Lisl” Scheu also emigrated to the US in the 1930s.252 Born in Vienna in 1912, she grew up in a villa designed by Adolf Loos in Hietzing, at 3 Larochegasse. Even as a schoolgirl she wanted to become an architect. In 1930 she began studying architecture at the Polytechnic Institute but dropped out after only two years because of the misogynist atmosphere prevalent there. The increasingly blatant antisemitism in Vienna was another reason for her to turn her back on her native city. She applied to the master’s program in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, was accepted, and completed her studies in a very short time. She subsequently worked at architecture offices in Philadelphia and Minneapolis. In 1938, the then 26-year-old Scheu and her college friend and later husband Winston Close opened an innovative studio for modern architecture, Close & Scheu Architects. Elizabeth Scheu Close became one of the first successful female architects in America.253

Richard Neutra at

the Haus Rang, Königstein, 1964; photographer: Klaus Meier Ude, © VS

248 Boeckl

(1995), 333f.

249 Prokop

(2016), 233. and Fiell (1999), 378. 251 Boeckl (1995), 333f. 252 Born as Elisabeth Scheu, she changed the spelling of her first name to Elizabeth when she arrived in the US. 253 Jane King Hession, Elizabeth Scheu Close: A Life in Modern Architecture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020), 5ff. 250 Fiell

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left

View of the Abstract

Gallery, Art of This Century exhibition;

Alberto Giacometti’s Femme égorgée on

design by Frederick Kiesler, New

realist Gallery, Art of this Century, New York, 1942;

York, 1942; photographer: K. W.

photographer: K. W. Herrmann, © Austrian Frede-

Herrmann, © Austrian Frederick and

rick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna

Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna

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a Multi-Use Chair by Frederick Kiesler in the Sur-

bottom Frederick Kiesler in front of a picture by Jean Hélion, New York, 1942; © Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna

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Unidentified woman in the Painting Library of Art of This Century, New York, 1942; photog-

rapher: K. W. Herrmann, © Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna

c

DRIVEN FROM VIENNA— A FORCED NEW BEGINNING IN EXILE

The “Anschluss” in March 1938 was a painful turning point for countless people from Vienna—it meant expulsion, fleeing their hometown, forced emigration, and thus a complete uprooting. Many fled under extremely trying conditions from Vienna via Paris to London and from there by ship on to New York City. These new immigrants were faced with an uncertain situation in the US: very few had a mastery of the English language, and after months on the run, they often arrived in the country with very little money. This made friendships and networks among the refugees all the more important; they were critical for survival and absolutely essential for the designers from Vienna living in exile in this new land. Architects who had emigrated earlier and were now established in the US often offered employment to their professional colleagues and friends from Vienna arriving in 1938. Walter Sobotka, fifty years old at the time, fled with his family from Vienna to New York City in July 1938. That same year, he began working as a furniture designer for Thonet Brothers New York. In addition to this job—in which he primarily designed bentwood furniture—he also worked for the American designer Russel Wright. In 1941 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to teach interior architecture at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Sobotka started there as a teaching assistant for architecture, textiles, and decorative arts and in 1946 was then given a professorship for interior architecture. In addition to his teaching activities, he continued to make a name for himself as a furniture designer, interior architect, and set designer. One of Sobotka’s commissions was furnishing a house for the famous film actress Hedy Lamarr. The Vienna-born designer taught until his retirement in 1958 and continued working as an independent architect and designer in the US until his death in 1972.254 Ernst Lichtblau fled from Vienna via London to New York in August 1939 under extremely difficult circumstances. The then 56-year-old designer initially worked for Macy’s in Manhattan as an artistic consultant, designing presentations and exhibitions for the venerable department store. In 1945, he began teaching textile design at the Cooper Union School of Art, a university for architecture and design in Manhattan. In fall 1947, he became a lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, and later a professor for interior architecture. Lichtblau was soon promoted to head of the Department of Interior Architecture at the university and in the mid-1950s was named dean of the Faculty of Architecture. In 1950 and 1953 he participated in an exhibition series at the MoMA called Good Design and received several awards for his metal works. In the 1950s, he mounted the exhibition Furniture of Today at his university’s museum, presenting modern furniture and interior design. Lichtblau influenced a large number of young American designers through his tireless teaching activities and numerous exhibitions.255 Felix Augenfeld fled from Vienna to London following the “Anschluss.” 254 http://www.architekten A year later, at the age of forty-six, the furniture designer emigrated to New lexikon.at/de/612.htm York City. Not long after his arrival in the US, he was granted an architecture (accessed August 1, 2021). 255 August Sarnitz, Der verlorene license for the State of New York and became a member of the American Alltag—Ernst Lichtblau, in Boeckl Institute of Architects.256 In 1941, Augenfeld opened an architecture office (1995), 291ff; https://www.moma. on 66th Street in Manhattan but worked primarily as a furniture designer org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/ and interior architect, establishing himself as a designer specializing in difpress_archives/1487/releases/ MOMA_1951_0005.pdf (acficult room situations. In this regard, Vienna and Manhattan had something cessed August 1, 2021). in common: living space was tight and rents were high. Augenfeld was able 256 Hanisch, quoted in Boeckl to draw on the expertise he had gained as an interior architect and furniture (1995), 240. designer in Vienna to furnish small interiors in an optimal manner and to create flexible, multifunctional furniture. He designed furniture for Thonet Brothers New York and interiors for fellow émigrés, many of whom had

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been his clients in Vienna, such as the candy producer Heller and his La Reine Candy Store in Manhattan. He also designed furniture for the venerable furniture producer Henredon. Augenfeld became known for his socalled “media furniture”: cabinets that held a television and concealed phonographs or radios. His interior designs and furniture were shown in many American home furnishing magazines, and the New York Times also reported regularly on the creative furniture designer from Vienna. Augenfeld completed his most important work in Manhattan at the end of 1958, when the architect was sixty-five: he built a private residence and library near Central Park, the Buttinger Library, for the Austrian émigré Joseph Buttinger and his wife and designed all of the furniture for the building as well. In 1966, Augenfeld wedded the designer Anna Epstein-Gutmann, also a native Viennese, who had studied with Oskar Strnad at the School of Arts and Crafts. She opened the Studio Plus lamp studio in Manhattan, where in addition to her own designs she sold lamps and fabrics by Josef Frank.257 Frank had moved to Stockholm with his wife in 1938. After the pre­ sentation of his designs for Svenskt Tenn at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, Frank’s furniture and fabrics became known all over the world and were especially popular in the US.258 When the situation in Sweden during World War II became too precarious for the Jewish couple, the Franks emigrated to Manhattan in 1941. In spring 1942, Frank began teaching architecture and design at the University in Exile, part of the New School for Social Research.259 It is above all his imaginative fabric designs that survive from his time in New York. In this period, Frank worked as a designer for the Swedish firm Svenskt Tenn as well as for the American home furnishings company F. Schumacher & Co. In 1947 the Franks returned to Sweden, but Josef Frank still traveled frequently to the US and continued to participate in exhibitions in Manhattan. His friends Oskar Wlach, Walter Sobotka, and Felix Augenfeld remained in New York.260 Ernst Schwadron arrived in New York City from Vienna by way of Paris in 1938. He was able to launch a second successful career there as an interior architect and furniture designer. In June 1939, he became head designer at the Rena Rosenthal interior furnishings company, where he was largely responsible for designing furniture. Rena Rosenthal, a sister of the architect Ely Jacques Kahn, operated a well-known design gallery on Madison Avenue, where she sold handicrafts from Vienna by Karl Hagenauer as well as modern design objects by Russel Wright and furniture by Ernst Schwadron. Rena Rosenthal’s father and husband were also from Vienna. In 1944, Schwadron opened his own interior-design shop and founded Ernst Schwadron Inc. on Madison Avenue. He designed the offices of The American Crayon Company at Rockefeller Center, a project on which he collaborated with the architect Leopold Kleiner, also a native of Vienna. In New York, he worked with the Viennese ceramic artist Emmy Zweybrück as well. He favored organic forms in his furniture, and for his furnishings frequently used fabrics by Josef Frank. Schwadron’s designs were published in American magazines such as Interiors, House & Garden, and Town & Country, and he presented his fabric designs at the 1953 Good Design exhibition at the MoMA. He operated his Ernst Schwadron Inc. home furnishings business until the end of the 1950s, and his furniture designs are still produced today.261

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257 Andrea

Winklbauer and Sabine Fellner, Die bessere Hälfte. Jüdische Künstlerinnen bis 1938 (Vienna: Jewish Museum Vienna/Metroverlag, 2016), 98; http://www. architektenlexikon.at/de/12.htm (accessed August 1, 2021). 258 Ottillinger

(2009), 136. Weibel and Friedrich Stadler (eds.), Vertreibung der Vernunft. The cultural exodus from Austria (Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1993), 19. 260 Boeckl (1995), 330; Ottillinger (2009), 136. 261 http://www.architektenlexikon. at/de/728.htm (accessed January 1, 259 Peter

2021).

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Manhattan fabric; design: Josef Frank, New York, c. 1943/45;

execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST

109

In 1938, Walter Loos and his wife, Fridl, fled to New York as well. He also created interior furnishings for Rena Rosenthal, designed lamps and furniture, and showed his works at exhibitions. In 1940, Walter and Friedl Loos moved to Buenos Aires, where he had a very successful career as a furniture designer.262 Liane Zimbler arrived in Manhattan with her family in September 1938 after fleeing from Vienna under grueling circumstances. They moved to Los Angeles yet that fall. The then 46-year-old architect succeeded in resuming the professional career she had started in Vienna, going to work for Anita Toor, a widely known interior architect and designer in Los Angeles, whose studio Zimbler took over in 1941. That same year, Zimbler planned a house in Santa Monica for the composer Ernst Toch, another émigré from Vienna. In the subsequent years, she devoted herself primarily to remodeling houses, designing apartments, and furnishing shops and offices, drawing on the experience and skills she had acquired as a freelance architect in Vienna.263 In her interior décor and furniture design in the US, Zimbler was concerned with remodeling rooms to create larger, better organized, and more functional spaces. Her interior décor and furniture were remarkable for their functionality and elegance. Zimbler designed her furniture individually for each project and never produced in series. In 1946, the architect became a member of the American Society of Interior Decorators and the Association for Women in Architecture. She often experimented with new forms, colors, and patterns in her furnishings, while in her furniture design she was very fond of using new, industrially manufactured products such as plastics. At an exhibition in 1961, she presented her Washable Living Room, which she completely furnished with modern synthetic materials and cork tiles, from the floors to the furniture and walls.264 The 35-year-old architect Victor Grünbaum, who in exile adopted the name “Gruen,” fled with his wife from Vienna via Switzerland to Paris and then by way of London to New York, where he arrived on July 13, 1938.265 He, as well, was able to put his professional experience as an interior architect and furniture designer in Vienna to good use in the new land. Shortly after his arrival in Manhattan, he began working for other Viennese émigrés. For Ludwig Lederer, for example, he designed a leather-goods shop on Fifth Avenue. Along with the New York designer Elsie Krummeck, he opened a modern design studio in 1939, and one of their first commissions was the shop design for Barton’s Bonbonniere, an exclusive chocolate shop founded by Stephan Klein, also an immigrant from Vienna. The proj­ ect was an incredible success: even the New York Times and the New Yorker wrote about the shop’s unique design. Gruen’s shops were a sensation, with the furniture, lamps, and other interior décor designed in vivid colors and using glass and linoleum. Gruen designed Barton’s Bonbonniere like a toyshop for adults. For the former owners of Vienna’s Altmann & Kühne confectionary, he designed the upscale chocolate shop Altman Candies in June 1939. Soon the first large commissions started coming in: the planning of shops on the West Coast of the US. Gruen and Krummeck moved to Los Angeles, where in 1947 they built the innovative 262 Ibid.; Ottillinger (2009), 138. Milliron’s Department Store in downtown Westchester. Another American 263 Boeckl (1995), 349. company, J. L. Hudson, commissioned Gruen to develop a concept for four 264 Plakolm-Forsthuber, in Boeckl shopping centers in Detroit. The first of these, the multifunctional Northland (1995), 301, 349; http://www. architektenlexikon.at/de/727.htm Shopping Center, opened in 1954. With his ideas from Vienna, Victor Gruen (accessed August 1, 2021). rose from a small-scale shop decorator and furniture designer to become 265 Boeckl (1995), 332. 266 Ibid. the inventor of the shopping mall and one of America’s most sought-after urban planners. The business he founded, Victor Gruen Associates, employed over 300 workers in the subsequent years.266

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ORGANIC STYLE—THE FURNITURE FORMS OF THE 1950S

d

267 Polster

and Elsner (2002), 230. Koenig, Eames (Cologne: Taschen, 2005), 11ff. 269 Ibid. 268 Gloria

270 Fiell

and Fiell (1999), 17; Mang (1978), 138. 271 Thillmann and Willscheid (2011), 198; Koenig (2005), 11ff. 272 Wilhide (2016), 287ff. 273 Hauffe

(2014), 186.

With the support of New York’s venerable Bloomingdale’s department store, the MoMA organized a competition in 1940 called Organic Design in Home Furnishings. The goal was to find modern forms for furniture, lamps, and fabrics suitable for industrial production. The two young furniture designers Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames won the first two prizes for their light, organically curved, and ergonomically shaped wooden chairs. Saarinen and Eames both worked at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, built and directed by Eero’s father, the architect Eliel Saarinen, who had immigrated from Finland in 1923. Although both Eames and the young Saarinen were trained architects, they devoted themselves primarily to furniture design.267 Eames and Saarinen’s Organic Chair, which was shown at the MoMA exhibition, had a decisive impact on the furniture design of the subsequent years. In 1941, Eames married the artist and furniture designer Ray Kaiser. The young couple moved to Los Angeles, where they met Richard Neutra. Neutra provided them with an apartment in a building he had just completed, the Strathmore Apartment Building in Westwood, near Beverly Hills.268 The scarcity of materials resulting from World War II forced the two young designers to be inventive, and in a room next to their apartment, they experimented with molding plywood. In their first furniture designs using molded plywood, the Eameses implemented and refined the bentwood process developed by Michael Thonet in Vienna. Their aim was to design elegantly proportioned and above all affordable furniture. Their first major success came in 1945 with the Lounge Chair Wood, whose flowing and organic form was designed to perfectly fit the contours of the human body.269 After the catastrophes and hardships of World War II, the late 1940s and the 1950s were a time of new beginnings, of international optimism, and of an unprecedented wave of mass consumption. The furniture designers profited from new construction methods and materials that resulted from war-related research and development, particularly synthetic materials. The furniture design of the 1950s was distinguished by a curved, flowing character, smooth surfaces, and conically tapered legs. New technologies from the aircraft, war, and auto industries enabled furniture to be produced even more efficiently.270 In 1948, Charles and Ray Eames designed their first shell chairs made of fiberglass, a glass-reinforced plastic. Beginning in 1950, they were produced by Zenith Plastic, which during the war had developed a special process for manufacturing airplane radar domes. Their Plastic Chair, constructed of molded fiberglass, made the two designers world famous and sold millions.271 Charles and Ray Eames were enormously creative in the design of their new fiberglass chairs. They were shown at the Low-Cost Furniture Design competition at the MoMA and were available in different colors and versions: with a variety of frames, with metal or wooden bases, or as a rocking chair.272 The two designers experimented with a wide variety of materials, including plastic, fiberglass, wood, aluminum, wire mesh, and plywood, and conceived their furniture for private as well as public use.273

The banished visionaries—from Vienna to the US

111

left

Various chair models

by Charles and Ray Eames: top left: Plywood Chair, c. 1945; top right: Bikini Chair, c. 1951; center left: Plastic Chair, c. 1948; center right: Rocket Chair, c. 1948; bottom: Lounge Chair Wood, c. 1956, Sammlung CW

274 Koenig

(2005), 11ff.

275 Koenig

(2005), 13, 67.

The works of Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen were also influenced by Richard Neutra’s formal principles and his furniture designs. At the end of World War II, John Entenza, the American journalist, newspaper publisher, and editor of Arts & Architecture Magazine, purchased a five-acre plot of land on the Pacific coast in Pacific Palisades, a suburb of Los Angeles. Entenza commissioned Neutra, Saarinen, and the Eameses, among other architects, to build so-called Case Study Houses. The Eameses built two houses, one of which was then occupied by John Entenza and the other by the Eameses themselves. Richard Neutra built several houses for Entenza as well; the architects and furniture designers were long-time friends.274 Like Richard Neutra, the Eameses furnished their houses with furniture of their own design, including the 1956 Eames Lounge Chair. The comfortable leather chair with a footrest was constructed at the request of Billy Wilder, a close friend of the Eameses. Wilder, born in Galicia (now part of Poland) in 1906, had spent his school years and youth in Vienna and later moved to Berlin. In 1933 he fled to Paris to escape the Nazis and from there to the US. Wilder wanted a comfortable chair in which he could relax and even sleep during breaks on the film set. Wilder received the first Lounge Chair that was produced as a gift from Charles and Ray Eames. This model went into series production and, although at 400 dollars it was quite expensive, the chair quickly became an international bestseller.275 Two other American designers drew inspiration from Viennese furniture design as well: George Nelson and Norman Cherner. From August to October 1953, the MoMA mounted an extensive Thonet exhibition: Thonet Furniture 1830-1953, showing numerous Thonet models, from the first bentwood chairs from Vienna and the cantilevered chairs of tubular steel to the modern Thonet designs of the 1950s.276 George Nelson used Thonet’s Wiener Sessel as a model for his 1952 Pretzel Chair. Inspired by these two chairs, Norman Cherner created his Cherner Chair in 1958: made of curved plywood and solid wood with distinctive, contoured armrests, this chair made Cherner known internationally as a furniture designer.277

276 https://www.moma.org/

calendar/exhibitions/1722 (accessed August 1, 2021). 277 http://www.georgenelsonfoun dation.org/george-nelson/works/ brentwood-or-laminated-chairpretzel-chair-57.html (accessed August 1, 2021). This chair was produced in the 1950s by Henry Miller and later by the Italian fur­ niture-design company ICF. Since 2008, a new version has been series-manufactured by Vitra.

The banished visionaries—from Vienna to the US

113

Top

Furniture in the Werk-

bund exhibition at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, Vienna, 1950, © MAK Top

Stadthalle chair; de-

sign: Roland Rainer; execution: Wiesner-Hagner, Vienna, c. 1950, Sammlung CW

114

The banished visionaries—from Vienna to the US

10

Furniture design of 1950s Vienna

The years after 1945 in Vienna were dominated by the rebuilding of the city. Immediately following the war, furniture design was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind—buildings and apartments had to be constructed, and furnishings and furniture were largely improvised. There was a dramatic housing shortage in Vienna, and the city reinstated its public housing program to mitigate the problem. Some 40 percent of Vienna’s buildings and much of the urban infrastructure had been destroyed; cultural institutions and historic landmarks such as the State Opera, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and the Burgtheater also sustained heavy damage in the final days of the war. In 1952, in a collective effort by the City of Vienna, the Chamber of Labor, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Austrian Trade Union Federation, a furniture project called Soziale Wohnkultur (literally “social living culture”) was established. Low-income residents were to be able to purchase attractive, functional, and practical furniture for small apartments at affordable prices. An entire line of furniture was designed at the time for this purpose, ranging from shelves, beds, settees, and lamps to kitchen furniture. The designs came from, among others, Oskar Payer, Roland Rainer, and Franz Schuster. The Soziale Wohnkultur (SW) association contracted with furniture manufacturers, determined designs and quality standards, and prefinanced the furniture production. All furnishings were marked with the SW logo; the brand stood for inexpensive, high-quality, modern furniture design.278 In the 1950s, the architects who remained in Vienna provided the area of furniture design with crucial impetus. In their designs, they drew on the artistically productive period of the 1920s and ’30s and thus on the visionary ideas and formal principles championed by the leading figures of Wiener Wohnraumkultur, architects who had been expelled or murdered. Only very few of the surviving architects and designers who had been driven out by the Nazis returned to Vienna after the war. Ernst Lichtblau returned from the US to the city of his birth only in 1961, at the age of seventy-eight, and resumed his work as an architect; he died of a heart attack shortly thereafter.279 Ernst Plischke moved back to Vienna from New Zealand in 1963 and was appointed professor for architecture at Vienna’s 278 Eva B. Ottillinger (ed.), MöAcademy of Fine Arts, but he no longer received any major contracts as an beldesign der 50er Jahre. Wien im internationalen Kontext (Vienna: architect. Oskar Payer also returned to Vienna after the war, in his case Böhlau, 2005), 48ff. from Palestine. With his interior-design shop, he significantly influenced 279 http://www.architektenlexikon. the furniture design of the 1950s. In the post-war period, Payer, who had at/de/357.htm (accessed July 15, 2021). trained as a cabinetmaker in Vienna and attended the State Trade School 280 Marianne Payer, Oskar Payer, (Staatsgewerbeschule), became a proponent of social housing projects and Peter Payer, Payer-Decor. Die and modern furniture design. He also wrote a number of books about home Wiener Einrichtung (Vienna: self-published, 1957); Oskar Payer furnishings, such as Die Wiener Einrichtung and Praktische Wohnungsand Peter Payer, Praktische kunde, and was involved in the development and organization of the SoWohnungskunde (Vienna: self-pubziale Wohnkultur project.280 At the beginning of the 1950s, he and his wife, lished, 1960). Marianne Payer, opened the interior-design shop Die Wiener Wohnung, which in the early 1970s was renamed Payer-Decor. In 1958, Marianne Payer acquired Haus & Garten from Julius Kalmar, who had run the business

Furniture design of 1950s Vienna

115

Top L. Armchair; design: Oswald Haerdtl; Primavera fabric by Josef Frank; execution: TON, Vienna, c. 1950, Sammlung CW Top R. Table lamp Stilfix with black iron base, brass shank, and redpainted metal shade; execution: J. T. Kalmar, Vienna, c. 1950, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2010 Center L. Couch table, cast brass and walnut with a black Resopal top; design: Oswald Haerdtl; execution: Werkstätte Hagenauer, Vienna, c. 1950, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2016 center R. Floor lamp Dornstab; design and execution: J. T. Kalmar, Vienna, c. 1952, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2012 bottom House bar, walnut; design: Oswald Haerdtl; execution: Max Welz, Vienna, c. 1952, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2017

281 Köhldorfer 282

(2019), 86. Holzschuh and Platzer (2015), 86.

283 Roland

Rainer’s furniture was produced by the firm Vienna Sitzmöbel und Tischfabrik Emil & Alfred Pollak. 284 http://www.architektenlexikon. at/de/1393.htm (accessed August 10, 2021). 285 Only in 2013, in a research report by a team of historians commissioned by the City of Vienna, were Roland Rainer’s activities under Nazi rule examined. The 2018 exhibition Roland Rainer. (Un)Disputed. New Findings on the Work (1936–1963) at the Architekturzen-

trum Vienna thoroughly scrutinized this period of his career. 286 http://www.architektenlexikon. at/de/577.htm (accessed August 10, 2021). 287 In 1945, the former School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbe­ schule) was renamed Academy of Applied Arts (Hochschule für angewandte Kunst). 288 Ottillinger (2005), 50.

since May 1938 as an “Aryanizer.” In addition to furniture of their own design, the Payers also sold furnishings from Scandinavia and fabrics designed by Josef Frank for Svenskt Tenn. A cloud of silence long hung over the architects and furniture designers in Austria who had continued pursuing their careers between 1938 and 1945 under the Nazi regime. For many years, the biographies, publications, and exhibition catalogs pertaining to figures such as Roland Rainer, Franz Schuster, and Oswald Haerdtl contained nothing about their work during World War II. Schuster was a member of the Nazi regime’s Deutsche Aka­ demie für Wohnungswesen (German Housing Academy) and Rainer a member of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party).281 Haerdtl received a number of prominent commissions from the Nazi government and continued to teach at the School of Arts and Crafts. At the beginning of the 1940s, he was extremely successful as an independent architect and furniture designer.282 With his architectural works, Roland Rainer left an indelible mark on 1950s Vienna. After studying architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna, he worked in Berlin beginning in 1936; at the end of World War II, he returned to Vienna and became an independent architect. In 1953 he was appointed professor at the Polytechnic Academy in Hannover, Germany, and later taught at the Polytechnic Institute in Graz. In 1956 he was named professor for architecture at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts, and at the end of the 1950s, one of his most important works was erected in Vienna: the Wiener Stadthalle, a multi-purpose indoor arena and convention venue. In addition to his teaching activities, he was also the head urban planner for the City of Vienna from 1958 to 1963. He designed a great deal of furniture in the 1950s, which he used not only in the Wiener Stadthalle but also in many coffeehouses in Vienna. 283 The architect received a number of awards for his works, among them the 1954 City of Vienna Prize for Architecture and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Architecture in 1962. 284 His role under the Nazi regime, however, was completely ignored for a matter of decades.285 Franz Schuster, who had studied architecture with Oskar Strnad at the School of Arts and Crafts, worked for Ernst May in Frankfurt from 1927 to 1936 but returned to Vienna before the outbreak of World War II. In Frankfurt, he developed his so-called “Aufbaumöbelprogramm” (unit assembly furniture), which he described in 1929 under the title Ein Möbelbuch: Ein Beitrag zum Problem des zeitgemäßen Möbels (A Furniture Book: Solving the Problem of Modern Furniture).286 After returning to Vienna, he taught architecture at the School of Arts and Crafts. In the 1950s, he became involved in social housing projects and was Vienna’s leading expert on housing-construction issues. Apart from teaching architecture at the Academy of Applied Arts,287 which he did until 1967, he was the director of the Research Center of the City of Vienna for Housing and Building from 1952 to 1957. Schuster was also a strong supporter of the SW furniture project. His Wiener Küche from the SW furniture series was a refinement of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s 1927 kitchen design.288 Oswald Haerdtl continued his successful career as a furniture designer after World War II. His role under the Nazi regime did not in any way impede his career as an architect, furniture designer, and professor—to the contrary: he continued to teach architecture until his death in 1959 and was head

Furniture design of 1950s Vienna

117

left

Arabia Espresso;

design: Oswald Haerdtl, Vienna, c. 1951; logo: Joseph Binder; photographer: Julius Scherb, © MAK top L. Newspaper stand, patinated brass and leather; design and execution: Carl Auböck, Vienna, c. 1955, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2015 Top R. Tree Trunk Table; design and execution: Carl Auböck, Vienna, c. 1950, Sammlung CW center Side table; design and execution: Werkstätte Carl Auböck, Vienna, 1949, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2016 Bottom L. Lounge chair with removable woven-rattan seat; design and execution: Carl Auböck, Vienna, c. 1950, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2014 Bottom R. Serving cart, iron tubes with woven rattan; design and execution: Carl Auböck, Vienna, c. 1953, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2019

of the department of commercial and industrial design at the Academy of Applied Arts.289 His coffeehouse furnishings were especially influential for the furniture design of the 1950s in Vienna. His Arabia Espresso at 5 Kohlmarkt, completed in 1951, was the Austrian capital’s first Italian espresso. Unlike the traditional Viennese coffeehouse, this type of café was designed for only a brief stay by the customers. The modern espresso was the talk of the town right from the moment it opened. Its furnishings differed fundamentally from those of the conventional Viennese coffeehouse. Haerdtl, who was a close friend of the owner of the Arabia Café company, the Austrian businessman Alfred Weiss, designed not only the entire interior of Arabia Espresso but also all of its chairs, tables, and lamps. The fabrics, the uniforms of the waitstaff, and the coffee and tea cups were designed by Carmela Haerdtl-Prati, Oswald Haerdtl’s wife.290 At the beginning of the 1950s, he furnished—among many other coffeehouses—the Pavillon in Vienna’s Volksgarten and Café Prückel on Stubenring.291 Carl Auböck also left his stamp on the design of 1950s Vienna. Born in the Austrian capital in 1924 as the son of the craftsman and painter of the same name, he learned the craft trade in his parents’ workshop and studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. In 1952, he attended a three-month summer class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. He took this occasion to visit Charles and Ray Eames, at that time

118

289 Holzschuh and Platzer (2015), 86. 290 Stiller

(2000), 123.

291 Ottillinger

(2005), 76.

Furniture design of 1950s Vienna

already very successful designers, at their home in San Francisco. During his stay in the US, he also made the acquaintance of the American furniture designer George Nelson, who visited Auböck several times in Vienna in the following years.292 After his return to Vienna, Auböck devoted himself intensively to the industrial production of houses and prefabricated construction, collaborating with Roland Rainer on a prefabricated housing development on Veitingergasse, in Vienna’s thirteenth district. At the beginning of the 1950s, he became a teaching assistant at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute and as of the mid-1950s was active as a freelance architect, furniture designer, and industrial designer. Aside from furniture and lamps, he also designed many items of everyday use, from cutlery and doorhandles to the first ski binding for Tyrolia, the Austria ski manufacturer owned by the Smolka family. He produced his most famous piece of furniture, the so-called tree trunk table (Baumtisch), in partnership with his father, Carl Auböck senior. In the postwar years, the Carl Auböck Workshop was very much a collaboration between father and son. The table is a recycling project: the table tops were made of slices of tree roots that could no longer be used or sold by cabinetmakers or sawmills. Carl Auböck’s furniture designs were popular far beyond Vienna and were even sold at Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan. In 1977, Carl Auböck was appointed professor and head of the master class for metal product design at the Academy of Applied Arts, a position that he—who was referred to by his students as “Mister Design”—held until his death in 1993. 293 She influenced the furniture design of Vienna in the mid-twentieth century like nearly no other woman: Anna-Lülja Praun. Born as Anna-Lülja Simidoff in St. Petersburg in 1906, she began studying architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Graz in 1924. After completing her studies, she worked on a freelance basis at a Graz studio in a joint office with Herbert Eichholzer, her later life partner; in 1937 she began working at Clemens Holzmeister’s studio in Vienna. She lived in France and Bulgaria at the beginning of World War II but returned to Vienna in 1942 and married the Viennese architect Richard Praun. In 1952, Anna-Lülja Praun opened her own studio in Vienna, planned houses, and designed interiors, furniture, lamps, and ceramics. Her furniture was simple, functional, elegant, and superbly crafted. From 1953 to 1959, she worked as a furniture designer for Haus & Garten as well. Her products were also available at the interior-design shop Payer-Decor under the name Design Praun.294 Her furniture design clearly displays the intellectual message of Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank. She also designed the light, delicate Sonett metal garden furniture, which was produced in small series by the metal-furniture manufacturer Karl Fostel Sen.’s Erben, with headquarters in Vienna’s eighteenth district. Josef Frank had used similar models in 1928 in furnishing the garden of the Krasny house on Vienna’s Hohe Warte and sold them at Haus & Garten. The Organic Style, a trend from the US, was taken up with enthusiasm by the designers of Vienna, who also embraced the use of new synthetic materials. Curved kidney tables, low cocktail chairs, small three-legged stools, and colorful, tulip-shaped lamps were among the typical furniture of the 1950s. In this period as well, emphasis was placed on creative collaboration between architects and small, highly specialized handicraft businesses.

120

Top

Fliegenbein floor lamp

with black iron base and original shade; execution: J. T. Kalmar, Vienna, c. 1950, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2012

292 Clemens Kois, Carl Auböck. The Workshop (Brooklyn, NY: powerHouse Books, 2012), 9. 293 Interview with Maria Auböck, recorded on November 21, 2018, at the workshop on Bernardgasse in Vienna’s seventh district. The Carl Auböck Workshop is still operated as a family business, now by the fifth generation of Auböcks. 294 Ottillinger (2005), 59ff.

Left

Lyra armchair, steel

wire and punched, perforated plate; design: Anna-Lülja Praun and Thomas Lauterbach; execution: Karl Fostel Sen.’s Erben, Vienna, c. 1955, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2014 right Triennale armchair, cherrywood with upholstered seat and leather backrest; design: Anna-Lülja Praun; execution: Karl Krejsa, Vienna, 1955, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2012

295 Ibid., 296 Ibid.,

68ff. 68, 70.

297 Ibid.,

68.

In the 1950s, the Vienna Sitzmöbel und Tischfabrik Emil & Alfred Pollak company produced many furniture models in Vienna, including Roland Rainer’s “Stadthalle chair.” Established in Prague in 1835, the company moved its headquarters to Vienna in 1867 and in 1912 established a furniture workshop on Meidlinger Hauptstraße. As a result of the collaboration with Roland Rainer, the company opened a large furniture factory on the Wienerberg in the 1950s.295 Another business in 1950s Vienna was also increasingly turning its attention to furniture design: the Kunstwerkstätte Hagenauer. Founded in Vienna in 1898 by Carl Hagenauer, the firm largely produced brass and bronze art objects until well into the 1930s. After World War II, it started manufacturing a large number of furniture models as well. Julius Jirasek, who had studied with Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank at the School of Arts and Crafts, began working at the workshop in 1930, where he remained for many years and was responsible for furniture design.296 The Viennese company Karl Fostel Sen.’s Erben produced, among other things, Anna-Lülja Praun’s delicate Sonett series of metal furniture. This metal-furniture manufacturer also produced chairs with tubular-steel frames and colorful seats made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, the model City, which was very much inspired by Charles and Ray Eames.297

Furniture design of 1950s Vienna

121

left

Living spaces in the

Werkbund exhibition at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, Vienna, 1950, © MAK Top L. Sonett garden chair; execution: Karl Fostel Sen.’s Erben, Vienna, c. 1955, Sammlung CW Top R. Table lamp; design and execution: J. T. Kalmar, Vienna, c. 1950, with a lampshade made of fabric by Josef Frank, Sammlung CW center Walnut chairs with black-leather seat; design: Julius Jirasek; execution: Werkstätte Hagenauer, Vienna, c. 1950, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2014 bottom Garden table and stacking chairs; design: Julius Jirasek; execution: Werkstätte Hagenauer, Vienna, c. 1955, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2010

Thonet also resumed furniture production after World War II. Thonet Industries in the US, Thonet Frères in France, Thonet Frankenberg in Germany, and Gebrüder Thonet in Vienna produced independently of one another. The factories in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary had been expropriated in 1945 and were now state-owned enterprises. In Czechoslovakia, furniture production resumed in 1953 under the name TON. The company headquarters in Vienna had been completely destroyed during the war. The factory in Frankenberg, Germany, was rebuilt after the end of the war, and branch locations were added in Switzerland and France. Leopold Pilzer never returned to Austria, remaining in the US, where he continued to run Thonet Industries. Production in Austria resumed only in 1962, with a factory in Styria.298 Josef Frank and Oskar Strnad’s principles of furniture design are very evident in the works of the furniture designers who became active in Vienna in the second half of the twentieth century. These young designers incorporated the ideas and the philosophy of the leading figures of Neues Wiener Wohnen into their works. The intellectual message of the furniture designers who were driven out of Vienna lived on in the designs of this younger generation of artists that included Anna-Lülja Praun, Julius Jirasek, Johannes Spalt, and Hermann Czech.299

298 https://www.gebruederthonet

vienna.com/de/storia/ (accessed July 10, 2021). 299 Friedrich Kurrent, Die “Rückkehr” von Josef Frank aus der Emigration, in Meder (2008), 97ff.

122

Furniture design of 1950s Vienna

Scandinavian furniture and Viennese furniture design in Sweden: Josef Frank

 11

In the mid-twentieth century, furniture from Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway became known in other parts of Europe and in the US as well. Scandinavian design clearly displayed the social and economic developments of the northern European countries at that time—these countries could draw on a centuries-old craft tradition. Compared with other European countries, industrialization came relatively late to this region. Scandinavian furniture design is still today characterized by functionality, simplicity, natural materials, and cost-saving mass production. Pioneers of Scandinavian furniture design included the Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto and the Danish industrial designer and architect Arne Jacobsen. Their idea that visually attractive, durable, and functional furniture and objects of everyday use should be affordable for everyone was implemented in Scandinavian furniture design after World War II. The furniture designers were convinced that good design as well as simple and well-crafted products could improve people’s lives. Natural, organic forms and materials such as wood and linen were used in furniture design, and the focus was on people and their needs.300 Even though the formal principles of the Bauhaus were familiar around the world beginning in the 1930s, the Wiener Möbel of the interwar period was nevertheless considered to be an important model for modern Scandinavian furniture design. Viennese furniture from the first half of the twentieth century and that of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway had one thing in common: the design of modern furniture was the result of close collaboration between creative furniture designers on one hand and well-trained craftspeople and small furniture manufacturers on the other. Like in Vienna in the 1930s, wood—as a natural material—was preferred in furniture production to tubular steel or glass.301 The ideas of Viennese furniture designers found their way to northern Europe through their publication in architecture magazines as well. On one hand, industrial production and the modern furniture forms of Thonet that resulted from this had a decisive influence on the design of modern Scandinavian furniture—in these countries, Thonet chairs are still known as Viennese chairs. On the other hand, it was also the theoretical and practical work of Viennese furniture designers that significantly influenced the designs of the Scandinavian artists.302 300 Mang (1978), 118f.; Alvar Aalto frequently emphasized how much he was inspired by lecBradbury (2014), 22. tures on the works of the Wiener Werkstätte and the ideas of Josef Hoff301 Ibid. mann that he heard during his studies at the University of Helsinki. 303 The 302 Ott-Wodni (2015), 140. 303 Mang (1978), 118. Danish designer, architect, and author Poul Henningsen was also en304 https://www.thonet.de/de/ thralled with the Viennese chair, Thonet’s Desk Chair No. 9, of which he magazin/geschichte-marke/ wrote in 1927: “This chair solves its task—to be a lightweight, comfortable detail/209-liebling-der-architekten armchair with a low backrest—with perfection. If an architect makes this (accessed August 1, 2021). chair five times as expensive, three times as heavy, half as comfortable and a quarter as beautiful, he can make a name for himself.”304 In the 1930s, Aalto refined Thonet’s bentwood process to make his first cantilevered

124

right Grand Prix chair; design: Arne Jacobsen, Denmark, 1957; execution: Fritz Hansen, Sammlung CW

305 Thillmann and Willscheid (2011), 197. 306 Wilhide (2016), 174. 307 Mang

(1978), 125. and Willscheid (2011), 120. 309 Maria Welzig, Josef Frank 1885–1967. Das architektonische Werk (Vienna: Böhlau, 1998), 165. 310 Ott-Wodni (2015), 137f. 311 Jan Norrman, Schwedisches Möbeldesign 1930–1960 und Josef Frank, in Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 316. 308 Thillmann

chair out of wood.305 He rejected cold tubular steel for his furniture, preferring to experiment with bending plywood and laminated wood.306 In the interwar period, the Danish furniture producer Fritz Hansen, who worked with the furniture designers Arne Jacobsen and Verner Panton, also experimented with making furniture out of bent wood, following the model of the Thonet process.307 It was not only the theoretical approaches and the works of the furniture designers from Vienna in the first half of the twentieth century that influenced the development of furniture design in northern European countries but also the extraordinary designs of an architect: Josef Frank. Frank began working for the Swedish interior design firm Svenskt Tenn in the 1930s. When he moved from Vienna to Stockholm, he brought his playful furniture style, his cheerful patterns and colors, and his fondness for wood with him to Sweden.308 Frank’s furniture and fabric designs for Svenskt Tenn were a continuation of his work in Vienna. In collaboration with Estrid Ericson, the Swedish designer and founder of Svenskt Tenn, the company continued the Haus & Garten line, manufacturing the products based on the old designs while at the same time developing new works.309 The Vienna-born Frank is considered the founder of modern Swedish interior décor and one of the most important furniture designers who worked in the new style of Swedish Modernism.310 His exuberantly colorful furniture and fabric designs were strikingly different from the simple design of the modern style of that time. When one now compares the colorful and cheery fabric designs of IKEA, the firm founded in 1943 by the then 17-yearold Ingvar Kamprad, with Josef Frank’s designs, similarities are clearly evident. The furniture designs and fabrics by this versatile and highly-talented designer from Vienna are today regarded as typically Swedish.311

Scandinavian furniture and Viennese furniture design in Sweden: Josef Frank

125

left

126

Dresser; design: Josef Frank,

right Chair, wood, bamboo, and leather;

Stockholm, c. 1938; execution: Svenskt

design: Josef Frank, Stockholm, c. 1947;

Tenn, © ST

execution: Svenskt Tenn, © KAUAK

Top l. Estrid Ericson and Josef Frank at the Svenskt Tenn shop at 5 Strandvägen in Stockholm, 1964; photographer: Lennart Nilsson, © ST top R. Drawing for the Naschmarkt fabric by Josef Frank, Vienna, c. 1920, © MAK Bottom R. Primavera fabric; design: Josef Frank, Vienna, c. 1920; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST Bottom L. Floor lamp; design: Josef Frank, Vienna, c. 1930; execution: Svenskt Tenn, Sammlung K

Scandinavian furniture and Viennese furniture design in Sweden: Josef Frank

127

12

Bel Design from Italy

After the end of World War II, one country developed into the design nation of Europe: Italy. The transition from manual to industrial production in Italy happened very slowly and in general was completed only after World War II. In the area of furniture-making, Italy could look back on a centuries-long tradition of craftmanship. Still today, the Italian furniture industry is characterized by small, family-run companies that produce elegant furniture in small series with a great deal of experience and attention to detail. In complete contrast to the American market-oriented conception of design, the secret of Italian furniture design lay and still lies in improvisation and in the old tradition of combining beauty and function. Particularly in the middle of the twentieth century, the synergy between artistic creativity and the long years of experience in furniture-making offered by small, flexible, highlyspecialized family businesses became evident. In the 1940s, there was no special training in Italy for furniture or industrial design; the Italian furniture companies worked together with artists and architects. It was also the combination of industrial and manual production and the interest in new materials and technical innovations in the area of industrial production that made Italian furniture design internationally successful in the second half of the twentieth century. In the post-war era, Bel Design from Italy became a synonym for modern, innovative, and aesthetic furniture design. 312 It stood for the fusion of elegant materials and timeless forms, delight in experimentation, and the collaboration with an industry that was open to innovations. The center of this development of modern furniture design was Milan, which had several smaller furniture companies located in its immediate vicinity.313 A crucial role in the development of modern furniture design in Italy was played not only by the country’s economic situation—Italy’s “economic miracle” of the 1950s—but also by magazines, design competitions, design prizes, and international exhibitions. Already in 1928, the Milan-based architect and furniture designer Gio Ponti began publishing his monthly architecture and design magazine Domus, which made modern Italian furniture design known far beyond the national borders. Domus became the most influential magazine for modern architecture and furniture design not only in Italy but also internationally, and made a crucial contribution to their development.314 Soon after its founding, the Triennale Milano, which beginning in 1933 was held every three years, became the world’s most important design exhibition.315 Gio Ponti’s Superleggera chair, which he designed in 1957 for the Milanese firm Cassina, was a successful example of the creative interaction between a furniture designer, traditional craftmanship in furniture-making, and an innovative industry. As early as the end of the 1940s, in response to the scarcity of materials in the post-war period, Gio Ponti came up with the idea of designing a lightweight chair of wood with a crooked backrest. In

128

Top

Two Lady wingback

chairs with brass legs; design: Marco Zanuso, Italy, 1951, Sammlung CW bottom Small house bar with two stools, Italy, c. 1950, Sammlung CW

312 Hauffe

(2014), 198, 201, 230ff. Erlhoff and Tim Marshall, Wörterbuch Design. Begriffliche Perspektiven des Design (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008), 48; Mang (1978), 152, 154, 197, 200. 314 Charlotte Fiell and Peter Fiell, Domus 1940–1949 (Cologne: Taschen Bibliotheca Universalis, 2016), 18. 315 Hauffe (2014), 198, 201. 313 Michael

Bel Design from Italy

the design of this chair, Ponti utilized natural, traditional materials: ash wood and woven cane. The architect closely followed new technologies in furniture production, and his goal was to combine skilled craftmanship with modern industrial production methods. In 1951, he had collaborated with Cassina on the Leggera chair. Ponti optimized the design and six years later recreated the chair in a version that was even lighter: his Superleggera— weighing a mere 3.5 pounds, superbly crafted, and extremely sturdy—became an icon of modern Italian furniture design. To demonstrate the robustness of his lightweight chair, Ponti threw it from the rooftop of the factory onto the street below—right in front of his employees. The Superleggera survived the fall unscathed and became one of the best-known pieces of designer furniture of the 1950s. Cassina has continued producing the chair to the present day without interruption.316 As early as the mid-1920s, Josef Frank had also designed a simple, graceful chair of wood with a woven-cane seat, which was among the bestknown models of the Haus & Garten line. With this design, Frank seems to have anticipated Gio Ponti’s idea for his Leggera and Superleggera. This model, created in Vienna in 1925, continues to be produced by Svenskt Tenn in Sweden.317 There were, indeed, ties between Milan and Vienna, and between Gio Ponti and Haus & Garten. As early as the 1930s, Gio Ponti enthused about the sophisticated furniture and fabric designs of Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach. In the third issue of Domus in 1936, he reported on current interiordesign projects by Haus & Garten under the title Frank e Wlach and showed the modern interior architecture and the furniture and fabrics used in the Krasny and Beer homes in Vienna.318 Gio Ponti was also close friends with Oswald Haerdtl and Haerdtl’s wife, the Italian fabric designer Carmela Haerdtl-Prati, who had studied with Josef Hoffmann at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna. HaerdtlPrati, in turn, was related to Ponti’s wife, Giulia Vimercati. Haerdtl-Prati worked, among other things, as a stage designer at Milan’s La Scala. In the 1950s, both Oswald Haerdtl and his wife published numerous articles in Domus.319

Top

Chair, red-painted

beech and rattan; design: Josef Frank for Haus & Garten; Vienna, c. 1925, © MAK

316 Graziella Roccella, Gio Ponti 1891–1979. La légèreté de la matière (Cologne: Taschen, 2021), 54. 317 Ott-Wodni (2015), 281. 318 Claudia Cavallar and Sebastian Hackenschmidt, Cover Versions, in Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 234. 319 Stiller (2000), 117.

130

Bel Design from Italy

13

Industrially produced furniture in English exile

A group of architects and designers from Vienna had a significant impact on modern furniture and fabric design in Great Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Ella Briggs emigrated to London in 1936. Although she had an outstanding command of the English language, her life in exile was initially quite difficult because she was unable to obtain an architecture license. It is unclear when she was able to resume her career as a freelance architect. After World War II, she collaborated on projects with Otto Neurath, who in 1938 had also emigrated from Vienna to London, and was involved in a reconstruction program for public housing operated by the British government.320 Ernst Freud left Berlin for London in 1933, working at first as an independent architect and designer, planning houses in the International Style. At the same time, he was very involved in the management of his father’s estate and edited the famous neurologist’s correspondence for publication.321 The young designers Jacques and Jacqueline Groag also lived in exile in London beginning in 1939. There, the couple had to start a new life and career. Due to an absence of commissions for architecture projects, Jacques worked as an interior architect and furniture designer, while Jacqueline made a successful career designing fabrics, rugs, and wallpaper. Jacques designed space-saving, multifunctional furniture and worked for the British government’s Utility Furniture Programme, which after World War II supported the series production of inexpensive furniture.322 Jacqueline worked as a freelance designer for businesses including the British companies Hallmark Design and Cavendish Textiles. Her fabric designs were used by London Transport, British Railways, BOAC airlines, and passenger ships. Even the British heir to the throne, Princess Elizabeth, was photographed in 1946 in an Edward Molyneux-designed dress that featured Jacqueline Groag’s Tulip fabric pattern.323 She became one of Great Britain’s best-known designers; her extravagant fabric and furniture designs were very influential for British home furnishings in the 1950s and ’60s, and she is still regarded as a pioneer of modern fabric design. In 1984 320 Prokop (2016), 197. she was named a Royal Designer for Industry, the highest accolade for a 321 https://deu.archinform.net/ designer in Britain.324 arch/3326.htm (accessed July 10, The creative minds behind the visionary joint studio Singer & Dicker 2021). 322 Prokop (2005), 70. also left the Austrian capital in the mid-1930s for Great Britain. Franz Singer 323 Thun-Hohenstein, Rossberg, lived largely in London beginning in 1934. The architect initially continued to and Schmuttermeier (2020), 209. work for the studio in Vienna from his home in Great Britain while also serv324 https://doppelhouse.com/ ing as a consultant for the John Lewis home furnishings company in Lonursula-prokop-and-shmuel-groagbook-presentation-remarks/ don.325 Singer continued designing furniture, particularly stacking chairs (accessed July 19, 2021). and children’s furniture. His plywood chair with the distinctive crossed base, 325 Hövelmann (2018), 195, 207. 326 Ibid., 201, 215. the X-Stuhl, Prototype No. 44/2, was produced in a small series in England in 1936. Franz Singer’s long-time employee in Vienna, Hans Biel, also moved to London in 1934, and the two continued to work together as furniture designers.326

Industrially produced furniture in English exile

131

left Series-manufactured plywood chairs by Franz Singer, Great Britain, c. 1936, Sammlung GS

Bruno Pollak emigrated from Vienna to London in the mid-1930s. The British furniture company Practical Equipment Ltd. (PEL) acquired the rights to produce the tubular steel stacking chairs he had designed in Vienna in 1927. PEL sold the chair both as model RP6 without armrests and as model RP7 with armrests. Two other British manufacturers of tubular steel furniture, Cox & Co and Steelchrome Ltd., copied Pollak’s chairs as well and were consequently forced to pay a licensing fee to PEL. The tubular steel chairs factory-produced by PEL were lighter in weight than the original, were painted and welded, and were sold around the world at a low price.327 Many public buildings in England such as the BBC’s Broadcasting House were furnished with Pollak’s unique chairs, as were airports, schools, and parks. Models of Pollak’s tubular steel chairs in various versions can be seen at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.328 After the war, neither Ella Briggs, nor the Groags, nor the former Singer & Dicker employees Franz Singer, Bruno Pollak, Hans Biel, or Anna Szabo returned to Vienna from their exile in London.

132

327 Ibid.,

195ff.

328 https://collections.vam.ac.uk/

item/O372425/model-rp6-chairpollak-bruno/ (accessed July 19, 2021).

Industrially produced furniture in English exile

14

From Vienna to Palestine— furniture design for the newly created State of Israel

329 Matthias Dorfstetter, Österreichische Architekturschaffende im entstehenden Staat Israel (diploma thesis, Vienna University of Tech-

nology, 2018), 23, 28. 330 A number of architects emigrated from Vienna to Palestine in the 1920s and ’30s, including Josef

Tischler, Jacques Ornstein, Leopold Krakauer, Carl Rubin, Jakob Pinkerfeld, Alfred Goldberger, Gideon Kaminka, Theodor Menkes, Paul Engelmann, Uriel Schiller, Robert Hoff, Moshe Gerstel, Dora Gad, and Helene Roth. See Dorfstetter (2019), 23ff. 331 Theodor Herzl, Old New World, trans. Lotta Levensohn (New York: Block, 1960). 332 Dorfstetter

(2019), 23, 28; https://davidkultur.at/artikel/altneuland (accessed August 1, 2021). 333 Plakolm-Forsthuber,

in Bois and Reinhold (2019), 47; Warhaftig (1996), 384. 334 https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/ article/gad-dorah (accessed July 22, 2021). 335 Dorfstetter (2019), 120. 336 Warhaftig (1996), 157. 337 https://www.jewishvirtual library.org/israel-prize-winners (accessed July 22, 2021).

In the 1920s and ’30s, a group of staunchly Zionist architects emigrated from Vienna to their homeland of Palestine. 329 A number of them had astounding careers there as furniture designers and in the middle of the twentieth century made important contributions to the architecture and furniture design of the newly created State of Israel.330 Oskar Marmorek was one of the first Zionists among Vienna’s architects. After completing his architecture studies at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute, Marmorek became known for his 1895 exhibition project Venedig in Wien, a recreation of Venice in Vienna’s Prater amusement park featuring Venetian streets, squares, and canals. He was a close friend and ideological ally of Theodor Herzl and presumably served as the model for the architect Steineck in Herzl’s utopian novel The Old New Land.331 Marmorek was one of the founding members of Vienna’s modern Zionist movement. Although he had never built in Palestine himself, as co-founder and journalist for the Zionist newspaper Die Welt, he wrote numerous articles about urban building concepts and the settlement of Palestine.332 Helene Roth, one of Vienna’s first female architecture students, emigrated to Palestine in 1933, initially working for the German-born interior architect Alfred Abraham before launching a successful career in Tel Aviv as one of Palestine’s first female interior architects and furniture designers.333 Dora Gad, born in 1912 as Dora Siegel, also studied architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute in the early 1930s. Together with her husband, Heinrich Goldberg, who had also studied architecture there, she emigrated to Tel Aviv in 1936. Goldberg adopted the Hebrew first name Yehezkel, and both changed their last name to Gad, meaning “Good Fortune.” Yehezkel Gad worked together with Helene Roth as an interior architect and furniture designer for Alfred Abraham. Dora Gad first found work with Oskar Kauffmann, a well-known theater architect from Germany who had fled from the Nazis to Palestine in 1933. In 1938 she opened her own architecture and design studio. Gad was one of the first female architects to work in Palestine in the 1930s and assumed a pioneering role as the country’s first female interior architect and furniture designer.334 In the 1940s and ’50s, Dora and Yehezkel Gad, who were now working together, were among Israel’s most prominent interior designers. They realized numerous interior-design projects for the newly created state, including furnishing the residence of the prime minister and foreign minister, the National Library in Jerusalem, Israel’s embassies in Ankara and Washington, D.C., and Ben Gurion Airport.335 Dora Gad continued her work after the death of her husband in 1958, designing the interiors of numerous luxury hotels in Israel and of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament building. Together with the architect Alfred Mansfeld, she planned the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, which was completed in 1965.336 For this project, she became the first woman to win the Israel Prize for architecture.337

From Vienna to Palestine—furniture design for the newly created State of Israel

133

With her lightweight and modern furniture, Dora Gad followed her own path, developing a new and highly individual style. Her furniture was to reflect the characteristic local features of her country. As an interior designer, she favored strong colors such as orange, purple, yellow, and turquoise, and a great deal of light, while in her furniture design she preferred timeless and simple forms and materials that were available right there in Israel: wood, wool rugs, woven fabrics, and straw. She combined local crafts and Israeli art with her philosophy of timeless design that she had developed during her training as an architect in Vienna.338 Dora Gad’s designs reflect one thing: the atmosphere of Israel. In the 1950s and ’60s, her designs represented the self-image and identity of the young state like no other. With her interior architecture and furniture design, the architect greatly influenced Israeliness and was instrumental in the development of the corporate design of the newly created State of Israel in the mid-twentieth century.339 Another architect brought his ideas and formal principles from Vienna to Israel as well: Paul Engelmann. Engelmann had studied architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute for a short time in 1910/11 and was one of the first students at Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule. He was a member of the closest circle of friends surrounding Adolf Loos, Ernst Freud, and Ludwig Wittgenstein and worked as Karl Kraus’s private secretary. As a student in Vienna, he became known for his poem about the Loos House on Michaelerplatz, in which he wrote of the indignation of the Viennese about the so-called “house without eyebrows.” Engelmann’s poem was published in Karl Kraus’s newspaper Die Fackel, leading to a close friendship between the two.340 In the 1920s and ’30s, Engelmann designed a great deal of interior décor and furniture in his hometown of Olomouc, now in the Czech Republic. His best-known project in Vienna was the planning of the Wittgenstein house. In 1926, Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein, the sister of the philosopher Ludwig Wittengenstein, commissioned Engelmann to build a modern city residence for her family on Kundmanngasse, in Vienna’s third district. Ludwig Wittgenstein, who at the time had just lost his teaching position in Lower Austria, became very involved in the planning of the house and greatly interfered in the young architect’s work. Wittgenstein, who had also trained as a mechanical engineer, adhered to Engelmann’s floorplans and room layouts but planned everything else himself, from the electrical outlets and light switches to the floor coverings, in-floor heating, and wall and ceiling surfaces. Jacques Groag was enlisted as a civil engineer to oversee the execution of the construction project. The cubic house, mea­ suring over 10,000 square feet, was completed in 1928.341 In 1934, Paul Engelmann moved to Tel Aviv and worked there as a furniture designer for the firm The Cultivated Home. Among other projects, he furnished the King David Hotel and the Press Club in Jerusalem.342 The designer is also said to have designed the interiors of the Jordanian parliament building and the Throne Hall in Amman.343 In Israel, Engelmann planned several single-family homes very much in keeping with the ideas of his former teacher and mentor Adolf Loos, but devoted himself primarily and with great enthusiasm to writing about urban planning and building. He wrote articles about housing and the settlement of the newly-created State of Israel, but also about literature and philosophy, and published biographical essays about Adolf Loos, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Karl Kraus.344

134

338 https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/ article/gad-dorah (accessed July 22, 2021). 339 Dorfstetter (2019), 121. 340 Ibid., 96. 341 Prokop (2016), 136. 342 Ibid., 137. 343 https://deu.archinform.net/ arch/16668.htm (accessed July 21, 2021). 344 Warhaftig (1996), 253; http:// www.architektenlexikon.at/de/108. htm (accessed July 21, 2021).

right Drawing by Josef Frank for a residential building with a dance school in Tel Aviv, Vienna, 1927, © MAK

Three other architects from Vienna were also involved in urban-building projects before the establishment of the State of Israel: Richard Neutra, together with the German-born architect Erich Mendelsohn, took part in a 1922 architecture competition for a commercial district in Haifa. That same year, Josef Frank designed a primary school in Tiberias, and in the 1930s, Franz Singer worked from his home in London on plans for a housing development in Palestine. But these three projects were never realized.345 At the beginning of the 1960s, Frederick Kiesler designed The Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, a masterpiece of modern architecture in Israel.346

345 Dorfstetter 346 Ibid.;

(2019), 20.

Boeckl (1995), 336.

From Vienna to Palestine—furniture design for the newly created State of Israel

135

The intellectual message from Vienna

15

After the war, Vienna’s formerly flourishing Jewish community was reduced to a very few survivors of the Shoah. Only a small number of the banished Austrians living in exile abroad returned. The Austrian government began very reluctantly—and under pressure from the Allies—with restitution and compensation for the countless Jewish victims of the Nazi regime. After World War II, there was virtually no effort on the part of the Republic of Austria to bring back emigrants.347 The majority of the furniture designers from Vienna who were forced to flee or emigrate under the Nazi regime never returned. Names such as Friedl Dicker, Franz Singer, Bruno Pollak, Ernst Schwadron, Ella Briggs, and Liane Zimbler have been forgotten in this country. What was irretrievably lost after 1945 was the Jewish segment of the population that had been such a crucial and enriching element for the city at the beginning of the twentieth century. Terms such as “liberal,” “modern,” or “cosmopolitan” were rendered meaningless for many years after 1945 in Austria because the bearers of the liberal ideology and philosophy had been forced to emigrate or were murdered.348 The expulsion of the Viennese furniture designers, their families, and their clients left behind a great void in Austria and represented an immense loss. They were a “fine monarchial mixture”349 from Vienna, as the Austrian writer Friedrich Torberg, who lived in exile in New York City beginning in 1938, said of himself, referring to the so-called “Zuckerltüten,” the bags of candy that were sold back then before theater performances in Vienna. In addition to all the human tragedies, 1938 also spelled an abrupt end to the golden age of Viennese furniture design. A number—albeit a small number—of the banished furniture designers were able to resume in exile the successful professional life they had enjoyed in Austria. They drew on the formal principles, ideas, and expertise gained during their time in Vienna and developed astounding careers in countries like the US, Great Britain, and Sweden. Their creative ideas and intellectual message went around the world. The early emigrants, such as Richard Neutra and Frederick Kiesler, supported their friends as well as fellow architects and furniture designers who came to the US from Vienna in 1938/39. Frederick Kiesler’s curved 347 Herbert Lackner, Rückkehr in and biomorphic furniture forms ushered in the Organic Style in 1950s furnidie fremde Heimat (Vienna: Ueberture design. In December 2011, his original 1942 Multi-use Chair sold for a reuter, 2021), 7ff. 350 record price of $200,500 at a design auction at Christie’s. Richard Neu348 Gombrich (2011), 20. 349 Friedrich Torberg, Die Tante tra’s houses and furniture became the quintessence of California ModernJolesch oder Der Untergang des ism, and his Boomerang Chair and Lovell Easy Chair are today design icons Abendlandes in Anekdoten, 2nd ed. of the Mid-Century Modern Style. (Munich: DTV 2004), 387. 350 https://www.christies.com/ As early as a hundred years ago, in 1920s Vienna, Josef Frank was able lot/lot-frederick-j-kiesler-1890to visualize many aspects of how we would live and reside today. His light 1965-an-oak-and-5521299/?from= and colorful furniture and fabric creations significantly shaped international salesummary&intObjectID=5521299 furniture design in the 1930s and inspired star designers from Gio Ponti to &lid=1 (accessed Sept. 15, 2021). Arne Jacobsen. His designs from his time in Vienna have been produced without interruption since the mid-1930s by Svenskt Tenn in Sweden and sold all over the world.

136

In the 1950s, Martin Eisler became one of South America’s most sought-after furniture designers. At the end of the 1990s, the auction house Christie’s discovered this designer, who had hitherto been unknown in Europe, and his furniture creations are now coveted collector’s items. The Italian furniture company Tacchini reproduced and marketed Martin Eisler’s Reversível Chair, which subsequently won the 2019 Archiproducts Design Award and the 2021 German Design Award. Similarly, Bruno Pollak’s 1927 stacking tubular-steel chair—designed in Vienna and industrially manufactured in Great Britain in the 1930s, with millions sold worldwide—was reproduced in 2021 by PEL in collaboration with the British designer Jasper Morrison. However, it was not only the timeless and industrially compatible creations of the designers from Vienna that spread throughout the world, but also their ideas and theories: The design theoretician Victor J. Papanek, born in Vienna in 1923, attended school in Great Britain and as a 15-yearold boy fled to the US in 1939 to escape the Nazis. Papanek studied architecture and design and taught at renowned American universities. His book Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, was translated into twenty-three languages and today is one of the most frequently read design books in the world.351 With their houses and furnishings, Liane Zimbler and Lisl Scheu Close were among the first successful female architects in the US, serving as role models for countless women of the next generation. Jacqueline Groag’s colorful patterns and fabrics greatly shaped British home décor in the 1950s, and Dora Gad became one of Israel’s most influential interior architects and furniture designers. Their ideas were known far beyond Vienna and influenced the development of furniture design worldwide in the second half of the twentieth century. The creative ideas and the intellectual message of the exiled furniture designers still live on today—in Vienna as well: they are visible in many of the city’s apartments, houses, and public spaces. Their creations are models of timeless design, a certain lightness, cheerfulness, and colorfulness. The traumatic experience of their flight from their homeland, the painful loss of family members and friends, homes and lifestyle habits, and with it a total uprootedness, induced the exiled furniture designers to often use their décor and furniture to create for themselves, their clients, and their friends— frequently other émigrés from Vienna—a new home, a place of peace and tranquility.

351 Victor J. Papanek, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1985). The designer’s estate was brought to Vienna by the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

The intellectual message from Vienna

137

138

The intellectual message from Vienna

top L. Joseph and Carla Binder with Frederick Kiesler in the US in 1943, © MAK bottom L. Design for a living room and bedroom for the Golden Gate International Exhibition, San Francisco, 1939; Josef Frank for Svenskt Tenn, © ST Top R. Josef Frank, © ST

139

140

top

Josef Frank’s World of Prints, © ST

The intellectual message from Vienna

141

“My generation told their children very little about their birthplaces and about what had happened to them during the war. Their life stories had been buried deep inside them before the scars had a chance to heal. They didn’t know how to open the gate so as to allow some light into the darkness of their lives; instead, a wall was slowly being put up between them and their children.” —Aharon Appelfeld, The Story of a Life 01

01

Aharon Appelfeld, The Story of a Life, trans. Aloma Halter (New York: Random House, 2004), 180.

FURNITURE DESIGNERS

Biographies

He championed an unconventional and modern conception of living, planned houses, painted watercolors, designed furniture, ceramics, and glassware, created stage sets and costumes, furnished film sets, and published many essays about architecture and furniture design. Oskar Strnad taught with great enthusiasm for twenty-six years at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna. Along with Josef Frank, he was one of the founders of Wiener Wohnraumkultur and greatly influenced an entire generation of young furniture designers. 144

1879 – 1935 †

Oskar STRNAD Vienna Bad Aussee

Architect

Oskar Strnad was born in Vienna on 26 Octo-

Designer

ber, 1879, into a Jewish family with many

Set decorator

children. His parents, Samuel and Therese,

Professor

née Loury, came from a region that is now

niture design, he created an important

part of the Czech Republic but moved to

foundation for the Wiener Wohnraumkultur

Vienna before the birth of their seven children.

of the interwar period.07 The Viennese art

Oskar had five sisters and a brother. His

historian Max Eisler referred to Strnad and

special talent for drawing was already evi-

Josef Frank as the founders of the Neue

dent during his school days. From 1900

Wiener Wohnkultur.08

to 1903, he studied architecture at the Poly-

in the life of this highly gifted architect, and one he continued for as long as he lived. With his theories about architecture and fur-

The poor economic conditions resulted in a

technic Institute in Vienna, passing the

scarcity of major building contracts, but

second state exam in 1903 with distinction

Oskar Strnad nonetheless had remarkable

and receiving the title “Doctor architectur-

success with designing exhibitions and

ae.” During his architecture studies, he met

as an interior architect and furniture designer.

his later professional colleagues and life-

He designed a great deal of furniture and

long friends Josef Frank, Oskar Wlach, and

lamps and played a crucial role in the Öster-

Walter Sobotka. On July 6, 1906, Oskar

reichischer Werkbund, of which he was a

Strnad married Mathilde Zipper, a crafts-

founding member. For the Wiener Werkbund-

woman from Vienna; they never had any

siedlung, he built the houses No. 13 and

children. That same year, he became a free-

14 at 5-7 Engelbrechtweg, but they were de-

lance architect, interior architect, and

stroyed during World War II.09

02

furniture designer in Vienna and opened a

Oskar Strnad became an internationally sought-

joint office with Oskar Wlach, which Josef

after set designer in this period. He de-

Frank joined in 1913. These years saw

signed countless sets for the Volkstheater

the realization of Strnad’s most important

and State Opera in Vienna and for the Salz-

projects: the house for Oskar Hock and

burg Festival, as well as for stages in New

the villa for the writer Jakob Wassermann,

York City and Moscow, working closely

both in Vienna’s Döbling neighborhood.04

with the famous director Max Reinhardt on

The joint studio closed down during World

some productions.10

03

War I, but the three young architects continued to work together.05 At the age of thirty, Strnad began teaching at

The versatile architect influenced an entire generation of young furniture designers, and as a teacher, Strnad fundamentally changed

the School of Arts and Crafts. He started

the way his students thought.11 Among his

teaching general theories of form in 1909

best-known students were Margarete Schütte-

and architecture in 1914, and on October 1,

Lihotzky, Oswald Haerdtl, Felix Augenfeld,

1920, he was awarded the title of “Profes-

Otto Niedermoser, Erich Boltenstern, Franz

sor.” His teaching activity at the School of

Schuster, and Ernst Plischke. In her book

Arts and Crafts became an important aspect

Warum ich Architektin wurde, Margarete

06

Furniture Designers—Biographies

145

Schütte-Lihotzky wrote enthusiastically about her former professor: “Strnad was full of imagination, full of ideas, extraordinarily talented as a draftsman, sensitive, musical— he played the violin well—comprehensively educated, and an extraordinary teacher. If I hadn’t been assigned to Strnad’s preparatory class, I never would have had the idea of becoming an architect. But above all, I would have become a different person.”12 Oskar Strnad was spared the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis: he died in Bad Aussee on September 3, 1935, of heart failure. He was fifty-six. After the “Anschluss” in 1938, his wife, Mathilde Strnad, wanted to end her life by jumping into the Danube. That morning, however, Hertha Larisch-Ramsauer, a former student of her husband and a fellow student of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, happened by, found out about her intentions, and saved her life. Larisch-Ramsauer hid Mathilde Strnad in her small house, enabling her to survive the Nazi regime “underground” in Vienna. Oskar Strnad’s sisters Hermine Schulz, Melanie Borges, and Hilda Zipper were all victims of the Shoah.13

01

146

Oskar Strnad

02

01

03



Design for living room

furnishings by Oskar Strnad, Vienna, c. 1930, © MAK 02

04

Armchair; design:

Oskar Strnad, Vienna, c. 1912, © KAUAK 03

Design for a rug by Oskar

Strnad, Vienna, 1915, © Backhausen Archive 04

Design for a wingback chair

by Oskar Strnad for the conser­ vatory in the apartment of Wilhelm Freund, Vienna, 1935, © MAK 05

Design for an armchair by

Oskar Strnad, Vienna, c. 1930, © MAK

05

Furniture Designers—Biographies

147

In 1921, she became the first female member of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects and along with Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky one of only two women to work on the “Red Vienna” social housing project. Her wide-ranging creativity encompassed several disciplines: After training in the handicrafts, she was active as an interior architect, acquired knowledge about building, and studied architecture. Ella Briggs was one of the few female architects whose activities were not limited to interior architecture. After her emigration in 1936, she continued her successful career in London as an architect in the area of social housing. 148

1880 – 1977 †

Architect

Ella BRIGGS

Vienna London

Ella Briggs was born as Ella Baumfeld on March Ella Briggs attended the State Trade School

Designer

5, 1880, in Vienna as the youngest child

(Staatsgewerbeschule) in Salzburg. In 1918,

Painter

of the attorney Josef Baumfeld and his wife

she enrolled in the Polytechnic Institute in

Caroline, née Bryk, a Jewish family. Her

Munich, completing her studies in architec-

parents originally came from Poland and had

ture in 1920, at the age of forty.18 In 1921,

three other children: Maurice, Friedrich,

she became the first female member of the

and Friederike. As a young girl, she attend-

Austrian Association of Engineers and

ed the private painting school of Albert

Architects.19

Seligman.14 From 1901 to 1906, she studied

Due to the difficult economic situation in Aus­-

painting with Koloman Moser at the School

tria and Germany, Briggs returned to the

of Arts and Crafts.15

US to work for the Kahn & Gregory construc-

After completing her studies, she lived for sev-

tion company. In the mid-1920s, she came

eral years in New York City, where she

back to Vienna and in 1925 was commissioned

gained experience in furniture design and

by the City of Vienna to plan the Pestalozzi-

construction. Ella’s brother Maurice lived

Hof in Döbling, for which she designed

there as well; he was the founder and direc-

small, pre-furnished apartments. She and

tor of the German theater in New York,

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky were the only

the Irving Place Theatre. At his recommen-

two women to be given building commissions

dation, she decorated the common rooms

for “Red Vienna.”20

of the theater as well as the New York Press Ella Briggs moved from Vienna to Berlin at the Club in Manhattan. In New York, on Sep-

end of the 1920s and continued to work on

tember 6, 1907, the young artist married

social housing projects. Life became un-

Walter Briggs, a journalist and Austrian mili-

bearable for her there after the Nazis seized

tary attaché from Vienna who was based

power; she returned to Vienna in 1935 and

in the US. The couple had no children. After

in 1936 emigrated to London.21 Although

five years, they divorced and the young

Briggs spoke outstanding English, her life in

artist moved back to Vienna.

London was initially difficult because she

16

After her return, Ella Briggs, who referred to

was unable to obtain an architecture license.22

herself as an architect, designed furniture,

After 1945, she was involved in a recon­

worked as an interior architect, and was

struction program operated by the British gov-

active in feminist women’s clubs. She pre­-

ernment. In 1947, she became a British

sented her furniture designs in Vienna in 1914

citizen and was accepted into the Royal In­-

in a craft exhibition at the Neuer Wiener

stitute of British Architects. Ella’s siblings

Frauenclub (New Vienna Women’s Club) as

Friedrich and Friederike also survived the

well as at the Austrian Association of Wom-

Shoah in exile in London. Ella Briggs died in

en Artists. In this period, she also worked

London at the age of ninety-seven on June 20,

at the Möbelfabrik Sigmund Jaray in Vienna

1977.23

and at the architecture offices of Alfred Keller and Karl Holey.17

Furniture Designers—Biographies

149

In 1925, he and Josef Frank founded Haus & Garten, which became one of Europe’s loveliest and most successful home-furnishing shops. Oskar Wlach’s elegant and timeless furniture designs were showed at numerous international exhibitions, but he always stood in the shadow of his friend and business partner Josef Frank. In his exile in New York City, the architect and designer was constantly homesick for Vienna and unable to pick up on his earlier successes. 150

1881 – 1963 †

Architect Furniture designer

Oskar WLACH Vienna New York

Oskar Wlach was born in Vienna on April 18,

power in March 1938, Haus & Garten was

1881, into an affluent Jewish family. His

“Aryanized” and taken over by Julius Theodor

father, Albert Wlach, was a clock dealer and

Kalmar and his brother Josef Kalmar as so-

married to Fanni, née Hermann. The family

called Aryanizers.28

had four children: two sons, Eugen and

In November 1938, with the help of their Austri-

Hermann, and a daughter, Olga. Wlach stud-

an architect friend Eugen Wörle, Oskar

ied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute

and Klari Wlach fled via Switzerland to Great

from 1889 to 1903 and graduated from the

Britain. After a stay in London, the couple

doctoral program in 1906. After completing

reached New York City on May 1, 1939, on

his studies, he became a freelance archi-

board the SS Normandie.29 The 59-year-

tect and opened a joint office with Oskar

old architect had great difficulty adjusting to

Strnad, which Josef Frank joined in 1913.

life in exile. While he passed the examina-

During World War I, the architect was draft-

tion in 1940 to become a licensed architect,

ed and stationed in Istanbul, where he

he was not able to establish himself profes-

planned several residential buildings. Al-

sionally. Wlach furnished apartments in

though the joint office was closed down

Manhattan, largely those of other émigrés

during the war, the three architects continued

from Vienna, and worked as a draftsman

to work together occasionally. Wlach mar-

in an interior design office.30 His wife, Klari,

ried the Viennese painter and craftswoman

ran a fashion salon in Manhattan, but with

Klari Krausz; the couple had no children.24

little success. All of this led to financial diffi-

A staunch Social Democrat, he became in-

culties. At the beginning of the 1950s, Wlach

volved in social housing projects for the City

applied for the restitution of Haus & Garten

of Vienna in the mid-1920s. In 1925, Wlach

in Vienna but was unsuccessful.31 He was un-

and Frank founded a home-furnishings

able to carry on the success he had en-

business in which the two architects were

joyed as a furniture designer, architect, and

equal partners: Haus & Garten. Oskar Wlach

businessman in Vienna before 1938. He

was the business manager and Josef Frank

died, impoverished, in 1963 in a New York

the artistic director.25 Wlach designed a

City nursing home. He was eighty-two.32

great deal of furniture and interior décor, and his designs were characterized by elegance and hominess. However, he was always overshadowed by his friend and business partner, Josef Frank.26 Wlach planned a duplex for the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung at 99-101 Veitingergasse, in Hietzing.27 After Frank emigrated to Sweden in 1933, Wlach continued to successfully run the business in Vienna until 1938. After the Nazis seized

Furniture Designers—Biographies

151

As the architect of the “Chocolate House” in Vienna’s Hietzing district, he created in 1914 an extraordinary building that was conspicuous for its façade. In the 1920s, Ernst Lichtblau planned social housing projects, furnished shops, designed furniture and objects of everyday use, and taught. After his emigration to the US, as a professor he influenced an entire generation of young designers. He was one of the few architects expelled from Vienna in 1938 who came back, returning to the city of his birth in 1962. 152

1883 – 1963 †

Architect

Ernst LICHTBLAU Vienna Vienna

Ernst Lichtblau was born in Vienna on June 24, Ernst Lichtblau was a socially committed

Designer

1883, into a wealthy Jewish family as the

architect and involved in several subsidized

Professor

youngest of three brothers. His father,

housing projects for the City of Vienna.

Johann Lichtblau, was the manager of the

In 1929, he became director of the recently

largest meerschaum-pipe factory in the

founded BEST, the Beratungsstelle für

Habsburg Empire. After attending the State

Inneneinrichtung des österreichischen Ver-

Trade School (Staatsgewerbeschule) in

bandes für Wohnungsreform (Advisory

Vienna, Lichtblau studied architecture with

Board for Interior Decoration of the Austrian

Otto Wagner at the Academy of Fine Arts

Association of Reformed Housing), which

Vienna from 1902 to 1905. Following his

was located in the Karl-Marx-Hof. A perma-

graduation, the young architect taught tech-

nent exhibition there showed model apart-

nical drawing for furniture-making at the

ments as well as affordable furniture and

Staatsgewerbeschule. As of 1924, Ernst

domestic objects. Lichtblau also participat-

Lichtblau was active primarily as a freelance

ed in numerous exhibitions at the Öster-

architect and designer. In this period, he

reichischer Werkbund, of which he was a

planned several buildings in Vienna, includ-

founding member.36 For the Wiener Werk-

ing the house at 29 Wattmanngasse, in

bundsiedlung, he built an unadorned,

Hietzing, which because of its chocolate-

cubic duplex at 88-90 Jagdschlossgasse

brown ceramic façade was known as the

and furnished three more houses by other

“Chocolate House.”33 From 1910 to 1920, he

architects.37

worked on a freelance basis at the Wiener

Under extremely difficult circumstances, Licht-

Werkstätte under Josef Hoffmann, creating

blau fled from Vienna via London to New

designs for handicrafts. As a designer, Ernst

York on August 21, 1939, to escape the Nazis.

Lichtblau created fabric patterns for the

The well-known architect and designer from

Backhausen fabric producer and glassware

Vienna arrived in New York City with only

that was produced by the J. & L. Lobmeyr

five British pounds in his pocket.38 He start-

glassworks. While he was still a student,

ed out working as a design consultant for

the young architect created prize-winning

the famous Macy’s department store in Man-

works and from the very beginning of his

hattan. On July 4, 1945, Ernst Lichtblau was

career participated successfully in national

granted American citizenship. That same

and international exhibitions. His work

year, he began teaching textile design at the

was awarded a gold medal at the 1925 Expo-

Cooper Union School of Art, an architecture

sition des Arts Décoratifs und Industriels

and design college in Manhattan. In fall

Modernes in Paris.

1947, he became a lecturer at the Rhode

34

As a furniture designer, Ernst Lichtblau had a

Island School of Design, in Providence,

penchant for comfortable, light furniture

Rhode Island, and later a professor for inte-

made of wood. In 1925, he founded the Ernst

rior architecture there. Lichtblau com-

Lichtblau Werkstätte Ges.m.b.H, creating

pletely restructured the interior architecture

design products for everyday use.

curriculum, was soon promoted to head of

Furniture Designers—Biographies

35

153

the Department of Interior Architecture at the university, and in the mid-1950s was named dean of the Faculty of Architecture.39 In the 1950s, he curated the exhibition Furniture of Today at his university’s museum, presenting modern furniture and interior design.40 In the 1950s, the successful architect traveled to Vienna several times, filing for the restitution of the “Aryanized” property of his family. It is not known if anything was restituted to Ernst Lichtblau. He was one of the few expelled architects who came back to Vienna, returning from his American exile in 1962. He was commissioned by the City of Vienna to plan a school on Grundsteingasse, in the sixteenth district. Ernst Lichtblau died on January 8, 1963, at the age of seventy-nine, of a heart attack that he suffered as a result of his agitation over the fire at the Parkhotel in Hietzing. Tragically, he did not live to witness the dedication of his school.41

01

Nesting tables, walnut; design:

Ernst Lichtblau (attributed), Vienna, c. 1920, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2018

154

Ernst Lichtblau

02

02

Designs for printed fabrics by Ernst

Lichtblau, Vienna, 1911/13 © Backhausen Archive

155

Light, colorful, imaginative: throughout his lifetime, the architect and designer Josef Frank was a champion of wooden furniture and exuberantly hued fabrics. The inhabitants of his houses were to find happiness and contentment; he sought to create spaces and furniture for the soul. His interior-design shop Haus & Garten in Vienna was among the loveliest in all of Europe. He designed over a thousand pieces of furniture and more than two hundred fabric patterns, many of which are still produced by the Swedish firm Svenskt Tenn according to Frank’s original designs. 156

1885 – 1967 †

Josef FRANK

Baden bei Wien Stockholm

Architect

Josef Frank was born on July 15, 1885, into an

Designer

upper-class Jewish family. His birthplace

Oskar Strnad and Oskar Wlach, but the

Journalist

was the town of Baden, near Vienna, where

office was closed down during World War I.

Professor

his family spent their summers. His father,

In 1915, he was called up for war duty on

Painter

Ignaz Isak Frank, a textile merchant in

the Balkan front as a reserve lieutenant. World

Vienna, originally came from Hungary, while

War I, with its catastrophic affects for the

his mother, Jenny, née Feilendorf, was

Austrian people, had an immense impact on

Viennese. Josef Frank grew up with an elder

the young architect. After the end of the war,

brother, Philipp, and two younger siblings,

Frank became involved in social housing

Hedwig and Rudolf. In 1903, he began stud-

projects for the City of Vienna and wrote

ying architecture at the Polytechnic Institute

many essays about the housing crisis of the

in Vienna. He passed the second state

working class.44

examination for architecture in July 1908, on

joint office of his two friends from university,

From 1919 to 1925, Josef Frank taught structur-

his twenty-third birthday. On December

al theory at the School of Arts and Crafts.45

23, 1910, Frank was awarded a doctorate an

At the beginning of the 1920, he became

architecture and shortly thereafter moved

active as an architect in the Österreichischer

to Berlin to work at the studio of the architect

Verband für Siedlungs- und Kleingarten-

Bruno Möhring. There, the young architect

wesen (Austrian Settlement and Allotment

came into contact with the ideas of the garden

Garden Association), along with Adolf Loos,

city movement and the Werkbund associa-

Otto Neurath, and Margarete Schütte-

tion of craftsmen. Berlin is also where he

Lihotzky. Josef Frank was “one of the most

met the Swedish music student Anna Sebe-

interesting people I have ever met,” wrote

nius, who was five years his senior; the two

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in her memoirs,

married in 1912. The young couple returned

“ingenious and very educated in a wide

to Vienna and moved into an attic apartment

variety of areas of knowledge, sarcastic, and

at 64 Wiedner Hauptstraße, in the fourth

full of biting humor and irony.”46

42

district, which Josef Frank furnished. Frank

In 1925, the then-40-year-old architect joined

was enthralled with living in an attic, which

Oskar Wlach in founding the interior-design

was unconventional at the time, saying that

business Haus & Garten, which in only a

the “bohemian studio under the mansard

few years became one of Europe’s most

roof” united everything “that we look for in

beautiful shops of its kind. As the company’s

vain in the methodically planned and ration-

artistic director, Frank designed furniture,

ally furnished apartments below it: life.

fabrics, lamps, and rugs, and created interi-

Large rooms, large windows, many corners,

ors, houses, and gardens. In his interior

slanted walls, steps and differences in levels,

designs, the architect always placed the well-

columns, and beams.”43

being of the inhabitants of the house at

In 1912, Josef Frank co-founded the Österreichischer Werkbund. In 1913, he joined the

Furniture Designers—Biographies

the forefront; his organically formed, lightweight, and timeless furniture was intended

157

to promote rest and relaxation. As a furni-

Jacqueline Groag, and Oskar Strnad’s wid-

ture designer, however, Josef Frank was

ow, Mathilde Strnad. In August 1938 he

active not only for his own company but also

officially transferred his place of residence

for Thonet Mundus AG.47

from Vienna to Stockholm. Oskar Wlach

In 1927, he planned a duplex for the Weissen-

continued to successfully operate Haus &

hofsiedlung in Stuttgart, as the only Austrian

Garten in Vienna until its “Aryanization”

architect invited by Ludwig Mies van der

in spring 1938.51

Rohe to participate in the project. In complete With Frank’s emigration to Stockholm, a very contrast to his international colleagues,

creative and intensive collaboration began

he furnished his house with playful, colorful

between him and the Swedish firm Svenkst

furniture and fancifully patterned linen fab-

Tenn, which lasted until his death. Svenkst

rics from Haus & Garten. Josef Frank,

Tenn was founded in 1924 by Estrid Ericson,

whose interior design was oriented toward

a Swedish textile artist and a friend of

human needs, was harshly criticized by

Anna Frank. In cooperation with Ericson, the

some of his international colleagues. The

Haus & Garten line was maintained, and

Dutch architect Theo van Doesburg found

furniture and fabrics based on Josef Frank’s

Frank’s furnishings, with their many color-

designs from Vienna continued to be pro-

ful pillows and brightly painted wooden

duced, with new designs being created reg-

chairs, to be too “feminine,”48 and another

ularly as well.52

critic even referred to the house as the “Frank brothel.”49 Two prestigious projects in Vienna followed

When life in Sweden became too precarious for the Jewish couple, the Franks emi-

soon thereafter: in 1928 the complete interi-

grated to New York City in December 1941.

or design, furnishings, and garden land-

In spring 1942, Frank began teaching

scaping for the Krasny house on Hohe Warte

architecture and design at Manhattan’s Uni-

and then the planning of the Beer house

versity in Exile, part of the New School for

in Hietzing. Both homes became paragons

Social Research.53 In his exile in New York,

of modern architecture and interior design

Frank primarily designed fabrics, both for

in Vienna and were depicted in many in-

Svenskt Tenn and for the American home-

ternational architecture magazines, such

furnishings company F. Schumacher & Co.54

as Domus. At the beginning of the 1930s, Josef Frank initi-

Josef and Anna Frank returned to Sweden in 1947 but continued to travel regularly to New

ated the construction of the Wiener Werk-

York.55 In 1949, Frank devised several pro-

bundsiedlung, which followed the ideas of

posals for the redesign of Vienna’s Stephans-

the garden city movement and represented

platz, but they received scant notice by the

the culmination of Frank’s work in Vienna.

Viennese authorities. Josef Frank, according

Frank, who was responsible for the overall

to Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, felt “deeply

planning, invited seventy-six architects,

hurt by everything that had happened. He

interior architects, and garden landscapers

knew, of course, that all of the many Nazis

to design seventy model homes, complete

and anti-Semites would not change over-

with interior design.50 Due to the increasing-

night, and he felt too old to now take up the

ly toxic political climate and the palpable

fight against these people who held com-

antisemitism in Vienna, Josef and Anna Frank

pletely different views.”56

decided to leave Vienna in December 1933

158

Josef Frank became a Swedish citizen in 1939.

In 1965, the Österreichische Gesellschaft für

and move to Stockholm. Frank traveled back

Architektur mounted an exhibition in Vienna

to his home city several more times between

devoted to the exiled architect. At this time,

1934 and 1938. On July 15, 1935, he cele-

Josef Frank was also awarded the Grand

brated his fiftieth birthday in Vienna with his

Austrian State Prize for Architecture. Due to

closest friends, including Soma Morgen-

his poor health, however, he was not able to

stern, Walter Sobotka, Felix Augenfeld,

accept the prize personally. In a letter to the

Jacques Groag, Karl Hofmann, Otto Breuer,

Österreichische Gesellschaft für Architektur

Josef Frank

Anna and Josef Frank never had children. Josef

dated December 20, 1965, the architect, nearly eighty years old and still suffering

Frank died on January 8, 1967, in Stock-

from homesickness for Vienna, wrote: “It is

holm at the age of eighty-two. His wife had

unfortunately the case that for very many

died ten years previously. Josef Frank’s

years now, I have been able to contribute

elder brother, the philosopher Philipp Frank,

nothing to Austrian architecture … as my

who was a close friend of Albert Einstein,

period of activity has usually coincided with

emigrated to New York in 1938 and never

very unfavorable circumstances. And here

returned to Vienna.60 Frank’s younger sister,

in Sweden, I have devoted myself almost

Hedwig Tedesko, survived the Shoah in

exclusively to interior design, with the result

exile in Switzerland. The youngest brother,

that it has been completely forgotten every-

Rudolf, did not survive the Shoah; he was

where that all of this basically had its gen-

murdered in a concentration camp in 1944.

esis in Vienna, and long prior to this period.”57 Josef Frank today counts among Austria’s most important architects and furniture designers of the twentieth century.58 The architect and designer was able to visualize many aspects of how we would live today. His designs were exceedingly influential for international furniture design and are today known all over the world.59

01

01

Design for a rug by Josef

Frank for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1929, © Backhausen Archive 02

Rug; design: Josef

Hoffmann, Stockholm, 1938; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST

02

Furniture Designers—Biographies

159

03

Chair, red-painted beech; design: Josef

Frank for Thonet-Mundus, Vienna, c. 1927; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST 04

Armchair, walnut and bamboo rods, Notturno

fabric covering; design: Josef Frank for Haus & Garten, Vienna, c. 1927, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2016

03

04

05

160

Josef Frank

05

Bar cabinet, walnut; de-

sign: Josef Frank for Haus & Garten, Vienna, c. 1927, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2019 06

Couch table, walnut;

design: Josef Frank for Haus & Garten, Vienna, c. 1925, © KAUAK 07

Floor lamp, brass and

bamboo; design: Josef Frank, Vienna, c. 1930; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2019 08

Design for a rug by Josef

Frank for Haus & Garten, Vienna, 1927, © Backhausen Archive 09

Dresser; design: Josef

Frank; execution: Svenskt Tenn, both Stockholm, c. 1940; lamp, design: Josef Frank, Vienna c. 1930, Sammlung K

06

08

07

09

Furniture Designers—Biographies

161

01

02

01

Couch, brown velvet upholstery; design:

Josef Frank, Stockholm, 1934; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST 02

Floor lamp; design: Josef Frank, Stockholm,

c. 1938; execution: Svenskt Tenn, Sammlung K 03

Bookcase; design: Josef Frank, Stockholm,

1950; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST

162

03

Josef Frank

04

Sideboard; design: Josef

Frank, Stockholm, 1950 (Frank used similar models in the Krasny and Beer houses); execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST 05

Cabinet; design: Josef

Frank, Vienna, 1935; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST 06

Two footstools; design:

Josef Frank, Vienna, c. 1925; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST 07

Couch, green velvet up-

holstery; design: Josef Frank, Stockholm, c. 1940; execution: Svenskt Tenn, © ST

04

05

06

07

Furniture Designers—Biographies

163

The young architect had emigrated to the US already in 1914 and was very successful there as a furniture designer. Paul Theodore Frankl’s works were depicted in many publications, and his skyscraper-inspired and frequently copied furniture attained cult status and were to be found in the elegant homes of Hollywood stars. His Frankl Galleries in Manhattan sold not only his high-quality furniture but also handicrafts from Vienna. Today, his furniture designs are coveted collector’s items. 164

Paul Theodore FRANKL

1886 – 1958 †

Vienna Los Angeles

Architect

Paul Theodore Frankl was born on October 14,

Journalist

1886, into an upper-class Jewish family in

Roosevelt, the wife of the former US presi-

Furniture designer

Vienna. He had two elder brothers, Otto and

dent, bought her home furnishings there.

Robert, and a younger one, Wilhelm. His

Frankl’s furniture was so popular that by the

father, Julius Frankl, was an affluent real

end of the 1920s, his works were being

estate businessman who made his fortune

copied by other manufacturers, produced

during the construction boom in the “Gründer-

in series, and sold cheaply.63 Unlike the

zeit.” His mother, Emma, née Friedmann,

copies, the originals were very finely crafted,

came from a prominent Viennese family of

made from high-quality wood, and the sur-

merchants.61 Frankl actually wanted to

faces were often painted.64

be a painter, but at his father’s wish began

a social hub of the city, and even Eleanor

Frankl gave many lectures on furniture design

studying architecture at the Polytechnic

and interior architecture and wrote sev-

Institute in 1904. A year later, he moved to

eral books in the 1930s. In 1934, he moved to

Berlin, where he completed his studies

Los Angeles, taught at the University of

in 1911. The architect married Paula König,

Southern California, and operated the Frankl

a concert pianist from Berlin. The young

Galleries in Beverly Hills. His customers

couple traveled to America in 1914, and after

included such Hollywood stars as Fred

the outbreak of World War I, they remained

Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Kath-

in New York and Paul took a job as a graphic

arine Hepburn, and Alfred Hitchcock.65

artist. In 1915 he was commissioned to re-

Until well into the 1950s, his designs were

model and furnish a beauty salon for Helena

among the most popular furniture of the

Rubinstein on Madison Avenue. Additio-

Hollywood stars.66

nal interior-architecture projects followed, which were depicted in many American and European architecture magazines.

Paul Theodore Frankl died in Los Angeles on March 21, 1958.67

62

In 1922, Paul Theodore Frankl opened his Frankl Galleries on 48th Street in Manhattan. He designed furniture and sold not only his own designs but also handicrafts from Vienna as well as wallpaper and fabrics that he largely imported from Japan. In this period, he designed a bookcase whose form was reminiscent of the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Frankl’s Skyscraper Furniture, his bookcases, armchairs, wardrobes, and desks were very popular in Manhattan and depicted in many home-furnishing and architecture magazines. His gallery soon became

Furniture Designers—Biographies

165

His furniture designs won international awards, and the long years of experience Walter Sobotka gained in the area of interior architecture and furniture design in Vienna benefited him greatly in his exile in the US. He was able to continue his career as a designer and architect and as a professor pass on his knowledge to a new generation of architects. His didactic experiences that he recorded in his Principles of Design, however, were never published. His planned return to Vienna was thwarted by bureaucratic hurdles. 166

1888 – 1972 †

Walter SOBOTKA

Architect

Vienna New York

Walter Sobotka was born in Vienna on July 1,

was appointed professor for interior archi-

Furniture designer

1888, into an affluent Jewish family. His

tecture. He continued to work as a furniture

Professor

parents, Ignaz and Hedwig Sobotka, née

designer, interior architect, and stage-

Hauser, were part owners of a large malt

set designer. One of his commissions was

factory in Vienna. Walter Sobotka studied

furnishing a house for the famous Austrian-

architecture from 1907 to 1912 at Vienna’s

born film actress Hedy Lamarr.73 In the

Polytechnic Institute. On November 22, 

1950s, Walter Sobotka attempted to re-

1912, he passed his state exam in architec-

establish himself as an architect in Vienna

ture. From 1919 to 1923, the young archi-

in partnership with Erich Boltenstern. The

tect worked for the Viennese building

bureaucracy of the Austrian authorities,

company Karl Korn. In 1923, Sobotka be-

however, hindered the resumption of his

came an independent architect, interior

career in Austria, and his “foreign” archi-

architect, and furniture designer. He fur-

tecture license was not recognized there.74

nished a large number of apartments and

In addition to his forced exile from Vienna,

houses and planned two apartment com-

Sobotka’s life was overshadowed by an-

plexes for the City of Vienna. In 1919, he

other tragedy: his daughter, Ruth, died of

married Gisela Schönau, and in 1925, their

cancer in 1967 at the age of forty-one. He de-

daughter Ruth was born.69

dicated his book Ruth Sobotka,75 to her,

68

Walter Sobotka was friends with Josef Frank,

which was published in New York in 1968.

Jacques Groag, Felix Augenfeld, and Karl

Sobotka’s book The Principles of Design,

Hofmann, and they occasionally worked to-

however, was never published. These

gether. In 1925, Sobotka was involved for

writings also contained an extensive collec-

a short time in Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach’s

tion of correspondence with Josef Frank,

interior design business Haus & Garten.

which demonstrated their long friendship

70

He also worked closely with Frank on Werk-

and intellectual kinship.76 Sobotka died of a

bund projects,71 and at Frank’s invitation,

heart attack on May 8, 1972, in New York.

Sobotka planned two houses for the Wiener

He was eighty-three years old.77 In its obitu-

Werkbundsiedlung and designed their

ary of May 10, 1972, the New York Times

complete furnishings.

wrote: “Mr. Sobotka, who had studied under

72

In July 1938, Walter Sobotka fled with his

Carl Koenig in Vienna, was one of the last

family to New York City. That same year, he

survivors of the Austrian school of archi-

began working as a furniture designer for

tecture, a pioneer in modern functional de-

Thonet Brothers New York, designing

sign and a forerunner of the Bauhaus in

bentwood furniture, and also worked for the

Germany.”78

designer Russel Wright. In 1941 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to teach at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Sobotka started as a teaching assistant and in 1946

Furniture Designers—Biographies

167

Frederick Kiesler was far ahead of his time with his spectacular designs of stage sets and exhibitions. He had emigrated to New York as early as 1926 and in his adopted country was able to realize his bold visions in exhibition architecture and furniture design. His multifunctional and biomorphic furniture attracted international attention and paved the way for the Organic Style of the 1950s. Today, they are coveted collector’s items. His Shrine of the Book is a masterpiece of modern architecture in Israel. 168

1890 – 1965 †

Set designer

Frederick KIESLER Chernivtsi New York

Frederick Kiesler was born as Friedrich Kiesler

num Two-Part Nesting Table foreshadowed

Designer

in Chernivtsi (today in western Ukraine)

the kidney tables that were to become

Journalist

on September 22, 1890, into a Jewish family.

popular in the 1950s. In 1942, he designed

He studied from 1908 to 1909 at Vienna’s

the legendary Art of This Century exhibition

Polytechnic Institute but never completed

for Peggy Guggenheim, creating for this

any exams.79 A year later, he switched to the

occasion a multifunctional piece of furniture:

Academy of Fine Arts, which he left in 1913—

the Multi-use Chair.85 The show represented

also without graduating. On August 19,

a milestone in Surrealist exhibition design

1920, the young artist married the philologist

and ushered in radical new presentation

Stephanie Frischer 80 in the Vienna Syna-

forms in the art world. Together with André

gogue. Kiesler worked for a short time in

Breton and Marcel Duchamp, Kiesler also

Vienna with Adolf Loos. In 1924, he de-

designed the 1947 Exposition Internationale

signed the Internationale Ausstellung neuer

du Surréalisme in Paris.86

Theatertechniken, which was shown in Vien- Kiesler joined the American architect Armand na’s Konzerthaus. For the Austrian theater

Bartos in opening an architecture office

section of the 1925 Exposition Internationale

in Manhattan in 1954; he continued to design

des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moder-

stage sets but also created sculptures

nes, he presented his futuristic vision of a

and paintings. In fall 1957, he and his part-

free-floating City in Space.

ner began planning The Shrine of the Book

81

At the invitation of Jane Heap, the editor of the

in Jerusalem. With this part of the Israel

magazine The Little Review, the couple

Museum, Jerusalem, Kiesler and Bartos

traveled to New York City in 1926 to orga-

created a masterpiece of modern architec-

nize the International Theatre Exposition.82

ture in Israel. In April 1965, Kiesler at-

Kiesler designed stage sets for theater and

tended the opening in Jerusalem. It would

opera productions, including for New York’s

remain his only building to be realized

Metropolitan Opera. In 1933, Kiesler erect-

and the culmination of his work. He died

ed a full-scale model of his Space House

eight months later, on December 27, 1965,

at the Modernage Furniture Company in New

in New York at the age of seventy-six.87

York; this was a key architectural work in

His futuristic furniture designs are today pro-

his oeuvre, in which he used biomorphic

duced by the Austrian furniture maker

forms for the first time.83

Wittmann in cooperation with the Austrian

Kiesler became a US citizen in 1936 and from 1937 to 1942 was the director of the Lab-

Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation.

oratory for Design Correlation in the School of Architecture at Columbia University in New York City.84 With his sculptural designs, he was far ahead of his time: his 1935 kidney-shaped, alumi­-

Furniture Designers—Biographies

169

Paul Engelmann was an exceptionally versatile person. His broad-ranging talents extended from architecture, interior decorating, and furniture design to philosophy and journalism. His friendship with Ludwig Wittgenstein provided him with a prominent architecture commission in Vienna. In Israel, he planned single-family homes very much in keeping with the ideas of his former teacher and mentor Adolf Loos, wrote with great enthusiasm about urban planning, and published biographical essays on Loos, Wittgenstein, and Karl Kraus. 170

1891 – 1985 †

Paul ENGELMANN

Philosopher

Olomouc Tel Aviv

Paul Engelmann was born on June 14, 1891, in

in the young architect’s work. As Engelmann

Furniture designer

Olomouc (now in the Czech Republic) as

had scant practical experience, another archi-

Journalist

the son of the merchant Max Engelmann and

tect was enlisted for the project as well:

his wife, Ernestine, née Becher, a Jewish

Jacques Groag oversaw the structural engi-

family. In 1910 he enrolled in Vienna’s Poly-

neering of the building. There were often

technic Institute but dropped out only a year

conflicts and arguments between Engel-

later. He was interested not only in archi-

mann, Groag, and Wittgenstein, and the two

tecture but also in literature and philosophy.

architects were frequently on the verge of

As a student in Vienna, Engelmann met

quitting. The house, measuring some 10,000

the writer Karl Kraus and became his private

square feet, was completed in 1928.90

88

secretary. Among his jobs was conducting

In 1934, Paul Engelmann moved to Palestine

research for Kraus’s drama The Last Days of

and devoted himself primarily to furniture de-

Mankind. Paul Engelmann came to the at-

sign. He worked as a designer for the Tel

tention of the general public in Vienna for the

Aviv furniture company The Cultivated Home

first time in 1911 through his poem praising

and furnished, among other things, the King

the Loos House on Michaelerplatz, the so-

David Hotel and the Press Club in Jerusa-

called “house without eyebrows,” which was

lem.91 The interior design of the Jordanian

massively criticized by the Viennese. Engel-

parliament building and the Throne Hall in

mann’s poem was published in Karl Kraus’s

Amman is also attributed to him.92

newspaper Die Fackel, and the two devel-

In Israel, he planned several single-family

oped a close friendship. In 1912, he became

homes in keeping with the ideas of his former

one of the first students at Adolf Loos’s

teacher and mentor Adolf Loos, but devot-

private Bauschule. Through Loos, he also

ed himself primarily to writing: he wrote

met the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein,

articles about urban planning and housing

with whom he was to have a long friend-

in the newly-created State of Israel, but

ship. In the late 1920s and early ’30s, Engel-

also about literature and philosophy, and pub-

mann designed a great deal of interior décor

lished biographical essays about Loos,

and furniture in Olomouc and Vienna.89

Wittgenstein, and Kraus.93

Engelmann wanted to emigrate to Palestine

Paul Engelmann died in Tel Aviv in 1965 at the

as early as the mid-1920s, but for profession-

age of seventy-three. He was the only mem-

al reasons, he remained in Vienna for the

ber of his family to survive the Shoah.94

time being: In 1926, Margaret StonboroughWittgenstein, Ludwig Wittengenstein’s sister, commissioned the then-35-year-old architect to build a modern city residence for her family on Kundmanngasse, in Vienna’s third district. Ludwig Wittgenstein became very involved in the planning, greatly interfering

Furniture Designers—Biographies

171

Richard Neutra grew up in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district and after his university years in Vienna and jobs in Zurich and Berlin, he emigrated to the US in 1923. In Los Angeles, he planned villas, schools, department stores, and housing developments which for all their differences always had a common motif: the connection between house and garden. His light-filled houses and rooms shaped the image of California Modernism, and today, his Cantilever Chair and Boomerang Chair are design icons of the Mid-Century Modern Style. 172

1892 – 1970 †

Architect

Richard NEUTRA Vienna Wuppertal

Richard Neutra was born on April 8, 1892, into

Schindler, a university friend of Neutra’s

Furniture designer

a Jewish family in Vienna. His father, Samu-

from Vienna, lived. On October 24, 1923, the

Journalist

el Neutra, the owner of a metal foundry,

young couple arrived by ship from Hamburg

and his mother, Elisabeth, née Glazer, lived

in Manhattan; Neutra was thirty-one years

in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna. Richard

old at the time. They soon moved on to Chica-

Neutra, who had two brothers and a sister,

go, where Neutra worked for the building

graduated from the Sophiengymnasium on

company Holabird & Roche.98 There, Neutra

Zirkusgasse. Enthralled by Otto Wagner’s

also met Frank Lloyd Wright, who invited

buildings in Vienna, he decided to study

the young couple to visit his studio in Talies-

architecture and in 1910 enrolled in the Poly-

in, near Spring Green, Wisconsin, where

technic Institute. Beginning in October 1912,

the Neutras then lived for a time. In 1924,

he also attended the private Bauschule of

their first child, Frank Lloyd, was born. It was

Adolf Loos, who sparked Neutra’s interest in

in this period that Neutra also participated

modern American architecture. Neutra’s

in an international competition for plans for

best friend from his childhood was Ernst

the synagogue in Vienna’s Hietzing neighbor-

Freud, Sigmund Freud’s youngest son, who

hood. Neutra’s design was rejected, how-

also studied architecture at the Polytechnic

ever, in particular by Josef Hoffmann, who

Institute and with Adolf Loos. The two friends

was a member of the jury.99 At the beginning

went on long study trips together to Italy

of 1925, the family moved to Los Angeles

and the Balkans. During World War I, Neutra

and lived at Rudolph Michael Schindler’s

completed his military service and was thus

residence. Neutra worked in Schindler’s

not able to finish his architecture studies

office as a draftsman, and the two architects

until 1918. He passed the second state certi-

collaborated on projects for architecture

fication exam for architecture on July 26,

competitions.100

95

1918. The young architect moved to Switzer- In 1927, Neutra opened his own studio in Los 96

land and worked for the garden and land-

Angeles. That same year, his second son,

scape architect Gustav Ammann, whose work

Dion, was born. From 1927 to 1929, Neutra

was to greatly influence Neutra. In Zurich,

built the Lovell Health House in Los Angeles

he also met his future wife, the singer and

for the American physician Philip Lovell,

cellist Dione Niedermann. At the recom-

his bold design earning him international

mendation of his friend Ernst Freud, Neutra

acclaim as an architect. It was one of the first

moved to Berlin to work first at the building

residences in the US built with an all-steel

authority of the City of Luckenwalde and

frame made of prefabricated elements.

beginning in fall 1921 in the office of the archi-

Neutra’s house was published in numer-

tect Erich Mendelsohn.97

ous architecture magazines all over the

Richard Neutra and Dione Niedermann married

world and shown in 1932 at the Modern Ar-

on December 23, 1922, and decided to emi-

chitecture: International Exhibition at the

grate to America, where Rudolph Michael

MoMA—alongside buildings by eight other

Furniture Designers—Biographies

173

architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Le

were manufactured by the German furniture

Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and

company VS in collaboration with the ar-

Walter Gropius.101 Richard Neutra was grant-

chitect’s son Dion under the name Neutra

ed American citizenship in 1929. The follow-

Furniture Collection.107

ing year, he embarked on a lengthy study

In the 1960s, Neutra attempted to reestablish

and lecture tour to Japan and Europe, visiting

himself in Vienna, traveling to the city of

the Bauhaus in Dessau as well as Vienna.

his birth to give lectures. His autobiography,

102

At the beginning of the 1930s, at the invita-

Life and Shape,108 was published in 1962,

tion of Josef Frank, Neutra also planned a

and in this period, he also planned houses

house for Vienna’s Werkbundsiedlung, house

in Germany and Switzerland.109

No. 47, at 9 Woinovichgasse.

103

In 1931, he built a house and studio for himself

Neutra, who despite his success in the US always had a deep connection with Vienna,

in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los

moved back to the city in 1966 with his wife

Angeles: the VDL Research House. In the

while his son Dion ran the office in Los

following years, Neutra planned numerous

Angeles, but they stayed for less than three

homes and residential buildings in Cali-

years: in 1969, the Neutras resignedly re-

fornia for the intellectual elite of Hollywood.

turned to LA. Neutra had become one of the

He also designed several housing devel-

best-known architects in America in the

opments, department stores, and schools,

twentieth century, but he failed to obtain any

complete with furnishings.

significant contracts in Vienna and was re-

104

Neutra usually designed the entire interior fur-

jected by the local architecture scene; his

nishings of his houses himself; for him,

house in the Werkbundsiedlung remained his

architecture and furniture design were inex-

only work in his native city. Richard Neutra

tricably linked. His leitmotif was the incor-

died on April 16, 1970, of heart failure shortly

poration of the house and its inhabitants into

after his seventy-eighth birthday while on a

nature; he wanted to unite internal and ex-

lecture tour in Germany.110

ternal space. Comfort was also a very important factor: he wanted people to feel at home in his houses and with his furniture. House, furniture, and garden were to merge to create a harmonious habitat.105 Neutra created his furniture as individual pieces for his clients in California, while some models were produced in small series. For the Lovell Health House, Neutra designed the Alpha Seating sofa and the Lovell Easy Chair. He created the Cantilever Chair for this house as well and had its design patented.106 His Boomerang Chair, which he created in 1942 for the Nesbitt House, became a design icon of California Modernism. Neutra’s furniture was depicted in many newspapers and magazines, and he became one of California’s leading interior architects and furniture designers. He also designed simple, modern furniture for the housing developments he planned. The Tremaine Side Chair and the multifunctional Camel Table corresponded to the zeitgeist of the 1950s. Several of Neutra’s furniture designs were not produced until long after his death: they

174

Richard Neutra

01

01

Design for a synagogue in

Hietzing by Richard Neutra for an international competition, Los Angeles, 1924, © JMW 02

Sketch by Richard Neutra

of the Lovell Easy Chair, Los Angeles, c. 1928, © Richard Neutra/VS

02

Furniture Designers—Biographies

175

03

176

Richard Neutra

04

05

03

Bookshelves, iron uprights

and walnut boards; design: Richard Neutra; execution: Victoria Möbel, Switzerland, both c. 1960, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2015 04

Sketch by Richard Neutra

of the Boomerang Chair, Los Angeles, 1943, © Richard Neutra/VS 05

Boomerang Chair; design:

Richard Neutra, Los Angeles, 1942; execution: VS, © VS

Furniture Designers—Biographies

177

For his father, Sigmund Freud, he was a child of fortune. As the son of a famous doctor, Ernst Freud encountered the intellectual elite of Europe at an early age. He grew up in Vienna with his schoolmate Richard Neutra and the two of them studied architecture together. His simple and sophisticated interior décor and furniture were oriented toward the needs of his clients, and he was concerned with creating a true home for them even in exile. He was close to his father and until the end of his life was very involved in the management of Sigmund Freud’s estate and the publication of the famous neurologist’s correspondence. 178

1892 – 1970 †

Ernst FREUD

Vienna London

Architect

Ernst Freud was born on April 6, 1892, as the

After the Nazis seized power in Germany, Ernst

Designer

fourth of six children of the world-famous

Freud emigrated with his family to London

Journalist

physician and founder of psychoanalysis and

at the end of 1933. There, he was able to con-

his wife, Martha, née Bernays, at 19 Berg-

tinue working as an architect and was par-

gasse in Vienna. Ernst Freud, who originally

ticularly active in designing interior furnishings

wanted to become a painter, studied archi-

and reconstruction projects for other émi-

tecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute

grés and friends of the family. The conse-

from 1911 to 1913 and at the same time attend-

quences of emigration, the effects of being

ed Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule with his

uprooted and losing friends, apartments,

schoolmate Richard Neutra and Felix Augen-

and lifestyles moved Freud to devote himself

feld. In 1913, he moved to Munich to con-

to creating a true home for his clients in

tinue his studies at that city’s Polytechnic

their exile.114

Institute. He served as a soldier in World

Sigmund Freud left Vienna with his wife and

War I and battled with health problems; he

daughter Anna on June 4, 1938, and—with

was not able to finish his studies in Munich

the assistance of supporters in Austria and

until 1919.111

abroad—emigrated to London. Ernst Freud

In Munich, Freud met Lucie Brasch, the daugh-

had found and renovated a house for his

ter of an affluent family of merchants from

parents in Hamstead, Maresfield Gardens,

Berlin, and they married in May 1920. The

and the family was able to take most of

couple moved to Berlin and had three sons:

the furniture from their apartment on Berg-

Stefan Gabriel, Lucian Michael, and Clemens

gasse and Anna Freud’s weekend house

Rafael—the boys were known in the family

with them. Ernst and Lucie Freud and their

as the “archangels.” Freud initially worked

children were given British citizenship at

for the architect Alexander Baerwald, a

the end of August 1939.115

staunch Zionist, who planned numerous build- Sigmund Freud died in London on September ings in Palestine as well. Freud was soon 23, 1939. His sisters Rosa, Marie, Adolfine, able to start his own business and received

and Pauline—Ernst’s aunts—were all vic-

a number of commissions as an interior

tims of the Shoah. Ernst and Lucie Freud

architect, above all for residential buildings

never returned to Vienna. Beginning in the

and offices for doctors and psychoanalysts.112

1960s, Ernst Freud devoted himself to

The dire economic situation at the beginning

the editing his father’s correspondence for

of the 1930s made life difficult for the archi-

publication. The architect died on April 7,

tect as well. Due to a lack of contracts

1970, a day after his seventy-eighth birthday,

in Berlin, in this period he joined forces with

in London.116

Karl Hofmann and Felix Augenfeld to remodel the weekend home of his sister Anna Freud in Lower Austria.113

Furniture Designers—Biographies

179

The functionality of living spaces was a great concern of the staunch feminist. The reconciliation of career and family was to be facilitated through the appropriate furnishings. After fleeing Vienna in 1938, Liane Zimbler successfully specialized in interior design in Los Angeles while continuing to work as an architect. At an advanced age, she was still experimenting with modern materials, forms, and patterns—her furnishings and furniture were characterized by functionality and elegance. 180

1892 – 1987 †

Architect Designer

Liane ZIMBLER Přerov Los Angeles

Liane Zimbler was born as Juliane Angela

In 1924, Zimbler became an independent archi-

Fischer on May 31, 1892, into a Jewish family

tect and furniture designer and opened her

in the Czech town of Přerov, in the histori-

own studio at 5 Schleifmühlgasse, in Vienna’s

cal region of Moravia. Her father, Robert

Wieden district, which was soon so suc-

Fischer, was a civil servant, while her mother,

cessful that she joined with the architect Annie

Johanna Fischer, née Harpner, came from

Herrnheiser to open another office in Prague.

a family of merchants in Brno. When she

She was involved in the Wiener Frauenkunst

was still a child, her parents moved with her

association of female artists and president

and her sister, Magda, to Vienna. There

of the Association for Housing Reform.119

is varying information about Liane Zimbler’s Liane Zimbler was not only a successful archieducation in Vienna. It appears that she

tect and furniture designer but also a staunch

initially had no formal training as an architect.

feminist. In creating her rooms and furni-

Only in the 1930/31 academic year was

ture, she was concerned first and foremost

she enrolled as an audit student at the Poly-

with designing the living rooms, kitchens,

technic Institute in Vienna; at the time she

and furniture of working women or working

was already thirty-eight years old.

couples to be functional. An important fo-

As a designer, in 1911 she began creating cloth-

cus of her work was designing very small

ing for the renowned salon of the Austrian

apartments for working people, which she

fashion designer Emilie Flöge, Gustav Klimt’s

furnished with multifunctional furniture. Fluid

life companion, and illustrating books. At

divisions of space, often achieved through

the age of twenty-four, Juliane Fischer mar-

flexible walls or curtains, became one of her

ried the Viennese attorney Otto Zimbler.

trademarks, as did the design of fashion-

In 1916, she began working as a furniture

able, elegant, and functional furniture.120

designer for the Carl Bamberger AG compa- On February 21, 1938, only about three weeks ny at 25 Schönbrunner Straße, in Vienna’s

before the “annexation” of Austria by Ger-

fifth district, and as of 1918 for the Rosen-

many, Liane Zimbler became the first woman

berger architecture office in Vienna.

in Austria to pass the civil engineering exam.121

117

At this

time, she planned her first house, a country

At the beginning of April 1938, she fled with

estate in Bad Aussee for Paul Hellmann,

her family from Vienna via London to the US

a distant relative. In the following years, she

to escape the Nazis. Liane Zimbler was forty-

devoted herself to interior design, adapting

six years old at the time and her daughter, Eva,

and modernizing many apartments in Vienna

sixteen. After a five-month flight, the Zim-

and furnishing business premises. A major

blers reached New York City on September

commission in 1922 was the remodeling and

10, 1938, and moved yet that year to Los

renovation of the Bankhaus Ephrussi at

Angeles. There, Liane Zimbler contacted

Vienna’s Schottentor, a building constructed

Rudolph Michael Schindler; in a letter to him

in 1872/73 by Theophil Hansen. The year 1922

dated November 24, 1938, she wrote: “I

also marked the birth of her only child, Eva.118

am a refugee from Vienna and a newcomer

Furniture Designers—Biographies

181

in Los Angeles.”122 It is not known, however,

1950s, Zimbler collaborated as an interior

if Schindler was able to help Zimbler.

designer with the well-known architects Paul

The indefatigable architect succeeded in resum-

László and Maurice Fleischman.125

ing her career in California: she began work- In her furniture design, she always recognized ing as a designer for Anita Toor, a widely

new trends and experimented with modern

known interior architect in Los Angeles, whose

materials, forms, and patterns: her Washable

studio Zimbler took over in 1941. Two years

Living Room, for example, which she de-

after their arrival in the US, Liane Zimbler’s

signed for the DuPont company in 1961, was

husband, Otto, died in a traffic accident.123

completely furnished with modern synthetic

In 1942 she planned a house in Santa Moni-

materials and cork tiles, from the floors to

ca for the composer Ernst Toch, another

the furniture and walls.126

émigré from Vienna, and in the subsequent

In the 1960s, Zimbler’s daughter, Eva Hueb-

years devoted herself to remodeling houses

scher, began working at her mother’s studio

and apartments, decorating interiors, and

as an interior architect. After World War II,

furnishing shops and offices in Los Ange-

Liane Zimbler was never officially invited

les,124 drawing on the experience and skills

to return to Austria, nor was any tribute paid

she had acquired as an architect and furni-

to her work in Vienna. Although she served

ture designer in Vienna. Her furnishings in

as a groundbreaking role model for many fe-

Vienna as well as Los Angeles distinguished

male architects, she was completely ignored

themselves through their functionality and

and forgotten in Vienna. Zimbler was very

elegance—and always through their person-

disappointed with this state of affairs to the

alization for her individual clients. She de-

very end of her life and never returned to

signed her furniture specifically for each

Vienna. She continued working to a very ad-

project and never produced in series. In 1943,

vanced age and died at the age of ninety-

the architect became a US citizen. She

five on November 11, 1987, in Los Angeles.127

became a member of the American Society

In 2016, Eva Huebscher turned her mother’s

of Interior Decorators and of the Association

entire estate over to the International Ar-

for Women in Architecture and participat-

chive of Women in Architecture at Virginia

ed in numerous exhibitions. Beginning in the

Tech, in Blacksburg, Virginia.128

01

Design for a runner by Liane Zimbler,

stamped with “Architekt Liane Zimbler,” Vienna, 1915, © Backhausen Archive

01

182

Liane Zimbler

02

02

03

Sketch of an interior by Liane

and Eva Zimbler, 1975, © VT 03

Sketch of an interior by

Liane Zimbler, © VT 04

Sketch of the foyer of an of-

fice by Liane Zimbler, 1936, © VT

04

Furniture Designers—Biographies

183

He was successful early on as an architect and was regarded as one of the most important successors to Adolf Loos. He worked as Loos’s assistant in Vienna, but also collaborated on projects with Paul Engelmann and the Singer & Dicker studio. His focus was always on a house’s overall appearance, and he therefore designed furniture appropriate to the interior décor of a home. In his London exile, Jacques Groag specialized in interior architecture and functional design, creating furniture designs for the British government’s Utility Furniture Programme. 184

1892 – 1962 †

Architect Furniture designer

Jacques GROAG Olomouc London

Jacques Groag was born in Olomouc, now in

and 46 at 5 and 7 Woinovichgasse, which

the Czech Republic, on February 5, 1892,

were also furnished using his designs.

as the youngest son of an affluent Jewish fam-

Because of their successful design, these

ily. After finishing school, he moved to

two houses were among the few in the

Vienna, where he studied engineering be-

housing project that found buyers.132 By the

ginning in 1909 at the Polytechnic Institute,

end of the 1930s, Jacques Groag had be-

also attending Adolf Loos’s private Bau-

come a successful and established architect

schule. Because of World War I, he was not

in Vienna and was regarded as one of the

able to finish his studies until summer 1919,

most important successors to Adolf Loos.133

when he passed the second state exam

In 1937, he married Hilde Blumberger. Hilde,

for building engineering on June 25, 1919.129

who later called herself Jacqueline, had

Jacques Groag’s friends included the circle

studied with Franz Čižek and Josef Hoffmann

surrounding Ludwig Wittgenstein and Adolf

at the School of Arts and Crafts and worked

Loos. After graduating, he became Loos’s

as a fabric designer for the Wiener Werk-

assistant and building foreman, working

stätte and renowned Parisian fashion salons.

on projects including the design in 1927 of

After the “Anschluss” in 1938, the couple

the Moller house at 19 Starkfriedgasse, in

fled Vienna first to Prague and then to Lon-

Währing. Together with Ludwig Wittgenstein

don in fall 1939. In exile, the couple had to

and Paul Engelmann, he planned the Witt-

start a new life and career: Jacques worked

genstein house at 19 Kundmanngasse, in

as an interior architect and furniture designer,

Vienna’s third district, which was completed

and Jacqueline as a designer of fabrics,

in 1928, and collaborated with the Singer &

rugs, and wallpaper. The designer duo took

Dicker studio on the construction of the tennis

part in numerous exhibitions, among them

clubhouse for Hans Heller in Hietzing.

the 1950 British Industries Fair and the 1951

130

Groag had opened his own office already in

Festival of Britain. Jacques designed space-

1926 and realized an impressive number

saving, multifunctional furniture and worked

of important architecture projects in Vienna

for the British government’s Utility Furni­-

and what is today the Czech Republic, in-

ture Programme, which after World War II

cluding a house for the actress Paula Wesse-

supported the series production of inex-

ly in Grinzing. His work was not limited to

pensive furniture for the many victims of

planning houses, however: he also designed

bombings during the war. The architect died

the suitable furniture, which he integrated

on January 28, 1962, of a heart attack in

into the spaces in a clever and space-saving

a London bus on the way to the opera.134

manner.131 At the beginning of the 1930s, Groag, at the invitation of Josef Frank, contributed two single-family homes to the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung. He designed the houses No. 45

Furniture Designers—Biographies

185

01

01

Werkbundsiedlung, house No. 46, children’s

room; design: Jacques Groag, Vienna, 1932; photographer: Martin Gerlach jun., © Wien Museum 02

Werkbundsiedlung, house No. 46, living

area; design: Jacques Groag, Vienna, 1932; photographer: Martin Gerlach jun., © Wien Museum

186

Jacques Groag

02

02

Furniture Designers—Biographies

187

She completed training in the arts, studied architecture with Josef Hoffmann, and while still a student at the School of Arts and Crafts worked as a designer for the Wiener Werkstätte. Felice Rix-Ueno designed fabric patterns that were shown both in Austria and abroad. Together with her husband, the Japanese architect Isaburo Ueno, she worked in Kyoto as a designer and interior architect, and as a professor she influenced an entire generation of young designers. 188

1893 – 1967 †

Felice RIX-UENO Vienna Kyoto

Fabric designer

Felice “Lizzi” Rix was born in Vienna on June 1,

Vienna several times to continue her work

Interior architect

1893, as the daughter of a wealthy Jewish

for the Wiener Werkstätte and took part in

Professor

family of industrialists. The family lived at

several exhibitions in Austria, including the

16 Praterstraße, in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt

1929 Wiener Raumkünstler show and the

district.135 Her father, Julius Rix, married to Valerie, née Löwy, was for a short time

1930 Werkbund exhibition. Richard Neutra met the couple in Japan and

the business manager of the Wiener Werk-

gave lectures in Osaka and Tokyo for the

stätte. After Lizzi, her mother gave birth

International Architecture Society of Japan,

to three more girls. Lizzi Rix attended the

which Isaburo Ueno had co-founded.140

Higher Institution for Graphic Education and

In this period, Lizzi Rix-Ueno designed the

Research in Vienna, where she met Liane

entire interior furnishings of Kyoto’s Star

Zimbler, a classmate who would later become

Bar, planned by Isaburo Ueno; her complete

a successful architect and furniture design-

designs were exhibited in the 1932 Mod-

er.

ern Architecture: International Exhibition at

136

In 1912, Lizzi Rix enrolled in the School

of Arts and Crafts and attended the textile

the MoMA in Manhattan.141

class of Rosalia Rothansl and Anton Kenner’s In the mid-1930s, Lizzi Rix-Ueno returned to nude-drawing class. The following year,

Vienna for a year. After the end of World War

she began studying architecture with Josef

II, she was appointed professor for design

Hoffmann.

at the Kyoto College of Art, today the Kyoto

137

While still a student, she

worked as a fabric and book designer for

University of the Arts. In 1963, Lizzi Rix-Ueno

the Wiener Werkstätte. After graduating in

and her husband founded a private univer-

June 1916, she became a freelance designer

sity, the International Design School, as well

and created numerous fabric patterns.138

as an international design research institute,

In Vienna, Lizzi Rix met the Japanese archi-

today the Kyoto Interactive School of Art.142

tect Isaburo Ueno, who had studied archi-

Lizzi Rix-Ueno died on October 15, 1967, at

tecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Berlin

the age of seventy-four in Kyoto. Her husband

at the beginning of the 1920s.

lived and worked in Japan until his death

139

He also

studied architecture with Josef Hoffmann at

in 1972. Her younger sister Kitty Rix became

the School of Arts and Crafts and worked

an internationally known ceramic artist.143

in his studio. In 1925, Rix and Ueno married and moved to Kyoto the next year. There, the young couple opened the Ueno Architectural Office; Isaburo Ueno planned the buildings, while Lizzi Rix-Ueno was responsible for the entire interior architecture and continued working as a fabric, product, and furniture designer. Between 1926 and 1930, Lizzi Rix-Ueno traveled to

Furniture Designers—Biographies

189

As a master of planning very small spaces, Felix Augenfeld specialized in apartments for working singles while still in Vienna. His trademark was his meticulously planned designs, which were practical and spacesaving as well as aesthetic. He was able to continue his successful career as an architect and furniture designer in exile. 190

1893 – 1984 †

Felix AUGENFELD

Architect Furniture designer

Vienna New York

Felix Augenfeld was born in Vienna on January In his interior design—particularly for small 10, 1893, to a Jewish family. His father, Isidor,

apartments—Augenfeld utilized multifunc-

a merchant, and his mother, Paula, née

tional furniture and created spaces that

Bediener, did not have any other children.

could be used in a variety of ways. He de-

Felix Augenfeld began studying architecture

signed built-in furniture, fold-out cupboards

at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna in 1910

and light, portable chairs, and consciously

and was among the first students at Adolf

used vibrant colors. Augenfeld, who was

Loos’s private Bauschule, along with Rudolph

close friends with Ernst Freud and the Freud

Michael Schindler, Richard Neutra, Paul

family, designed, among other things, Sig-

Engelmann, and Ernst Freud.144 World War I

mund Freud’s desk chair, which he tailored

interrupted his studies: he saw combat in the

especially to the sitting habits of the world-

war as a soldier, was taken prisoner in Italy,

famous physician.148

and was able to graduate only in July 1920.

145

In 1922, Augenfeld worked independently as

After the “Anschluss” in 1938, Augenfeld fled from Vienna to London, where he lived for

an architect and furniture designer, starting

a year before emigrating to New York City in

a joint studio in Döbling with his friend and

1939. His American friend Muriel Gardiner

former fellow student Karl Hofmann. The

provided him with the necessary affidavit.

two young architects furnished a large num-

Augenfeld was forty-six years old at the time.

ber of homes in Vienna and in the Czech city

In 1940, he was granted an architecture

of Brno. They also remodeled very small

license for the State of New York and became

apartments for working singles and furnished

a member of the American Institute of Ar-

them with furniture of their own design.

chitects. In 1941, he opened an architecture

146

The successful studio designed stage sets for

office on 66th Street in Manhattan and

the theater director Max Reinhardt, as well,

worked primarily as a furniture designer and

and worked on several theater productions

interior architect. Vienna and Manhattan

with Oskar Strnad. In 1926, the studio moved

had one thing in common: living space was

to 33 Wipplingerstraße, in downtown Vien-

cramped and expensive. This enabled

na. In 1930, the two architects built a weekend

Augenfeld to establish himself as an interior

house in the Vienna Woods for Augenfeld’s

designer specializing in difficult room sit-

American friend Muriel Gardiner, who was

uations, in particular for small spaces.149

studying medicine in Vienna at the time.

Felix Augenfeld, who could draw on his exten-

That same year, they designed the Espresso

sive experience he had gained as an architect

Bar for the Werkbund exhibition in Vienna,

and furniture designer in Vienna, designed

which was reported on by many international

furniture for companies including Thonet

architecture magazines. The two young

Brothers New York and furnished the homes

architects also furnished the house in the

of other émigrés, in many cases former

Wiener Werkbundsiedlung designed by

clients from Vienna who had also fled to New

Oskar Strnad with their own furniture.147

York City to escape the Nazis. He furnished

Furniture Designers—Biographies

191

the La Reine Candy Store for the candy pro-

clients, he remained in very close contact

ducer Heller in Manhattan. From 1945 to

with other Viennese émigrés, both profession-

1950, he was active as a furniture designer

ally and privately, throughout his entire

for the venerable American furniture produc-

lifetime. In 1966, he wedded the craftswom-

er Henredon. Augenfeld often used his

an and designer Anna Epstein-Gutmann,

own furniture designs for his interior décor;

also a native Viennese. She, as well, had

he became known for his so-called “media

studied at Vienna’s School of Arts and Crafts

furniture,” cabinets that held a television

and was forced to flee her native city in

and concealed phonographs or radios.150

1938. Epstein-Gutmann opened the Studio

Augenfeld designed numerous beach and

Plus lamp studio in Manhattan, where in

weekend houses, in which he was able to

addition to her own designs she sold home

optimally utilize his talent for furnishing very

furnishings by Josef Frank.152

tight spaces. He completed his most im-

Felix Augenfeld died on July 21, 1984, of cancer

portant work in Manhattan at the end of 1958,

at the age of ninety. Anna Augenfeld nev-

when the architect was sixty-five: for Muriel

er returned to Vienna either; she died nine

Gardiner-Buttinger and her husband, Joseph

years after her husband in New York.153

Buttinger, who were close friends, he built a private residence and library near Central Park, the Buttinger Library.151 After World War II, Felix Augenfeld spent vacations in Germany on several occasions but never returned to his native city of Vienna. Although the architect worked for American

02

192

Felix Augenfeld

01

Desk chair for Sigmund

Freud; design: Felix Augenfeld, Vienna, c. 1926, © KAUAK

02

01

Armchair and sofa with

mahogany feet and original upholstery fabric; design: Felix Augenfeld and Karl Hofmann (attributed), Vienna, c. 1930, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2019

02

Furniture Designers—Biographies

193

Ernst Schwadron grew up surrounded by Viennese architects and artists and early in his career specialized in the planning and furnishing of private homes and shops. His designs were versatile, space-saving, and modern. After being exiled from Vienna in 1938, he worked in New York City, primarily designing furniture, and started his own business. Despite his success in exile as an architect and furniture designer, he had a great longing for his native Austria until the end of his life. 194

Ernst SCHWADRON

1896 – 1979 †

Architect Furniture designer

Vienna New York

Ernst Schwadron was born on July 1, 1896, in

At the beginning of the 1930s, Ernst Schwadron

Vienna as the son of a Jewish family that

built a penthouse for himself on the top floor

originally came from Galicia (now part of

of the building on Franz-Josefs-Kai and

Poland). His father, Viktor Schwadron, was

furnished it with furniture of his own design.

a successful builder and founder of the

He made use of space-saving and light-

construction and ceramic company Brüder

weight furniture, custom-made sideboards,

Schwadron, with headquarters in Vienna;

room dividers, and folding doors. His pent-

he was married to Ernestine, née Nassau.

house was depicted in the magazine Innen-

The family lived at 3 Franz-Josefs-Kai, in the

dekoration as a successful example of

center of Vienna, and the house served

modern interior design. Ernst Schwadron

as the family’s residence as well as the busi-

also worked in his father’s business but left

ness location and company headquarters.

in 1934.157

Ernst Schwadron attended the State Trade

Immediately following the “Anschluss” in March

School (Staatsgewerbeschule) and studied

1938, the then-41-year-old architect fled

ceramic design in the 1918/19 academic

Vienna to Paris and then to New York City;

year at Michael Powolny’s workshop for ce-

all of his possessions were confiscated by

ramics at the School of Arts and Crafts.

the Nazis.158 Unlike many other émigrés, he

From the very time he entered the school, he

was able to launch a second successful

stated that his desired career was “archi-

career there as an interior architect and fur-

tect,” but Schwadron never completed any

niture designer. In June 1939, he became

formal training in this area.154 His younger

head designer at the Rena Rosenthal interior

brother Walter studied engineering at the

furnishings company, where he primarily

Polytechnic Institute and became an archi-

designed furniture.159 In 1944 he opened his

tect as well. A number of renowned archi-

own interior-design shop and founded

tects from Vienna worked for the successful

Ernst Schwadron Inc., with headquarters on

family business Brüder Schwadron, includ-

Madison Avenue, which he ran success-

ing Arthur Baron, Julius Goldschläger,

fully until the end of the 1950s. One of the

and Oskar Marmorek. The company also col-

company’s projects was designing the

laborated with many artists, like Michael

offices of the American Crayon Company

Powolny, Otto Prutscher, and Viktor Lurje.155

at Rockefeller Center. In New York, he

In the 1920s and ’30s, Ernst Schwadron worked

also worked with the Viennese ceramic

as an interior architect and furniture de-

artist Emmy Zweybrück and furnished her

signer in Vienna. One of his first designs, a

apartment. He favored organic forms in

beach house for Gustav and Erna Lederer

his furniture and interior design, often using

in Greifenstein, Lower Austria, in 1927,

fabrics by Josef Frank. His designs were

earned him recognition as an architect. In

published in American magazines such

1931, he married Erna Lederer, the wife

as Interiors, House & Garden, and Town &

of his client, but they divorced a year later.156

Country.160

Furniture Designers—Biographies

195

After World War II, the surviving members of

The couple made trips back to Austria on sev-

the Schwadron family were not able to reclaim

eral occasions, including to Bad Aussee,

the business in Vienna. Ernst Schwadron’s

but Ernst Schwadron never returned to Vien-

brother Walter had also fled to New York

na. The architect and designer died on

City in 1938 with his wife, Elisabeth, and their

February 3, 1979, in New York City at the

son Peter. Their father, Viktor Schwadron,

age of eighty-two.162

who had helped both sons flee to America in In the US, original works by Ernst Schwadron 1938 but remained in Vienna himself, died

are today coveted collector’s items. His

in 1942. In New York, Ernst Schwadron mar-

furniture is currently produced by Wohnkul-

ried his second wife, Gladys. He was never

tur 66 in Hamburg.163

able to overcome the loss of his hometown of Vienna. In the early 1950s, he planned a house for himself and Gladys in Connecticut and furnished it with countless pictures and memorabilia from his lost homeland.161

01

196

Ernst Schwadron

01

Plans for the furnishings

of the Dósza apartment, 11 Theresianumgasse, Vienna, fourth district; design: Ernst Schwadron, Vienna, 1933 © MAK 02

Dreamlike sofa; design:

Ernst Schwadron, USA, 1946; execution: Wohnkultur 66, © Wohnkultur 66/Andreas Weiss 03

Armchair, cherrywood

with Terrazzo upholstery by Josef Frank; design: Ernst Schwadron, Vienna, c. 1927/28, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2016 04

Easy Chair; design: Ernst

02

Schwadron, USA, 1946; execution: Wohnkultur 66, © Wohnkultur 66/Andreas Weiss 05

Footstool; design: Ernst

Schwadron, Vienna, 1934; execution: Wohnkultur 66, © Wohnkultur 66/Andreas Weiss 06

Dining Chair; design:

Ernst Schwadron, USA, 1946; execution: Wohnkultur 66, © Wohnkultur 66/Andreas Weiss

03

05

04

06

Furniture Designers—Biographies

197

He was one of the few Austrians who was able to study at the Bauhaus. His experience as a set designer was very valuable in his staging of the spaces he designed. Franz Singer’s furniture designs were incredibly versatile and produced only in small series. After his emigration, he was able to continue and expand his work as an architect and furniture designer. 198

1896 – 1954 †

Bauhaus student

Franz SINGER Vienna Berlin

Franz Singer was born on February 8, 1896,

Dicker in founding the Werkstätten Bilden-

Architect

into an upper-class Jewish family in Vienna.

der Kunst in Berlin in 1923, where they

Furniture designer

His father, Siegmund Singer, had a textile

collaborated on the design of interior fur-

business and owned a dyeworks in Stockerau;

nishings, handicrafts, and stage sets.166

he was married to Hermine, née Haurowitz.

In 1925, Singer returned to Vienna and joined

Franz Singer had a younger sister, Frieda,

Friedl Dicker’s studio at 2 Wasserburg-

and two elder brothers, Julius and Paul. His

gasse, in the district of Alsergrund. Despite

father died at an early age; Franz was only

the economically difficult times, their joint

fourteen at the time. Franz Singer’s drawing

studio became very successful in the en-

talent became apparent early on, and in

suing years.167 The two designers specialized

1905, he began attending a drawing class at

in designing apartments, commercial pre-

the studio of the painter Emma Schlangen-

mises, and furniture. In their joint projects,

hausen taught by the painter and set designer

Singer was responsible for the architecture

Alfred Roller.

and Dicker for the atmosphere, color schemes,

164

Singer served in World War I, then began study-

and fabrics.168 Together, they created fold-

ing philosophy and art history at the Uni-

able, stackable, and multifunctional furniture,

versity of Vienna but dropped out before gra-

lamps, and other home-furnishing objects.

duating. Starting in 1919, he attended

In his designs, Singer experimented with

Johannes Itten’s private art school in Vienna,

plywood and tubular steel. The result was a

where he also met his later partner Friedl

series of stacking chairs and cantilevered

Dicker. When Itten closed his art school in

chairs for children as well as adults with a

Vienna to go to Weimar to teach at the Bau-

special feature typical for Singer: the crossed

haus, Franz Singer and Friedl Dicker fol-

base. These objects were also produced

lowed him there in 1919. Singer stayed at the

in small series beginning in the early 1930s.169

Bauhaus until 1923, attending cabinetmak-

Singer and Dicker were also involved in

ing and set-design classes and working

projects for the common good: they worked

on various theater productions. On March 17,

on social programs for the City of Vienna,

1921, while Singer was still studying at the

furnished kindergartens, and developed

Bauhaus, he married the Vienna-born singer

stacking furniture for very tight spaces.170

Emmy Hein, who was eleven years his se-

After private conflicts with Singer, Friedl Dicker

nior. It was her second marriage. She gave

left the joint studio in 1931, but the two

birth to a son, Michael—known as “Bibi”—

creative artists continued to work together

who died at about the age of ten in Vienna.165

on interior design projects. Singer’s wife,

At the beginning of the 1920s, Franz Singer

Emmy, lived in England as of the early 1930s

worked with Dicker for various theater pro-

and later emigrated from there to Canada.

ductions in Dresden and Berlin, most no-

Beginning in 1934, Franz Singer lived primar-

tably for Berthold Viertel’s theater Die Truppe.

ily in London but continued to work for

After completing his studies, Singer joined

the studio in Vienna from his home in Great

Furniture Designers—Biographies

199

Britain. In addition to his freelance work as an

01

architect and furniture designer, in 1934,

Franz Singer, Vienna, 1929,

Lamp, brass: design:

Singer also began serving as a consultant to

Sammlung GS

the John Lewis and Peter Jones home fur-

02

nishings companies in London. In 1936, his

design: Franz Singer, Vienna,

brother Paul invited him to participate in an

c. 1925, Sammlung GS

architecture project in Palestine.

171

After the “Anschluss” in 1938, Singer was no longer permitted to work in Vienna. He continued to be active in London as an architect and furniture designer, specializing in children’s furniture and toys, and was involved in social housing projects.172 After the war, Franz Singer spent several years in Salzburg but never returned to his native city of Vienna. He died on October 5, 1954, while visiting his long-time friend Margit TéryBuschmann in Berlin.173

01

200

02

Franz Singer

Lamp, brass and glass;

03

Chair, pearwood with black

jute belts and Viennese mesh; design: Franz Singer and Friedl Dicker, Vienna, c. 1927, © Dorotheum, 2019 04

Prototype of a V armchair,

tubular steel, wood, and Viennese mesh; design: Franz Singer, Vienna, 1933, Sammlung GS 05

Stacking chair, beech

with jute belts; design: Franz Singer and Friedl Dicker, Vienna, c. 1930, © KAUAK 06

Stacking chair, red-paint-

ed tubular steel and plywood with crossed base in an X form; design: Franz Singer, Vienna, 1936, Sammlung GS 07

03

04

05

06

08

09

Protype of a side table,

tubular steel and wood; design: Franz Singer, Vienna, 1936, Sammlung GS 08

Hériot cantilevered chair,

tubular steel with a crossed base, wood, and Viennese mesh; design: Franz Singer, Vienna, 1932, Sammlung GS 09

Stacking plywood chair

with crossed base in an X form; design: Franz Singer, Vienna, 1936, Sammlung GS

07

Furniture Designers—Biographies

201

Walter Gropius and Johannes Itten called her one of the most gifted of the Bauhaus students. Her drawing talent and creativity became apparent even when she was a child. She enjoyed great success as an interior architect and furniture designer and was able to draw on her manifold talents. She herself grew up without a mother and never had children of her own, but Friedl Dicker devoted her entire life to art education and giving drawing lessons to young talents. After World War II, the children’s drawings by her students from the Theresienstadt concentration camp became known all over the world. 202

1898 – 1944 †

Bauhaus student

Friedl DICKER Vienna Auschwitz

Friedericke “Friedl” Dicker was born in Vienna

lithography. In 1921, her favorite painter, Paul

Interior architect

on July 30, 1898, to a Jewish family. Her

Klee, joined the teaching staff at the Bau-

Designer

father, Simon, came from an area that is now

haus. She saw him every day in that period,

Painter

part of the Ukraine and worked at a paper

watching him paint and attending his lec-

Art educator

shop; her mother, Karolina, née Fanta, was

tures on the essence of art and childlike fan-

from Vienna. Dicker did not have an easy

tasy. Her acquaintance with Klee and his

childhood; her mother died when Friedl was

art would influence Dicker’s entire life. At this

only four years old. She had no siblings,

time, she worked together with her boy-

and she was raised lovingly by her single

friend Franz Singer in the theater department

father. She discovered her creative and

of the Bauhaus as well.178

artistic talent at an early age. The young girl

Walter Gropius wrote enthusiastically about the

spent her free time in her father’s paper

young artist: “Miss Dicker was a student

shop, and she found there everything she

at the State Bauhaus in Weimar from June

needed to give her imagination and creativi-

1919 until September 1923. During this

ty free rein: clay, pencils, paint, and paper.

time, she consistently distinguished herself

She went to a vocational girl’s school and

through her rare and exceptional artistic

from 1905 to 1907 attended a private draw-

talent and drew the particular attention of

ing class for children in Vienna taught by

the entire teaching staff to her works. Owing

Alfred Roller.

to the diversity of her talent and her great

174

From 1912 to 1914, she at-

tended Vienna’s Higher Institution for Graph-

energy, her achievements and works were

ic Education and Research, which had

among the very best of the entire institute,

begun accepting women in 1908. She then

and she could be utilized as an instructor

studied at the School of Arts and Crafts from

while she was still a student. As the founder

1915 to 1916 and attended Rosalia Rothansl’s

and former director of the State Bauhaus

textile class.175 To earn extra money, the

in Weimar, I follow the artistic activities of

young student worked for theaters, sewing

Miss Dicker with great interest.”179

costumes and assembling props.

176

After they completed their studies, Dicker and

From 1916 to 1919, Dicker attended Johannes

Franz Singer founded the Werkstätten Bil-

Itten’s private art school in Vienna, where

dender Kunst in Berlin, specializing in toys,

she also met Anny Wottitz as well as her

jewelry, bookbinding, textiles, graphics,

later business partner and lover Franz Singer.

and above all in designing stage sets for the

When Itten closed the school in 1919 and

theater. In 1925, Dicker returned to Vienna

began teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar, a

and opened a studio, where she designed

number of his students from Vienna followed

fabrics and did bookbinding work. Singer

him there, including Anny Wottitz, Franz Sing-

soon followed, and in 1926 they began work-

er, and the then 21-year-old Friedl Dicker.177

ing together at a joint studio on Wasser-

At the Bauhaus, Dicker did bookbinding work, produced toys, and learned the technique of

Furniture Designers—Biographies

burggasse, in the district of Alsergrund. In their joint projects, Dicker was primarily

203

responsible for the interior design, furniture

the couple to emigrate, and Franz Singer,

design, color schemes, and fabrics, and

who had already moved to London, wanted

Singer for the architecture. Dicker also ma-

them to join him there. Friedl Brandeis ob-

nually produced furniture upholstery, rugs,

tained a visa for Palestine, but because her

and bedspreads in the studio. They jointly de-

husband did not have one, she remained

signed a great deal of interior furnishings,

with him. On December 16, 1942, she and

and above all multifunctional furniture. The

her husband were deported to the There-

visionary designs from the Singer & Dicker

sienstadt concentration camp. Pavel Brandeis

studio, which clearly displayed the Bauhaus

worked there as a carpenter, while Friedl

influence, soon became the quintessence

became a caretaker at one of the girls’

of modern furniture design in Vienna and were

homes at the camp. She organized secret

shown at many exhibitions and in interna-

drawing classes for hundreds of impris-

tional design magazines such as Domus.180

oned children there, also working with them

The collaboration and relationship between the

as a costume designer for a stage play,

two furniture designers were complicated,

Käferlein (The Little Beetle). Friedl Brandeis

however, and marked by personal conflicts

hoped that the art classes would help the

as well as a dramatic love affair. In 1921, Franz

children better cope with their emotions and

Singer had married the singer Emmy Heim,

their environment. Even at Theresienstadt,

with whom he had a son who died at about

she utilized very simple means to try to make

the age of ten. After Dicker separated from

the rooms of “her” children a bit warmer

Singer, she opened her own studio in Vienna

and more comfortable, coloring their bed-

in 1931. It was at this time that she also be-

sheets with them and decorating the walls.184

gan devoting herself to art education, teach- In September 1944, Pavel Brandeis was deing drawing to kindergarten teachers and

ported to Auschwitz. Friedl insisted on

children.

staying with him and volunteered for the next

181

Friedl Dicker became a member of the Com-

transport in order to follow her husband.

munist Party in Vienna in 1931. After a search

Before leaving Theresienstadt, she gave

of her studio in 1934 that revealed falsified

Raja Englanderova, one of her students, two

passports, Dicker was arrested.182 Franz

suitcases filled with some 4,500 drawings

Singer intervened on her behalf, and she was

by the children. On October 8, the train

released. She immediately fled to Prague,

arrived in Auschwitz. One day later, on Oc-

where her aunt Adela Brandeis lived with

tober 9, 1944, Friedl Brandeis was mur-

her three sons. Dicker fell in love with her

dered; she was forty-six years old.185 Her

youngest cousin, Pavel Brandeis, who was

husband, Pavel Brandeis, survived the

nearly seven years her junior, and they

Shoah. Her father died on August 13, 1942

married in 1936. Friedl, who thereafter went

in Theresienstadt.186

by the name Brandeis, continued working

Raja Englanderova hid the suitcases with the

as an architect and furniture designer in

children’s drawings until Theresienstadt

Prague, signing her works with “FB.” She de-

was liberated and then turned them over to

signed interior furnishings, renovated apart-

Willy Groag, a nephew of Jacques Groag

ments in collaboration with Karola Bloch

who had been imprisoned there as well.187

and Greta Bauer-Fröhlich, a former Bauhaus

After the end of the war, these drawings by

student, and designed textiles with Frieda

the children of Theresienstadt, done under

Stork, Franz Singer’s sister. In addition, she

the guidance of Friedl Brandeis, were shown

taught drawing classes in which she also

at exhibitions all over the world. They are

worked with art therapy. Friedl Brandeis con-

now preserved at Prague’s Jewish Museum

tinued to work on joint projects with Franz

and are indelible documents of lives lived

Singer in Vienna as well.183

in fear.188

In summer 1938, she and her husband moved to Hronov, a small Czech city near the Polish border. Friends attempted to persuade

204

Friedl Dicker

02

Chair, maple and beech, partially red-painted with belt

webbing; design: Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer; execution: Möbelfabrik Prof. A. Hartmann & Co, Vienna, c. 1927, © MAK/ Nathan Murrell 03

Drawing of an armchair with colorful, woven belt webbing

by Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer, Sammlung GS

02

01

01

Design for the Anna Selbdritt sculp-

ture by Friedl Dicker, Sammlung GS

03

Furniture Designers—Biographies

205

The young architect recognized early on that furniture must be functional and space-saving. He designed a tubular steel stacking chair and fought first in Vienna and then in Great Britain for the legal rights to his design. Many public buildings were furnished with Bruno Pollak’s modern creations, and his chairs have long become design icons. 206

1902 – 1975 †

Architect Furniture designer

Bruno POLLAK Tysmenits London

Bruno Pollak was born on September 30, 1902,

horizontally—under his own name in Aus-

in Tysmenits, Poland, into a Jewish family.

tria and subsequently also in Denmark,

His father, Moritz Pollak, was a commercial

France, Great Britain, Germany, Switzer-

employee. The family moved to Vienna

land, and the US.193

while Bruno was still in school. He attended

In 1934, the British furniture company Practical

the Akademisches Gymnasium there, from

Equipment Ltd. (PEL) acquired the rights

which he graduated in 1920. He studied

from Bruno Pollak to series-produce his chair.

from 1921 to 1931, with several interruptions,

PEL, located near Birmingham, was found-

at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute. Bruno

ed in 1931 with the goal of competing with

Pollak lived at his parents’ apartment at

Thonet in the production of inexpensive

59 Albertgasse, in the Josefstadt district, for

tubular steel furniture. PEL had produced

the entire time he was studying. In 1924

Pollak’s chair as early as 1932 without his

he became an Austrian citizen.189

approval. After a legal agreement was

In 1927, along with several other students from

reached between Pollak and PEL in 1934,

the Polytechnic Institute, Pollak began

the company sold his chairs all over the

working at the Singer & Dicker studio in Vien-

world in a variety of models and at low pric-

na.

es. Many public buildings, such as the

190

At this time, he began designing the

studio’s first tubular steel furniture: a stack-

BBC’s Broadcasting House, were furnished

ing chair that was produced in small series

with Pollak’s chairs, as were airports,

by the Viennese furniture manufacturer

schools, and parks.194

Josef & Leopold Quittner. Pollak’s chair was At the address of the Singer & Dicker studio available in various models: made either

at 2 Wasserburggasse, in Alsergrund, Bruno

of chrome-plated or painted tubular steel with

Pollak listed his own company as well:

seats of woven cane, wooden slats, or fab-

BP Stühle u. Tische.195 It is not known when

ric. The designer created an entire series

Pollak left the Singer & Dicker joint studio

of tubular steel furniture, consisting of a chair

in Vienna. The furniture designer had begun

with or without armrests, a stool, and a

frequently traveling to London on business

table. The special feature of Bruno Pollak’s

as early as 1930 and moved there perma-

chair was that, unlike other tubular steel

nently in the mid-1930s. The designer never

models of that time, it could be stacked; this

returned to Vienna after World War II. He

was particularly valuable in times when

died in London in 1975 at the age of seventy-

cramped living spaces were common.

three.196

191

Pollak’s design led to a dispute with Franz Singer, the studio’s director, who wanted to have the patent registered under his own name.192 In February 1929, Pollak registered the patent for the stackability of his chairs— through the nesting of one into another

Furniture Designers—Biographies

207

01

02

208

Bruno Pollak

03

Chair, tubular steel and

06

Wooden chair; design:

fabric; design: Bruno Pollak,

Bruno Pollak, Vienna, c. 1927,

Vienna, c. 1927; execution:

Sammlung GS

PEL, Great Britain, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2010 04

Tubular steel chair; de-

07

Stacking chair, tubular

steel and woven rattan; design: Bruno Pollak, Vienna, c. 1927;

sign: Bruno Pollak, Vienna,

execution: Josef & Leopold

c. 1927; execution: Josef &

Quittner, Vienna, © Dorotheum

Leopold Quittner, © Dorotheum

Vienna, 2014

Vienna, 2019 05

Stacking chair, tubular

steel and wood; design: Bruno Pollak, Vienna, c. 1927; execution: Josef & Leopold Quittner, Vienna, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2015 03

04

05

06

07

Furniture Designers—Biographies

209

Jacqueline Groag is regarded as a pioneer of modern textile design and furnished airlines, trains, and ships with her distinctive fabric, wallpaper, and plastic designs. Through her work as a designer for the Wiener Werkstätte and her collaboration with the most prestigious Parisian fashion salons, she developed an unparalleled sense of colors and forms and was able to draw from her rich store of ideas throughout her entire lifetime. 210

1903 – 1986 †

Jacqueline GROAG Prague London

Interior architect

Jacqueline Groag was born in Prague on April 16,

made her one of the most successful fabric

Fabric designer

1903, as Hilde Pick into a Jewish family. In

designers in England in the twentieth centu-

1926, she enrolled in Vienna’s School of

ry. She designed patterns for furniture up-

Arts and Crafts, first studying general theo-

holstery, wallpaper, and even innovatively

ries of form with Franz Čižek and then from

printed synthetic materials, which were used

1927 to 1929 architecture with Josef Hoff-

in furniture production. Until the end of the

mann.

1970s, she worked as a freelance designer

197

After completing her studies,

and following the untimely death of her first

for businesses including the British compa-

husband, Karl Ludwig Blumberger, she

nies Hallmark Design and Cavendish Tex-

worked as a designer for the Wiener Werk-

tiles and furnished London Transport, British

stätte. As Hilde Blumberger or Hilde

Railways, and BOAC airlines with her de-

Bloomberg, she made a name throughout

signs. Jacqueline’s work was very diverse

Europe as a sought-after fabric designer.

and also included ceramics and paper goods.

She went to Paris in the early 1930s and re-

Even the British heir to the throne, Princess

ceived major commissions from famous

Elizabeth, wore a dress in 1946 that featured

fashion designers like Coco Chanel, Jeanne

Jacqueline’s Tulip fabric pattern.199

Lanvin, and Elsa Schiaparelli. In 1931, she

Together with her husband, she designed in-

became engaged to Jacques Groag and

teriors and furniture and with her extravagant

moved back to Vienna with him. Her splen-

fabric designs had a significant influence

didly colored and innovative fabric patterns

on British home furnishings in the 1950s and

won awards at numerous international

’60s. Still today, she is regarded as a pio-

exhibitions: in 1933, her fabric designs won

neer of modern textile design. In 1984 she was

a prize at the Milan Triennale, and at the

named a Royal Designer for Industry, the

1937 International Exposition in Paris, her

highest accolade for a designer in Britain.200

printed fabrics were even awarded a gold

Jacqueline Groag remained successful as a

medal. In 1937, she married Jacques

designer until a very advanced age. She out-

Groag as well.

lived her husband by twenty-four years,

198

After the “Anschluss,” in March 1938, Jacques and Hilde Groag fled first to Prague and

dying of cancer on January 13, 1986, at the age of eighty-two in London.201

then in 1939 via France and Holland to London. There, Hilde changed her name to Jacqueline Groag and opened her own design studio. She and her husband jointly participated in many exhibitions in Great Britain, among them the 1950 British Industries Fair and the 1951 Festival of Britain. Her designs, which were influenced by the graphic patterns of the Wiener Werkstätte,

Furniture Designers—Biographies

211

01

02

212

Jacqueline Groag

01

03

01

Three Quartett fabric

patterns; design: Jacqueline Groag for the Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna, 1928, © MAK/ Branislav Djordjevic 02

Quartett fabric design by

Jacqueline Groag for the Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna, 1928, © MAK/Branislav Djordjevic 03

Fabric designs by Jacque-

line Groag for the Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna, 1928, © MAK

Furniture Designers—Biographies

213

The forgotten Loos: He studied architecture with Josef Hoffmann and attended Josef Frank’s lectures at the School of Arts and Crafts. In Paris, he worked together with Adolf Loos and met Le Corbusier. Walter Loos was involved in the Österreichischer Werkbund and planned a house in Vienna’s Werkbundsiedlung. As a staunch opponent of National Socialism, the young architect turned his back on Austria forever in 1938. In South America, he designed furniture and interior furnishings that were to facilitate a modern and comfortable life. 214

1905 – 1974 †

Philosopher

Walter LOOS

Vienna Buenos Aires

Born on January 12, 1905, in Vienna as the son

because they were not able to obtain a work

Furniture designer

of a furniture dealer, Walter Loos studied

permit, they moved on to Buenos Aires in

Publicist

with Rudolf Larisch and Franz Čižek at the

1940. But here, as well, they were faced with

School of Arts and Crafts beginning in 1921

initial difficulties, as Loos’s architecture

as well as architecture with Josef Hoffmann

diploma was not recognized. However, he

from 1923 to 1925 and attended Josef

was soon able to make a name for himself

Frank’s lectures on structural theory.

202

At

as a furniture designer and interior architect,

that school, he also met his future wife,

while his wife operated a well-known fashion

Fridl Steininger, who had studied textile art

salon.207

with Rosalia Rothansl and, like Loos,

Together with Max Thurn, Loos opened the

architecture with Josef Hoffmann.203 In the

Atelier Ltda, which produced furniture

1930/31 academic year, he was enrolled

and lamps, and beginning in 1950, he de-

as an audit student at the Polytechnic Institute.

signed furniture with his younger half-

In the mid-1920s, the young architect lived

brother Hermann, who had also emigrated

for a time in Paris and worked in the studio of

to Buenos Aires. Among his most impor-

Adolf Loos (the two were not related). After

tant designs were those for the interior

returning to Vienna, he started his own busi-

décor of the fashion studio of his wife, Fridl.

ness as an architect and furniture designer,

He planned vacation homes, hotels, and

planning modern houses and furniture, some-

offices as well, furnishing them with his own

times in collaboration with Jacques Groag

furniture. After World War II, Walter and

and Walter Sobotka.204 He was active in the

Fridl Loos visited Austria only once. Walter

Österreichischer Werkbund and participated

Loos died on March 11, 1974, in Buenos

in the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung: thanks

Aires at the age of sixty-nine.208

to their carefully conceived division of a very small space, the two houses he planned, No. 24 and 26, were among the most successful of the entire project.205 For the family of the Viennese composer and conductor Alexander Zemlinsky, Loos designed a cubeshaped house in Döbling, at 24 Kaasgraben, that was awarded a prize at the 1933 Milan Triennale.206 As staunch opponents of National Socialism, Loos and his girlfriend, Fridl Steininger, emigrated to London in March 1938, moving a year later to New York City, where he worked as a designer for Rena Rosenthal. Loos and Steininger married in 1939;

Furniture Designers—Biographies

215

She was one of the first women to study at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute and worked for the Singer & Dicker joint studio while she was still a student. She designed interior décor and furniture for prominent customers in Vienna and at the same time was active in social projects. Anna Szabo survived World War II in hiding in Budapest under the most difficult conditions and after the war was forced to flee her homeland a second time. In Great Britain, she made a name for herself in the area of social housing. The architect felt closely connected to Budapest and Vienna until the end of her lifetime. 216

1907 – 1988 †

Architect Furniture designer

Anna SZABO

Budapest London

Anna Szabo was born in Budapest, in the former Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, in 1907 into a Jewish family. She moved to

Budapest and was enrolled again at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute from 1946 to 1947.213 Szabo worked as an architect in Budapest until

Vienna to study architecture at the Polytech-

1956. After the Hungarian Uprising in Oc-

nic Institute. She was among the few women

tober 1956, she fled to Vienna and lived for

who were enrolled in the architecture pro-

a short time as a refugee in Leopoldine

gram between 1925 and 1930, and on July 1,

Schrom’s studio, assisting her with a num-

1929, passed the first state exam.209

ber of projects as well. She emigrated to

“Nusi,” as her friends called her, began work-

London that same year. She became a mem-

ing for the Singer & Dicker studio in Vienna

ber of the Royal Institute of British Archi-

while she was still a student.210 Szabo

tects and continued her successful architec-

created furnishings and planned shop reno-

ture career, working in the area of social

vations, and was very involved in furniture

housing for the London County Council and

design for the studio, drawing perspective

the Greater London Council.214

sketches of the models. Among other things, Until her death in 1988, Anna Szabo regularly she was active in the planning of the Monreturned to Vienna once a year, and from tessori kindergarten in the Goethehof and in

there she always took the ship down the

the building of the Gästehaus Auersperg-

Danube to visit Budapest. She died at the

Hériot in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district.

age of eighty in London as the result of a

211

As Franz Singer had emigrated to Great

car accident.215

Britain in 1934 and Friedl Dicker had left the joint studio in 1931 and lived in Prague, Leopoldine Schrom took over the management of the studio in Vienna. Szabo worked as a freelance interior architect but continued to help out in the studio as well. By the mid-1930s, the two women were the only two remaining employees of the Singer & Dicker studio. Szabo, who at that time had not yet finished her studies, wanted to reenroll for the 1938 summer semester, but her application was refused by the Polytechnic Institute because she was Jewish.212 In March 1938, she fled to Budapest. The young architect survived World War II there “underground” under horrible circumstances, concealed in an attic. Immediately after the war, she opened an architecture office in

Furniture Designers—Biographies

217

Her designs reflect the atmosphere of Israel. As one of the first female interior architects and furniture designers of her country, Dora Gad contributed to the development of the corporate design of the newly created State of Israel. The spaces she designed were unique and visualized the new Israeli identity. As a designer, she favored bold colors, timeless forms, and local craftmanship, as well as materials that were available right there in Israel. 218

1912 – 2003 †

Interior architect Furniture designer

Dora GAD

Câmpulung Caesarea

Dora Gad, née Siegel, was born in Câmpulung,

projects for the newly created state, includ-

Transylvania, in 1912 into a Jewish family.

ing furnishing the residence of the prime

Her mother presumably died shortly after

minister and foreign minister in 1950 and

Dora’s birth, and she was thus raised by her

the National Library in Jerusalem in 1956.221

grandfather, a tailor, with whom she spent

Dora Gad’s husband died in 1958, and a

a great deal of time, and who sparked her love

year later, she married the Israeli general

of architecture. Dora attended both a He-

Ephraim Ben-Artzi. She tirelessly continued

brew and a state school and moved to Vien-

her work as a designer and formed a part-

na in 1930 in order to study architecture

nership with Arieh Noy, a former employee

at the Polytechnic Institute.216 She graduated

at her studio. As a team, they designed

in 1934 with a degree in architecture and

the interiors of many luxury hotels in Israel,

mechanical engineering.

such as the Hilton Tel Aviv, the Knesset—

217

In Vienna, Dora

met Heinrich Goldberg, who also studied

Israel’s parliament building—as well as Ben

architecture at the Polytechnic Institute and

Gurion Airport and the offices of the nation-

was a staunch Zionist.218

al airline EL AL.222 In collaboration with the

The two married in 1936 and moved that same

Israeli architect Alfred Mansfeld, Dora Gad

year to Tel Aviv; Dora was twenty-four at the

also planned the Israel Museum, Jerusalem,

time. Heinrich Goldberg adopted the He-

which was completed in 1965.223 For this

brew first name Yehezkel, and both changed

project, in 1967 she became the first woman

their last name to Gad. Dora Gad worked

to win the Israel Prize for architecture.224

first as an interior architect for Oskar Kauf-

In the course of her career spanning over a half

mann, a renowned theater architect from

a century, Dora Gad became one of Israel’s

Germany who had emigrated to Palestine in

best-known designers. In 1994, she be-

1933. In 1938, she started her own business

came the first female architect in Israel to

as one of the country’s first female interior

have an extensive retrospective at the Tel

architects and furniture designers.219

Aviv Museum of Art devoted to her—a

The young designer developed a new, individ-

show that she designed herself. Dora Gad

ual home-furnishing style that reflected

was eighty-two years old at the time. Dora

the characteristic local features of her coun-

Gad died on December 31, 2003, at the

try. She favored strong colors such as

age of ninety-one in Caesarea, Israel.225

orange, purple, yellow, and turquoise, as well as simple forms, local craftmanship, and materials that were available right there in the region: wood, wool rugs, woven fabrics, and straw.220 In the 1940s and ’50s, Dora and Yehezkel Gad were among Israel’s most prominent interior designers. They realized numerous private and public

Furniture Designers—Biographies

219

In the 1950s, he became one of the most prominent furniture designers of Brazilian Modernism. Martin Eisler arrived in Buenos Aires at the age of twenty-five with no money but a degree in architecture, and began working immediately as a furniture designer. The son of the famous Viennese art historian Max Eisler became one of the leading interior architects in Argentina and Brazil, designing the furnishings for Oscar Niemeyer’s buildings. Today, his furniture fetches record prices at auctions. 220

1913 – 1977 †

Architect

Martin EISLER Vienna Brasilia

Martin Eisler was born on October 27, 1913,

and opened another branch in Buenos Aires,

Furniture designer

into a Jewish family in Vienna. His father,

which is still operating today under the name

Entrepreneur

Max Eisler, a prominent professor of art

Interieur Forma.230

history at the University of Vienna, founding

Eisler was excited by the Brazilian tropical

member of the Österreichischer Werk-

woods and by the modern painting and coat-

bund, journalist, and staunch Zionist, was

ing techniques on wood, glass, and bronze,

married to Elsa, née Tieber.

which he often used in his designs. At the

226

Max Eisler

was close friends with Oskar Strnad and

end of the 1950s, he came to the attention of

Josef Frank and through his many essays

Knoll International. Knoll sold Eisler’s furni-

about modern living became the unofficial

ture designs in the US, helping to make him

spokesman for the Neue Wiener Wohn-

an internationally known designer. At the

kultur (literally: “new Viennese living culture”).

same time, the building boom in Brasilia was

Eisler, who because of his family environ-

reaching its climax, and Eisler, in collab-

ment came into contact with art and design

oration with the Brazilian architect Oscar Nie-

theory at an early age, began studying

meyer, furnished numerous buildings with

architecture in 1931 with Oskar Strnad at

furniture of his own design. Among Eisler’s

Vienna’s School of Arts and Crafts, from

best known designs are the Reversível and

which he graduated in 1934.227

Costela chairs, which were awarded the

His father died in Vienna in December 1937, and shortly thereafter, in March 1938, the young architect fled to Argentina to escape

Compasso d’Oro, a design prize established by Gio Ponti.231 In exile, Eisler married the Stuttgart-born Rosl

the Nazis. After months on the run, Eisler

Wolf, whose entire family had fled Germany

arrived in Buenos Aires with no money and

to Buenos Aires to escape the Nazis. The

began working immediately as a furniture

couple had two children, Ruth and Alberto.

designer.228 As early as 1940, he presented

Martin’s mother, Elsa Eisler, was murdered

his designs at an exhibition at the Mueller

on September 23, 1942, at the age of fifty,

Gallery. Together with Arnold Hakel, Eisler

at the Treblinka killing center. The couple

founded Interieur in 1945, a company that

never returned to Vienna. Martin Eisler died

sold furniture by both designers. On a trip to

on April 21, 1977, at the age of sixty-three

Brazil in the early 1950s, Eisler met the

in Brasilia.232

Italian-born furniture designer Carlo Hauner, Today, his furniture is again manufactured by and in 1955, the two launched the furniture-design company Forma in Brasilia.

the Italian firm Tacchini.233 229

Carlo Hauner returned to his native Italy at the end of the 1950s and sold his share of the business to Eisler. Eisler and his brother-in-law Ernesto Wolf continued to run Forma in Brasilia with great success

Furniture Designers—Biographies

221

01

Reversível Chair; design:

Martin Eisler, Brazil, c. 1950; execution: Tacchini, © Tacchini/ Andrea Ferrari 02

Shell Lounge Chair;

design: Martin Eisler, Brazil, c. 1955, © H. Gallery 03

Sideboard; design:

Martin Eisler and Carlo Hauner for Forma, Brazil, c. 1950, © Dorotheum Vienna, 2018 04

Costela Chair; design:

Martin Eisler, Brazil, c. 1953, © H. Gallery 05

Costela Chair; design:

Martin Eisler, Brazil, c. 1953;

01

execution: Tacchini, © Tacchini/ Andrea Ferrari 06

Coffee Table; design:

Martin Eisler, Brazil, c. 1950, © H. Gallery

01

01

222

02

03

04

05

06

Furniture Designers—Biographies

223

Forgotten names

JOSEF BERGER

in St. Tropez, where Henri Matisse was

was born in Vienna on September 13, 1898,

among the artists she met. In 1926/27, she

studied architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic

worked as Oskar Strnad’s personal assis-

Institute and attended Adolf Loos’s private

tant and helped him with the design of stage

Bauschule. In 1921, he and his fellow student

sets. For the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung,

Martin Ziegler opened the studio Berger &

she designed the interiors of houses No. 15

Ziegler in Vienna, which specialized in in-

and 16, which were planned by Anton Bren-

terior furnishings and furniture design and

ner, and furnished them with modern tu-

planned several buildings for the City of

bular-steel furniture.236 After the “Anschluss,”

Vienna in the mid-1920s. In 1923, Berger,

at the age of forty-six, the artist fled with

along with his brother Arthur and his broth-

her parents to Trieste to escape the Nazis. Be-

er-in-law, the Austrian writer Fritz Lampl,

ginning in 1950, Ilse Bernheimer lived in

founded the Bimini-Werkstätten, which

Venice and as of 1952 taught at the Abate

produced lamps, glassware, and vases. In

Zanetti Glass School, on the island of Mu-

1934, Berger emigrated with his family

rano. Her works were shown at the Biennale

to Palestine, and in 1937, they moved to Lon-

in Venice in 1920 and 1976.237 She died

don. Berger worked as a freelance architect

in Venice on February 28, 1985, only a few

and designer there, as well, sometimes

weeks before her ninety-third birthday.238

in partnership with Martin Ziegler, who had fled from Vienna to London in 1939. In col-

OTTO BREUER

laboration with Fritz Lampl, Berger continued was born in Vienna on July 26, 1897, studied to design glassware in exile. Berger died

architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute

in London on August 22, 1989, at the age of

and attended Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule.

ninety-one. The operation of the studio

In 1919, he went to Weimar to study at the

Berger & Ziegler in Vienna was taken over

Bauhaus but left after only one semester. In

by Leopoldine Schrom, the former employee

the 1920s, Breuer operated a home fur-

at the Singer & Dicker studio.

nishings business in Vienna and designed

234

numerous pieces of furniture. For the Wiener ILSE BERNHEIMER

Werkbundsiedlung, he planned a duplex,

was born in Vienna on March 20, 1892; in

No. 59 and 60. Following the “Anschluss” in

1909, she began studying with Rudolf

March 1938, his business and all of his pos-

Larisch, Anton Kenner, and Franz Čižek at

sessions in Vienna were confiscated by

the School of Arts and Crafts and from

the Nazis. The architect attempted to take his

1912 to 1916 attended Koloman Moser’s

own life on November 9, the night of the

painting class.235 She became a painter

November pogroms, but was unsuccessful.

and taught at a private art school in Vienna.

Only a few days later, he hanged himself

In 1919, the young artist lived in Zurich

at the Sanatorium Purkersdorf. He was forty-

and Paris and at the beginning of the 1920s

one years old.239

224

HUGO GORGE

Kulka fled with his family to relatives of his

born in Moravia on January 31, 1883, studied

wife in Hradec Králové, then known as

architecture at the Polytechnic Institute as

Königgrätz. In 1939, the Kulkas emigrated

an audit student and beginning in 1907

with their two children to Great Britain,

at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1911, he be-

moving on to New Zealand in 1940. Kulka,

came Oskar Strnad’s assistant at the School

who was able to continue working as an

of Arts and Crafts. The young architect won

architect in exile, died in Auckland in 1971.243

first prize in an architecture competition for his design of a synagogue in Vienna’s

MARIA LIKARZ

Hietzing district; due to the outbreak of

The fabric designer Maria Likarz, born in

World War I, however, it was never built. In

Przemyśl, Poland, on March 28, 1893, stud-

the interwar period, he devoted himself to

ied from 1911 to 1916 with Rosalia Rothansl,

the design of furniture, which was shown at

Franz Čižek, Josef Hoffmann, and Adele

numerous exhibitions, and furnished apart-

von Stark at the School of Arts and Crafts.

ments and houses. At the invitation of

In the 1920s, she designed over 200 fabric

Josef Frank, he also planned a duplex in

patterns for the Wiener Werkstätte. To-

the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung. Hugo Gorge

gether with Liane Zimbler and Helene Roth,

died in 1934 at the age of fifty-one in Vienna

Likarz designed wall paintings for a large

after a long period of illness; his wife, Lili,

number of apartments, houses, and public

fled with their three children from Vienna to

spaces in Vienna. In 1938, she and her

London in 1938 to escape the Nazis.240

husband, the Viennese physician Dr. Richard Strauss, fled from Vienna to the Croatian

KARL HOFMANN

island of Korčula, which was owned by

was born in Vienna on October 3, 1890, and

her husband’s family, and after World War

studied architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic

II lived in Rome.244

Institute. There, he met Felix Augenfeld, with whom he founded a successful studio

VIKTOR LURJE

for interior architecture in 1922. They spe-

was born in Vienna on July 28, 1883, into an

cialized in remodeled apartments, especial-

affluent family of factory owners. He studied

ly very small ones, designing the furniture

architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic Institute;

for them as well. Im September 1938, Karl Hof-

among his classmates were Oskar Strnad,

mann fled to Brno, today in the Czech Re-

Josef Frank, and Oskar Wlach. After gradu-

public, and then presumably to Australia.241

ating, the young architects worked together occasionally and collaborated on projects

HEINRICH KULKA

for exhibitions. Lurje started his own business

was born in Litovel near Olomouc in the Czech

in Vienna as a designer, creating ceramic,

Republic (then Austria-Hungary) on March

glass, and bronze handicrafts as well as

29, 1900, into a family of merchants. He

fabrics and furniture. In fall 1938, he and his

studied architecture at Vienna’s Polytechnic

wife, Leopoldine, fled from Vienna to Shang-

Institute from 1918 to 1923 and attended

hai to escape the Nazis. At the beginning

Adolf Loos’s private Bauschule. After finish-

of the 1940s, he moved to India, where he

ing his studies, Kulka worked as a drafts-

worked as an interior architect and furniture

man and assistant at Loos’s Vienna studio,

designer. Viktor Lurje died in Jaipur in

then followed him to Paris, where his pro-

1944.245

jects included furnishing the shop of the men’s clothier Knize on the Champs-Élysées.

FRITZ NAGEL

In 1928, Kulka became Adolf Loos’s partner

was born in Vienna on June 19, 1885, as the son

and office manager in Vienna and was in-

of a furniture producer. His father, Adolf

strumental in the planning of Loos’s houses

Nagel, was the owner of the A. Nagel Wien

No. 49 to 52 in the Wiener Werkbundsied-

IX furniture factory at 27 Porzellangasse/38a

lung.242 After the “Anschluss” in 1938,

Liechtensteinstraße. From 1903 to 1906,

Furniture Designers—Biographies

225

Fritz Nagel studied architecture with Josef

friend and later husband Winston Close

Hoffmann at the School of Arts and Crafts

opened a studio for modern architecture,

and designed furniture that was manufactured

Close & Scheu Architects, and Scheu be-

at his father’s workshop. Fritz Nagel sur-

came one of the first successful female

vived the Shoah and died in Vienna on Oc-

architects in America. Elizabeth Scheu Close

tober 31, 1963, at the age of seventy-eight.246

died in Minneapolis on November 29, 2011; she was nearly one hundred years old.248

HELENE ROTH born in Moravia on May 13, 1904, was one of the first women to study architecture at

MARTIN ZIEGLER was born in Vienna on June 14, 1896, and from

the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. A staunch

1917 to 1921 studied architecture at Vienna’s

Zionist, she emigrated to Palestine in the

Polytechnic Institute. Immediately after

mid-1930s and in Israel became a well-known

graduating, he and his fellow student Josef

interior architect and furniture designer.

Berger opened the studio Berger & Ziegler

She died in Tel Aviv in 1995.

in Vienna, which specialized in interior furnishings and furniture design. In August

ELIZABETH SCHEU CLOSE

1939, he emigrated with his family to London;

Elizabeth

in 1940 the Zieglers moved to the US.249

247

“Lisl” Scheu was born in Vienna

on June 4, 1912, to the writer and publisher Helene Scheu-Riesz and the attorney Gustav Scheu. Lisl Scheu grew up in a villa in Hietzing designed by Adolf Loos, and while still a schoolgirl decided to become an architect. She began studying architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in 1930 but dropped out after only two years because of the misogynist atmosphere at the school and the palpable antisemitism in Vienna, emigrating to the US to enter a master’s program in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. In 1938, the young architect and her college

226

Forgotten names

02

Oskar Strnad, excerpt from the

38

Sarnitz, in Boeckl (1995), 285.

73 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

personal file, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna.

39

Boeckl (1995), 337. 40 Sarnitz, in Boeckl (1995), 291.

de/612.htm (accessed August 8, 2021). 74

Prokop (2016), 130.

03

Prokop (2016), 121. 04 https://www.architektenlexikon.at/

41 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

75

Walter Sobotka and Gisela

05

(HK) 1903/04, Josef Frank.

76

43

77 https://library.columbia.edu/

de/357.htm (accessed August 8, 2021). de/635.htm (accessed August 15, 2021). 42 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer 06

Ott-Wodni (2015), 77. Oskar Strnad, excerpt from the

Josef Frank, “Das Haus als Weg

Sobotka, Ruth Sobotka (New York: self-published), 1968. Boeckl (1995), 344.

personal file, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna. 07 Prokop (2016), 122.

und Platz,” quoted in Der Baumeister, No. 29, 1931, 316ff. 44 Wilfried Posch, Josef Frank, in

libraries/avery/da/collections/sobotka. html (accessed August 8, 2021). The

08

Ott-Wodni (2015), 368. 09 https://www.werkbundsied-

Stadler (2004), 645.

today preserved at Columbia University in New York City.

lung-wien.at/biografien/oskar-strnad (accessed August 8, 2021).

45

Josef Frank, excerpt from the per-

10 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

sonal file, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna. 46 Schütte-Lihotzky, quoted in Stadler

de/635.htm (accessed August 8, 2021).

(2004), 631.

11

47

Schütte-Lihotzky, in Stadler

Ott-Wodni (2015), 106, 305ff.

48 Ott-Wodni (2015), 100. (2004), 629. 12 Karin Zogmayer (ed.) and Margarete 49 Ibid. 50 Meder (2008), 62; Ott-Wodni Schütte-Lihotzky, Warum ich Architektin wurde (Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, (2015), 104. 51 Ott-Wodni (2015), 54; Prokop 2019), 20. 13

Schütte-Lihotzky, in Stadler

(2004), 630. 14 Prokop (2016), 194. 15

complete estate of Walter Sobotka is

78 https://www.nytimes.

com/1972/05/10/archives/walter-s-sobotka-architect-teacher.html (accessed August 8, 2021). 79 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer (HK) 1908/09, Matr. Nr. 309, Friedrich Kiesler. 80 Stephanie Kiesler, née Frischer, changed her name to Stefi Kiesler when she became an American citizen in 1936.

(2016), 129. 52 Welzig (1998), 165.

See Boeckl (1995), 335. 81 Boeckl (1995), 335; Prokop

53

(2016), 232.

Weibel and Stadler (1993), 19.

Ella Briggs, excerpt from study transcripts, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna. 16 https://davidkultur.at/artikel/ judinnen-als-pionierinnen-der-frauen emanzipation (accessed August 8, 2021).

Ottillinger (2009), 136. 55 Boeckl (1995), 330. 56 Schütte-Lihotzky, quoted in Stadler (2004), 631.

17 https://www.biographien.ac.at/ oebl/oebl_B/Briggs_Ella_1880_1977. xml;internal&action=hilite.action&

58 Thun-Hohenstein, Czech, and Hackenschmidt (2015), 14. 59 Ott-Wodni (2015), 138.

(accessed August 8, 2021).

Parameter=Brigg (accessed August 1, 2021). 18 Maasberg and Prinz (2005), 97, 99. 19 Prokop (2016), 195.

60

86

20 Ibid. 21

Plakolm-Forsthuber, in Bois and Reinhold (2019), 42. 22

Prokop (2016), 196. 23 Ibid. 24 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

de/695.htm (accessed August 8, 2021). 25 Ott-Wodni (2015), 51ff. 26

Boeckl (1995), 348.

27 https://www.werkbundsied-

lung-wien.at/biografien/oskar-wlach (accessed August 8, 2021). 28

Prokop (2016), 128; Ott-Wodni (2015), 54. 29 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/695.htm (accessed August 8, 2021). 30 Prokop (2016), 129. 31

Boeckl (1995), 348. Prokop (2016), 127. 33 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/357.htm (accessed August 8, 2021). 34 Boeckl (1995), 337. 32

35 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/357.htm (accessed July 21, 2021). 36 Ibid. 37 https://www.werkbundsiedlungwien.at/biografien/ernst-lichtblau (accessed July 21, 2021).

54

57

Josef Frank, quoted in Meder (2008), 99.

At Albert Einstein’s recommendation, Philipp Frank succeeded Einstein at the German University of Prague, a position he held until 1938. Philipp Frank fled to New York and became a lecturer in physics and mathematics at Harvard University. In the mid-1940s, he wrote a biography of Albert Einstein: Einstein: His Life and Times. The two scientists enjoyed a stimulating exchange of views and a lifelong friendship. 61 Christopher Long, Paul T. Frankl and Modern American Design (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 5. 62 Boeckl (1995), 331. 63 Wilhide

(2016), 159.

64

Ibid., 159. 65 Long (2007), 148ff. 66 Fiell and Fiell (1999), 256. 67 Boeckl (1995), 331. 68 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o.  Hörer (HK) 1907/08, Matr. Nr. 643, Walther Sobotka. In the US, the architect changed the spelling of his first name to “Walter.” 69 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/612.htm (accessed August 8, 2021). 70

Ott-Wodni (2015), 51ff. Prokop (2016), 130. 72 http://www.werkbundsiedlungwien.at/biografien/walter-sobotka (accessed August 8, 2021). 71

Furniture Designers—Biographies

82 Alison J. Clarke and Elana Shapira, Émigré Cultures in Design and Architecture (London: Bloomsbury 2017),

142ff.; Boeckl (1995), 335. 83 Dieter Bogner, Architecture as Biotechnique, in Boeckl (1995), 144. 84

Boeckl (1995), 336.

85 https://www.kiesler.org/de/

Prokop (2016), 234. Barbara Lesák and Thomas Trabitsch, Frederick Kiesler. Theatervisionär – Architekt – Künstler (Vienna: Österreichi-

87

sches Theatermuseum, Brandstätter 2012, 249; Boeckl (1995), 336. 88 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o.  Hörer (HK) 1910/11, Matr. Nr. 146, Paul Engelmann. 89 Dorfstetter (2019), 96. 90 91

Ibid., 98. Prokop (2016), 136f.

92 https://deu.archinform.net/arch/ 16668.htm (accessed July 21, 2021). 93 Warhaftig (1996), 253. 94 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/108.htm (accessed July 21, 2021). 95 http://www.voglhofer.at/_rtfvoglhofer/CMS_fg4e735474df264_ orig_1187.pdf (accessed August 1, 2021); http://www.architektenlexikon.at/de/ 431.htm (accessed August 20, 2021). 96 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o.  Hörer (HK) 1910/11, Matr. Nr. 728, Richard Neutra. 97 Boeckl (1995), 339; http://www. neutra-gesellschaft.de/Biographie.html (accessed August 1, 2021). 98 Boeckl (1995), 339. 99 http://david.juden.at/kulturzeit schrift/66-70/70-unterweger.htm (accessed August 1, 2021).

227

100 Schreyer

and Nierhaus (2019), 13.

101 https://www.moma.org/documents/

131 Prokop

(2005), 70.

132 https://www.werkbundsied-

moma_catalogue_2044_300061855.pdf lung-wien.at/haeuser/haus-45-und-46 (accessed August 1, 2021). (accessed August 15, 2021). 102 http://www.neutra-gesellschaft.de/ 133 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ Biographie.html (accessed August 1, 2021).

168 Maasberg

and Prinz (2005), 79.

169 Hövelmann 170 Ibid.,

171 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

de/723.htm (accessed August 19, 2021). de/182.htm (accessed August 15, 2021). 172 Schrom and Trauttmansdorff 134 https://doppelhouse.com/ursula-

(1988), 12. 173 Hövelmann

lung-wien.at/haeuser/haus-47 (accessed August 1, 2021). 104 Fiell and Fiell (1999), 510.

prokop-and-shmuel-groag-bookpresentation-remarks/ (accessed  August 15, 2021). 135 Sander (2018), 3.

105 https://neutra.vs.de/neutracollec

136 Ibid.,

tion/de/ (accessed August 1, 2021). 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid.

137 Felice

103 http://www.werkbundsied-

108 Richard

Joseph Neutra, Life and

Shape (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962). 109 http://www.neutra-gesellschaft.de/

Biographie.html (accessed August 1, 2021).

(2018), 176ff.

336.

3. Rix, excerpt from study

transcripts, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna. 138 Sander (2018), 23ff. 139 http://www.momak.go.jp/English/

(2018), 1158.

174 http://www.makarovainit.com/

friedl/leben.pdf (accessed August 18, 2021). 175 Friedl

Dicker, excerpt from study

transcripts, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna. 176 Hövelmann (2018), 29; https:// www.bauhauskooperation.de/wissen/ das-bauhaus/koepfe/studierende/

exhibitionArchive/2008/370.html (accessed August 15, 2021). 140 Ibid.

friedl-dicker/ (accessed August 18, 2021).

141 https://www.moma.org/artists/

(1988), 8.

177 Schrom

and Trauttmansdorff

110 https://magazin.wienmuseum.at/

61481 (accessed August 15, 2021).

178 http://www.makarovainit.com/

richard-neutras-letzte-wiener-jahre (accessed August 15, 2021). 111 Michael Schröter (ed.), Sigmund

142 Winklbauer

friedl/leben.pdf (accessed August 18, 2021). 179 Walter Gropius, April 29, 1931,

Freud, Unterdeß halten wir zusammen. Briefe an die Kinder, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2011), 258f. 112 Ibid.,

263.

113 Ibid.,

266.

and Fellner (2016), 97.

143 Thun-Hohenstein,

Rossberg, and

Schmuttermeier (2020), 256f. 144 Hanisch, in Boeckl (1995), 228. 145 TUWA,

Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer (HK) 1910/11, Matr. Nr. 644, Felix Augenfeld. 146 Hanisch, in Boeckl (1995), 229.

Bauhaus Archive in Darmstadt, quoted in http://www.makarovainit.com/friedl/ leben.pdf (accessed August 18, 2021). 180 Hövelmann

(2018), 105.

181 https://www.bauhauskooperation.

267. Carol Seigel, Sigmund Freud in London 1938/39, in Monika Pessler and Daniela Finzi, Freud. Berggasse 19.

(1995), 327. Ruth Hanisch, Vom Wienerwald zum Central Park: Wiener Wohnen im New Yorker Exil, in Ottillinger (2009), 131ff.

de/wissen/das-bauhaus/koepfe/ studierende/friedl-dicker/ (accessed  August 19, 2021). 182 Hövelmann (2018), 1157.

Ursprungsort der Psychoanalyse (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2020), 313ff.; https://www.volkskundemuseum.at/ freuds_dining_room_2015-10-02. (accessed August 17, 2021)

149 Hanisch,

241. 151 http://www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/ oebl_A/Augenfeld_Felix_1893_1984. xml (accessed August 15, 2021).

183 http://www.makarovainit.com/ friedl/leben.pdf (accessed August 18, 2021).

116 Ibid.

152 Hanisch,

114 Ibid., 115 Ibid.;

117 Plakolm-Forsthuber,

in Boeckl 296.

118 Ibid. 119 Prokop

147 Boeckl 148

in Boeckl (1995), 240.

150 Ibid.,

in Ottillinger (2009), 131ff.

153 Hanisch,

in Boeckl (1995), 247. Schwadron, excerpt from study transcripts, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna; 154 Ernst

(2016), 198.

120 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

de/727.htm (accessed August 17, 2021). Boeckl (1995), 343.

184 https://www.bauhauskooperation. de/wissen/das-bauhaus/koepfe/ studierende/friedl-dicker/ (accessed

August 19, 2021). 185 Hövelmann (2018), 1157. 186 https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/ article/dicker-brandeis-friedl (accessed August 19, 2021). 187 https://www.butterfliesintheghetto. com/?s=Raja+Englan (accessed August 19, 2021). 188 Schrom and Trauttmansdorff (1988), 14.

121 http://www.liane-zimbler.de (accessed August 17, 2021); Boeckl (1995), 349. 122 Plakolm-Forsthuber, in Boeckl (1995), 303.

155 https://www.oeaw.ac.at/acdh/ oebl/biographien-des-monats/2016/ juli (accessed August 15, 2021). 156 Prokop (2016), 155.

123 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

189 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer (HK) 1921/22, Matr. Nr. 1293/21 and 158 http://www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/ Nr. 688/28, Bruno Pollak. oebl_S/Schwadron_Ernst_1896_1979. 190 Hövelmann (2018), 114. 191 Ibid., 195. xml (accessed August 15, 2021). 159 Hanisch, in Ottillinger (2009) 138. 192 Ibid., 114.

157 https://www.oeaw.ac.at/acdh/ oebl/biographien-des-monats/2016/juli de/727.htm (accessed August 17, 2021). (accessed August 15, 2021). 124 Boeckl

(1995), 349.

125 Plakolm-Forsthuber,

in Boeckl

(1995), 304. 126 Ibid., 300. 127 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/727.htm (accessed August 17, 2021). 128 http://www.liane-zimbler.de (accessed August 17, 2021); http:// iawaomeka.lib.vt.edu (accessed  August 17, 2021).

(1995), 343. (2016), 155. 162 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/728.htm (accessed August 15, 2021). 163 https://www.wohnkultur66.de (accessed August 15, 2021).

129 TUWA,

164 Hövelmann

Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer (HK) 1909/10, Matr. Nr. 100, Jacques Groag. 130 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/182.htm (accessed August 15, 2021).

228

160 Boeckl

161 Prokop

(2018), 1157. 165 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/723.htm (accessed August 19, 2021). 166 Hövelmann (2018), 1157. 167 Schrom and Trauttmansdorff (1988), 10.

193 Ibid.,

195. 197. 195 Ibid., 102. 196 Interview with Georg Schrom on February 21, 2021. 194 Ibid.,

197 Hilde Blumberger, excerpt from study transcripts, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna. 198 Prokop (2005), 111. 199 Thun-Hohenstein, Rossberg, and Schmuttermeier (2020), 209.

200 https://doppelhouse.com/ursula-

228 https://www.tacchini.it/en/

prokop-and-shmuel-groag-bookpresentation-remarks/ (accessed July

designers/martin-eisler/ (accessed August 20, 2021).

19, 2021). 201 https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/roy-

229 https://www.fundacionida.org/en/

node/1139 (accessed August 20, 2021).

aldesigners/2016/06/06/jacqueline-groag/ (accessed August 19, 2021). 230 http://www.interieurforma.com.ar/ 202 Walter Loos, excerpt from study empresa (accessed August 20, 2021); transcripts, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna. 203 Elfriede Steininger, excerpt from

https://www.r-and-company.com/ designers/martin-eisler-and-carlohauner/ (accessed August 20, 2021).

study transcripts, Collection and Archive, 231 http://www.tacchini.it/en/deUniversity of Applied Arts Vienna. signers/martin-eisler/ (accessed August 204 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ 20, 2021). de/363.htm (accessed August 20, 2021). 232 http://www.tacchini.it/en/savoir 205 https://www.werkbundsiedlung-

wien.at/haeuser/haus-19-und-20 (accessed August 20, 2021).

faire/una-conversazione-con-albertoand-ruth-eisler/ (accessed August 20, 2021).

206 https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.

233 http://www.tacchini.it/en/

de/0001/bsb00016333/images/ index.html?seite=168 (accessed August

designers/martin-eisler/ (accessed August 20, 2021).

20, 2021). 207 Ibid.

234 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

208 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/

de/43.htm (accessed August 20, 2021). 235 Ilse Bernheimer, excerpt from study

de/363.htm (accessed August 20, 2021). transcripts, Collection and Archive, Uni209 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer versity of Applied Arts Vienna. 236 http://www.werkbundsiedlung(HK) 1925/26, Matr. Nr. 675/25, Anna Szabo. wien.at/haeuser/haus-15-und-16 210 Hövelmann

(2018), 116, 118.

211 Ibid. 212 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer (HK) 1908/09, Matr. Nr. 675/25, Anna Szabo. 213 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer (HK) 1946/47, Matr. Nr. 718/46, Anna Szabo. 214 Hövelmann

(2018), 116.

(accessed August 21, 2021). 237 https://www.labiennale.at/2013/ archiv/de/chronologie/1976.html (accessed August 20, 2021). 238 Thun-Hohenstein, Rossberg, and Schmuttermeier (2020), 207. 239 Ott-Wodni (2015), 359. 240 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/178.htm (accessed August 20, 2021).

215 Interview with Georg Schrom on February 21, 2021. 216 https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/ article/gad-dorah#pid-10228 (accessed September 20, 2021).

241 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/235.htm (accessed August 21, 2021). 242 https://www.werkbundsiedlungwien.at/haeuser/haus-49-5051-und-52 (accessed August 20, 2021).

217 TUWA, Hauptkatalog der o. Hörer (HK) 1930/31, Matr. Nr. 771/30, Dora Gad, geb. Siegel. 218 Plakolm-Forsthuber, in Bois/ Reinhold (2019), 48.

243 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/340.htm (accessed August 20, 2021); Prokop (2016), 159 ff. 244 Thun-Hohenstein, Rossberg, and Schmuttermeier (2020), 239.

219 https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/ article/gad-dorah (accessed July 22, 2021). 220 Ibid.

245 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ de/1437.htm (accessed August 20, 2021). 246 Fritz Nagel, excerpt from study 221 Dorfstetter (2019), 120. transcripts, Collection and Archive, Uni222 https://deu.archinform.net/arch/ versity of Applied Arts Vienna. 70590.htm (accessed August 20, 2021). 247 Elisabeth Scheu changed the 223 Warhaftig (1996), 157. spelling of her first name to Elizabeth 224 https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary. when she arrived in the US. 248 Hession (2020), 5ff. org/israel-prize-winners 249 http://www.architektenlexikon.at/ (accessed July 22, 2021). 225 https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/ de/718.htm (accessed August 20, 2021). article/gad-dorah (accessed August 20, 2021). 226 https://www.biographien.ac.at/ oebl/oebl_E/Eisler_Max_1881_1937. xml (accessed August 20, 2021). 227 Martin Eisler, excerpt from study transcripts, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Furniture Designers—Biographies

229

INTERVIEWS

with Experts, Collectors, and Designers

Friedl Dicker & Franz Singer Georg Schrom talks about the joint studio of Friedl Dicker & Franz Singer. He studied architecture and design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Georg Schrom lives and works as an architect in Vienna.

232

C W

Can you tell me a bit about the joint studio of Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer in Vienna?

Franz Singer and Friederike (“Friedl”) Dicker knew each other from Vienna, where they both studied at Johannes Itten’s art school. Both followed Itten to Weimar and from 1919 to 1923 studied at the Bauhaus. After that, they worked for theaters in Dresden and Berlin, designed stage sets and costumes, and in 1923 founded the Werkstätten Bildender Kunst in Berlin. Friedl Dicker returned to Vienna in 1925 and opened a studio in the ninth district, at 2 Wasserburggasse, that she operated with Martha Döberl and in which craft products like weaving patterns, bags, and leather goods were produced. After the Werkstätten Bildender Kunst in Berlin were closed in 1925, Franz Singer returned to Vienna as well and rented a studio apartment at 18 Schadekgasse, in the sixth district. About a year later, he moved into Friedl’s studio. It was at this time that these two began working on interior architecture and architecture projects. Neither Franz Singer nor Friedl were trained architects. Beginning in 1926, they hired students and graduates of the Polytechnic Institute to work at the studio and execute the individual technical plans. To quote Friedrich Achleitner, who on the occasion of an exhibition that I organized in 1988 wrote in the introduction to my catalog Franz Singer – Friedl Dicker, 2 × Bauhaus in Wien: “Singer’s contribution to the collaboration was more the architectural-rational aspect, while the open, unorthodox (…) temperament, accompanied by a controlled material sensuality, came more from Dicker.” According to my aunt, Leopoldine Schrom, who began working in the studio in 1929, Singer was responsible for the architecture, and Dicker for the materials, colors, and fabrics. It was particularly in the area of furniture design that Friedl Dicker played a crucial role in the joint studio. Singer documented, drew, and put his stamp on everything, but until 1933, Dicker’s influence on their entire joint work was very great! Dicker was never mentioned in the publications and magazines, such as the Architectural Review and The Studio, English architecture magazines of that time; everything ran under the name Franz Singer. But thanks to the oral history passed down by my aunt, their former employee, we known that Friedl Dicker had a very significant influence. As my aunt said: “Don’t forget about Friedl Dicker—she made a crucial contribution to the studio!” G S

left

Georg Schrom in his studio

on Lerchenfelder Straße, Vienna

Interviews with Experts, Collectors, and Designers

233

C W

Who were the employees at the Singer & Dicker studio, and how was the work divided?

There were a large number of people working at the studio. Two of them were Bruno Pollak, who later was very successful with his own furniture production, and the architect Hans Biel, who in addition to his own office oversaw a number of projects at the joint studio. Bruno Pollak likely began working at the studio in 1927. Both of them emigrated to England very early on. The set designer Wolfgang Roth then arrived from Berlin; after his emigration in the mid-1930s, he became a very successful set designer in New York and Dallas. The longestserving employee for many years at the studio was actually Anna Szabo, from Budapest, who—like my aunt, Leopoldine Schrom—had studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. Anna Szabo started working at the Singer & Dicker studio in 1927, while she was still a student, and in 1929, she apparently said to my aunt: “Why don’t you come work at the studio, too—there is so much to do.” From then on, those two worked together there. There was another employee as well, Ladislaus Foltyn-Fussmann, who after the war was very successful as an architect, as a professor for architectural history at the technical academy in Bratislava, and as a photographer. Of the studio employees, everyone had emigrated by 1938 except my aunt. Before this time, my uncle, Richard Erdös, who was a graphic artist, illustrator, and photographer, also worked at the studio. He had studied at the School of Arts and Crafts and fled to New York in 1938. Jenny Pillat was another employee. She was one of the few women who had acquired the certification as master builder before the war, and after the war she ran a building company in Vienna. Neither Bruno Pollak nor Hans Biel returned to Austria after the war. Franz Singer did not return to Vienna either. He spent one summer vacation in Aigen, near Salzburg. But none of them ever went back to Vienna. C W How did the furniture designs develop in general over the years? Was the furniture produced individually, or was it already being designed for mass production? G S When you look at the studio’s works, you can see a distinct change compared with the beginnings in 1925 and 1926— moving away from the very colorful, voluminous furniture G S

234

Friedl Dicker & Franz Singer

“The design, the surfaces, the materials, the colors, the fabrics: this was the influence of Friedl Dicker!”— Georg Schrom

designs and toward more technical solutions with stacking, multifunctional furniture. The studio’s designs changed dramatically between 1925 and 1938. What one can say about the furniture in general is: there was a great deal of experimentation and tinkering. Through all the years from 1926 to 1938, they worked with prototypes, with refinements, with form modifications. It was Franz Singer’s intention to go into mass production with his furniture. But he never really succeeded in that back then; the furniture was generally produced individually for a particular project in a batch of ten or twenty pieces. Only after his emigration to England was a stacking plywood chair apparently produced in larger series. Bruno Pollak designed his stacking tubular steel chair in Vienna in 1927. After his emigration to England, it was then mass produced by the firm PEL as model RP7. This chair was used in schools and public buildings, for example for the tennis courts at Wimbledon and at the GrazThalerhof airport. C W What happened after 1938? G S My Aunt Poldi [Leopoldine] continued running the Singer studio until 1938. Furniture also “survived” from Franz Singer’s apartment. In 1948, my aunt used Franz Singer’s furniture from Schadekgasse to furnish an apartment on Riemergasse that she had renovated for the theater director Berthold Viertel and his wife, Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel, who returned to Vienna after the war. Berthold Viertel, Franz Singer, and Friedl Dicker shared a long friendship, going back to at least 1919. Singer and Dicker had already designed stage sets for Berthold Viertel in Berlin. Friedl Dicker had a very close friend, the composer Stefan Wolpe. When Berthold Viertel staged The Merchant of Venice in Dresden in 1923, Stefan Wolpe composed the music for it, which has now been lost. Berthold Viertel also staged the first performance of Robert Musil’s comedy Vinzenz und die Freundin bedeutender Männer, for which Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer designed the costumes and stage sets.

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C W

What can you tell me about your aunt, Leopoldine Schrom?

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My aunt was one of the first women to study architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. She was four years younger than Franz Singer and two years younger than Friedl Dicker. Nevertheless, they addressed each other with the formal “Sie,” but that was simply a different time. They addressed the clients with the familiar “Du,” but in the office they always said “Sie” to each other. My aunt was very close friends with Anna Szabo, who was known as “Nusi.” Poldi took over the operation of the Berger & Ziegler studio when the two architects emigrated to Palestine in 1934. She also had the idea of opening an office together with Anna Szabo, but it unfortunately never happened, as Anna Szabo was forced to flee in 1938. And can you say something about Anna Szabo? Like Franz Singer and Friedl Dicker, Anna Szabo was Jewish and had to flee in 1938. She survived the war under horrible conditions. According to her family, she lived in hiding: she hid out in an attic in Budapest until the end of the war and experienced all the shooting between the Russians and the Nazis first-hand. Immediately after the war, in 1945, she opened an office in Budapest and was in Vienna as well in order to take the second exam at the Polytechnic Institute for her state certification in architecture. She was then officially an architect and worked in Budapest until 1956. After the Hungarian Uprising, she fled to Vienna and lived as a refugee in my aunt’s studio, where she also worked. She was tough. She then emigrated to England, had her exams certified there, and became a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. She was also active as an architect for the Greater City Council in England, particularly in the area of social housing, in the period from 1955 to 1980. This council no longer exists. But Anna Szabo came back to Vienna every year, which is when I met her. She always took the ship from Vienna to Budapest— that was her ritual until her death in 1988. I knew her well and often visited her in London. She never married and had no children; she died in a car accident in England.

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Originals and

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prototypes by Franz Singer, Bruno Pollak, and Anna Szabo in the studio Schrom

Your aunt was not Jewish, but she was still arrested. Why?

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My aunt was not Jewish herself, but she had a number of Jewish relatives. She was regarded by the Nazis as “politically unreliable.” In fall 1944, she was commandeered to Neudorf (Novo Selo), in what today is the province of Burgenland, to do excavation work for the “East Wall.” Although my aunt knew nothing about cooking, the BauerHuisza families hired her as a cook, which possibly saved her life. What do you know about the Berger & Ziegler studio? Josef Berger and Martin Ziegler were fellow students at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. In 1921 they opened a studio together at 54 Lerchenfelder Straße, and in 1934 they both emigrated to Palestine. My aunt took over the studio at that time, and then later I took it over from her. Berger & Ziegler furniture was much different than that designed by Singer & Dicker. They planned public housing projects and also designed furniture. With their buildings in Israel, they then took the International Style as their model. Josef Berger and his wife later emigrated to England. While my aunt was performing

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forced labor at the “East Wall,” the studio was used for forced internments. After the war, my aunt resumed running the studio and was active as an interior architect until her death; in the 1960s, she designed furnishings for supermarkets, medical offices, and a number of shops in Vienna. She also continued to design furniture for the occasional project; I still have a prototype of hers from the late 1950s. Poldi died in 1984. How did Leopoldine Schrom rescue all the documents from the Singer & Dicker studio? Was it difficult to do this? For Franz Singer, it was clear that he would not be returning to Vienna. His former studio employee Irma Stadler and her husband Dr. Josef Stadler, a chemist, took over the studio apartment on Schadekgasse as subtenants. Richard Erdös helped my aunt transport all of the files, drawings, and chair designs and prototypes from Schadekgasse to the studio on Lerchenfelder Straße. Some of the furniture was put into storage. For a long time, there was still Singer furniture in the Schadekgasse apartment. The Singer & Dicker studio then officially closed in 1938. Can you say a bit about Franz Singer? To my knowledge, Singer did not study at what at that time was the School of Arts and Crafts, now the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He merely sent a letter of recommendation to Alfred Roller, who was a professor there, but was not a student of Roller’s. He presumably first studied philosophy and art history for a few semesters at the University of Vienna and studied privately with Johannes Itten and the composer Arnold Schoenberg. Then he was at the Bauhaus from 1919 to 1923. Apparently, he did not officially graduate, because he and Walter Gropius were estranged in the end. In 1921, Franz Singer married the singer Emmy Heim, who later emigrated to Canada. They had one son together, Michael, who tragically died suddenly at the age of ten—today it is assumed it was meningitis. This also led to a rift in the relationship between Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer. Just what the relationship was between those two is not totally clear, but it was presumably complicated. This tragic stroke of fate was certainly difficult to cope with for everyone. The 1930s were difficult years for the studio financially. I presume that as of 1934, Franz Singer traveled to Vienna only about once a year.

Friedl Dicker & Franz Singer

C W

Your uncle, Richard Erdös, also hid out in the studio and fled across the border on skis. He wrote a book about it—can you tell me the title of it?

G S

My uncle grew up in Frankfurt and attended the Odenwaldschule. Then he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. In 1933, he fled from Berlin to Vienna and studied with Professor Müller-Hofmann at the School of Arts and Crafts. In addition to his studies, he sketched caricatures for various magazines. In 1938 he hid in my aunt’s studio, and a few weeks after the “Anschluss” in April 1938, he fled across the “green border” from Vorarlberg to Switzerland with his skis and a backpack. From there he went first to Paris before moving to London and then on to New York City in 1940. We still don’t know how he managed to get an affidavit for the US. He was my Aunt Poldi’s first cousin and worked at the Singer & Dicker joint studio as well as at my aunt’s studio. He recorded his memories in his book Der Donnerträumer.01

01 Richard Erdoes, Der Donnerträumer (Vienna: Picus, 1999).

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Five generations of design from Vienna Maria Auböck, the daughter of the architect and designer Carl Auböck, talks about her family, handicrafts, and design from Vienna in the past century and today.

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The story of the business and the Werkstätte Carl Auböck Nfg. is very closely tied to the family history of the Auböcks. The business has existed for many generations. Your great-grandfather Karl Auböck I was a decorative metalworker and manufacturer of ornamental chasing. Then came Carl Auböck II, designer and artist; Carl Auböck III, architect and designer; and then your brother, Carl Auböck IV. You are a landscape architect?

My great-grandfather Karl Auböck I (Karl was at that time still written with a “K”) was born in Vienna in 1872. He manufactured decorative metalwork and chasing and worked in England and the US, where he became a Quaker. After he returned, he married Elisabeth Ritter, who came from a family of decorative metalworkers in Vienna. My great-grandfather is said to have renovated the bronze eagles on the obelisks in front of Schönbrunn Palace. Prior to 1914, he showed his designs at a number of handicraft exhibitions. My great-grandfather died in 1925, and his wife, Elisabeth, continued operating the workshop along with her son. My grandfather Carl Auböck II (1900– 1957) was a very skilled craftsman; he began working at his parents’ workshop when he was only fourteen and completed his apprenticeship there. Parallel to this, he studied at “die Graphische”01 and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. My great-grandfather financed his supplemental studies at Johannes Itten’s private art school. As Carl was very talented, Itten recommended him, along with 17–20 other Austrian students, for acceptance at the Bauhaus in Weimar; Itten even applied for a scholarship for him. It was a turbulent time both economically and politically. The tuition was very expensive, so my grandfather worked for the Bauhaus as well, creating, among other things, the wall frescoes for the assembly hall together with Franz Skala. He met my grandmother Mara Uckunowa in Weimar. She came from Bulgaria. She had previously studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Munich and worked as an assistant for Georg Muche and in the Bauhaus kitchen, but she soon had to quit her studies due to a lack of money. My grandfather was involved in the disputes among the students in 1921 regarding Johannes Itten, and after a brief stay in Florence, he went to Czechoslovakia

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Carl Auböck,

with a Tree Trunk Table, © Carl Auböck Archive

01 Short for today’s Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt (Higher Institution for Graphic Education and Research).

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and worked for a time there as a silversmith. After living and working for a while in Italy, my grandmother Mara moved to Vienna. In 1924, she gave birth to my father, Carl Auböck III. She later studied fashion design with Prof. Wimmer at the School of Arts and Crafts. My grandfather had two sisters, Elisabeth Auböck-Streit and Valerie Auböck-Gallet, who were also artistically gifted: Elisabeth studied at the Higher Institution for Graphic Education and Research at the same time as her brother and in 1921 established the ESBESTA studio along with her husband, Adolph Streit, and the graphic artist Joseph Binder, who was later to attain international renown. Elisabeth was a fashion designer and graphic artist and between 1935 and 1937 worked for clients including the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) in Berlin. The younger Auböck sister, Valerie, was a trained milliner and married into the Bernhard Altmann family, who were prominent Viennese textile producers. In 1935, she moved with her husband to Paris. When the Nazis marched into Paris, Valerie and her husband were able to escape at the last minute to the US, thanks to the support of Bernhard Altmann, and the two of them founded a textile fabric in Pennsylvania. The interwar period was financially very difficult for my grandfather, as evidenced by his frequent correspondence with his sister in the US. The exports and exhibition activities so vital to his business were only possible with the approval of party-affiliated institutions. This explains his early party membership, which seriously incriminated him after 1945. My grandfather died in 1957. My father, Carl Auböck III, was drafted into military service in 1942, shortly after finishing secondary school, and was gravely wounded in the Caucasus. After the war he began studying architecture at the Polytechnic Institute. From the time he was a boy, my father worked a great deal in the workshop and thus developed a strong connection to material and to craftsmanship. In 1943 he passed the examination to become a master decorative metalworker and ornamental chaser. In all the years he ran the workshop, from the death of his father in 1957 to his own death in 1993, he was always very dedicated to industrial design, and not only in Austria but also on an international level through his activity on the board of directors and as president of the ICSID, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Designers, which had been founded in 1957. My

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Five generations of design from Vienna

“For my father, his encounters with very successful designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, and George Nelson above all served as an inspiration for his own work.”— Maria Auböck

father, together with other design-oriented colleagues, also founded the Österreichische Institut für Formgebung [Austrian Institute of Design], with which he attempted to introduce the input of industrial design to the business world. This was absolutely groundbreaking work in Austria, as at the time there was no support for industrial design. He regularly created new collections for the workshop—alongside his numerous architecture projects. Through the UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, with headquarters in Vienna, he was able to make contacts internationally and was sent as chief technical advisor to countries such as India, Indonesia, and Brazil to develop national concepts for reinforcing the importance of industrial design in countries of the so-called third world. When my father died in 1993, my mother, who was a trained hotel manager, continued running the workshop until 2004, when my brother and I took it over. I am a landscape architect, and my brother, Carl Auböck IV, is an architect and designer. He is the workshop director, foreman, and business manager of our family-run company. His son, Carl Auböck V, now also works as an independent architect and designer. Both my father and my brother created new collections every year for the family workshop as well as supplying other companies with designs. Many aspects of our business bear the mark of individual people. We are a family business in which everyone has worked. My mother, for example, always traveled to trade fairs in Frankfurt, Milan, Paris, Tokyo, and New York, which took on great importance after World War II. She is primarily responsible for the collection concepts and sales, my father sees to the designs, and my brother oversees the production. Until well into the 1960s, the order catalogs were hand-drawn. We do not have complete records from the 1920s or 1930s, so our knowledge of the products is limited to the catalogs. My brother found and compiled a great deal of information. Alongside my work as a landscape architect, I helped out in the workshop in the area

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of sales. The workshop is still at the same location: in Vienna’s seventh district on Bernardgasse. Many traditional handicraft enterprises settled in this area. Under Empress Maria Theresa, there were tax concessions for newly constructed buildings and handicraft businesses that settled in this district. The so-called “Brillantengrund” neighborhood had its own special culture of production. The Hagenauer and Kalmar families, for example, were among those operating businesses here. The production facilities were all next to each other, resulting in a close relationship and a fruitful collaboration. C W In 1926, your grandfather took over the workshop from your great-grandfather. Was it a handicraft business or a design company? M A The fascinating thing about the use of this word is that “design” means something completely different in German than it does in the English-speaking world. Design was not a commonly used term in Vienna and Austria in the 1920s and ’30s; the word Kunsthandwerk was used and the French term dessin for textile designs. The difference between this handicraft-like design and craftsmanship is described by, for example, Adolf Loos. Even later, textile design was understood to mean a pattern design. My grandparents saw themselves as artists. C W How did the time your grandfather spend at the Bauhaus influence his work, particularly with regard to furniture design? M A For both of my grandparents, their time at the Bauhaus meant inspiration, a strong development of values, and international contacts through international students. Objects, furniture, graphic art—the students could do everything themselves. This period left a great impression on their overall view, affecting everything from values and attitudes to nutrition. A friendship developed between my grandfather and Johannes Itten and Walter Gropius, and the latter two came to Vienna to visit on several occasions. But the circumstances at the Bauhaus were very difficult. The political situation in Weimar was very radical—much more extreme than in Vienna. Despite his scholarship, my grandfather could not finance his studies for more than two years, and then he went to work in Czechoslovakia. My grandmother was able to receive several scholarships in Bulgaria but also had to work as a nanny in Italy before she moved to Vienna.

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Carl Auböck in his workshop,

© Carl Auböck Archive

C W

Who were your grandfather’s customers in the 1920s and ’30s?

M A

At that time, my grandparents had many clients in Vienna but also abroad. As early as the 1930s, a great deal of products were sold throughout Europe as well as in the US. My grandfather’s friend and groomsman, Charlie Berg, a brother of the composer Alban Berg, put him in contact with American department stores; the major American customers would sometimes come to Vienna, taking a taxi directly from the train station to Bernardgasse. Through the conversations with them, the special collections for the American department stores were then created. Many of the objects that are still produced today are the result of these conversations.

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left

Carl Auböck

in his workshop, © Carl Auböck Archive

C W

How was the teamwork between your grandfather and your father—what differences were there in terms of design?

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It was very close, intense, sometimes loud, but always cheerful. But they had very significant differences with regard to design. My grandfather loved organic design, while my father’s creations were abstract, symbolic, geometric—made for a new age after World War II. What works were awarded gold medals at the Milan Triennale between 1941 and 1954? Particularly the cutlery sets #2060 and #2080 and their packaging. The so-called “reversable lamp” also won a prize.

Five generations of design from Vienna

C W

The tree trunk table made from slices of tree roots became world famous. How many of them were produced and in which years? How can one recognize the original?

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The tree trunk tables were produced by my grandfather and also by my father. But it is not known exactly how many were made. You can recognize a genuine table because of the way the legs are anchored in the wood and other details that the archive has information about. Beginning in the 1930s, the workshop also produced small pieces of furniture and lamps, usually directly at the request of the customers. Your father studied briefly in the US at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. How did this training change his work and the production at the Vienna workshop? In 1952, my father had a three-month summer scholarship at MIT. At the time he was very interested in prefabricated construction. After his return, he began working with Roland Rainer, and they collaborated on the prefabricated housing project with wood construction in Hietzing. At the workshop, this activity and his training in the US resulted in, for example, a production line of small furniture that could be disassembled. Your father was friends with international designers such as Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson. Did this influence his work? My father, along with his friend Henning Larsen, visited Charles and Ray Eames at their house in San Francisco while he was studying in the US. The two of them rented a car and drove all the way across America to visits the Eameses. My father was also a friend of the designer George Nelson, who visited him in Vienna on Bernardgasse as well. For my father, his encounters with such successful designers above all served as an inspiration for his own work. Was the work of your grandfather and father impacted by events during and after the war? My grandfather was incriminated through his early membership in the NSDAP in the Nazi period—but he was not drafted; rather, he had to serve as a policeman in the war years. The workshop was closed for a long period. He deserted in the spring of 1945 and in summer 1945 was imprisoned several times. The employees at the workshop confirmed as witnesses his harmless follow-my-leader role, and he was released. It was a horrible time for our family, but they made it through thanks to the steady support of his sister in the US.

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C W

Your father taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where he was head of the master class for metal design and beginning in 1977 of the master class for metal product development. Alongside this he was active in international associations. He influenced a new generation—not just in Austria but also internationally?

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Yes, his students referred to him as “Mister Design.” He was very proud to have had so many talents in his class, like Anita Münz (horn jewelry) and Marion Kuzmany (architecture). Auböck design is prized above all by international collectors from the US, Japan, and England. Are there collectors in Austria as well? There are several large local collections in the Austrian region. But many collectors come from the US and Japan—actually from all over. Were all products always manufactured in the workshop, and are they still? There are some 450 designs from the various generations that currently are still produced, or produced again. My brother, Carl Auböck, decides which products are currently manufactured. He is supported in this by his family, particularly by his daughter Zola Auböck.

Five generations of design from Vienna

GLIMPSES

into Apartments, Houses, and Cafés

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A house and garden for the soul— the Krasny house today

For the art critic Max Eisler in 1928, it was Austria’s loveliest and most modern villa. Gio Ponti, as well, enthused about the exceptional interior architecture, the furnishings, the fabrics, and the garden of the Krasny house on Döbling’s Hohe Warte. The new owner purchased the house in 1953 and renovated it with sensitivity and very much in the spirit of the original interior architects, Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach. Although scarcely any of the original furniture by Haus & Garten remained after the war, the complete interior design was preserved: the wood floors, doors, and large windows as well as the staircases, wardrobes, built-in cabinets, bathrooms, kitchen, and even the dumbwaiter and the ironing room—all designed by Josef Frank—still exist in their original form. When one steps out of the house onto one of the many terraces, one seems to almost float above the city. In Left



A harmonious union of

house and garden: from the living room adjoining the balcony, an exterior stairway leads to an oval terrace that is reminiscent of a boat.

the garden, Josef Frank’s small tea pavilion is a wonderfully idyllic spot to while away the hours. Timeless elegance and beauty as well as breathtaking views of Vienna make this house a place of peace, tranquility, and happiness.

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Left

Josef Frank’s original

1928 tea pavilion in the garden is a lovely place to spend a few hours. Top

The garden view of the

Krasny house in the middle of the spaciously dimensioned, terraced garden, designed by Josef Frank and the gardener Hanny Strauß. Bottom The view from the terrace to the garden, with its nearly 100-year-old trees. p 254 The spacious salon of the Krasny house today, with original windows, doors, wood floors, and the fireplace designed by Josef Frank.

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Top

The large, original

windows from 1928 create a link between house and garden, a very important concept for Josef Frank. Bottom The bureau and the lamp are both original designs by Josef Frank, produced in 1940 by Svenskt Tenn. Right The salon of the Krasny house, with its many places to read and relax and with various floor lamps by Josef Frank.

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Left

The original kitchen,

designed by Josef Frank, with a sideboard and tiles from 1928, is still in use today. Top

The elegant original

dressing room for the master of the house, designed by Josef Frank in 1928, is located on the second level. Bottom The wood staircase, designed by Josef Frank, leading from the foyer of the Krasny house to the second level, has been preserved in its original form.

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The house of a hundred steps— Villa Beer

At the beginning of the 1930s, the two architects Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach realized their philosophy of an open floorplan and a harmonious unification of house and garden in this nearly 650-square-meter villa in Hietzing. Various ceiling heights, oversized windows, countless steps, and a breathtaking, open living room make walking from one place to another through the house a one-ofa-kind experience. The center of the villa is modeled after a ship’s bow, complete with a railing. On the second level stood the grand piano of the mistress of the house, Margarethe Beer; she was a keen pianist and her playing was intended to be heard throughout the house. Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach planned the entire house, the interior architecture, and the garden, furnishing the house with furniture and fabrics from Haus & Garten. The complete interior design, down to the individual pieces of furniture, has been preserved in its original form: all staircases, bathrooms, kitchen cabiLeft

Thanks to the over-

sized, original windows, the occupants of the Villa Beer seem almost to live in the garden. The window seat and the wingback chair from Haus & Garten are from 1931.

nets, wall units, and door handles are the creations of Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach. The Villa Beer stood empty for a long period but in 2021 found a new owner in Lothar Trierenberg, who now wants to turn the house into a unique museum.

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Top

The open living room

with staircase in the Villa Beer. Bottom The tea salon on the second level of the Villa Beer with a round window; right next to it stood the grand piano of the former mistress of the house. Right The open living room, designed like a ship’s bow, complete with a railing, connects all living spaces and the second level.

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Designer living room in a museum: Salonplafond

The vast ceiling of the building on Vienna’s Stubenring, designed by Heinrich von Ferstel, lends its name to the restaurant at the Museum of Applied Arts Vienna. The space, which despite its imposing dimensions is quite cozy, was redesigned in 2015 by the Austrian architect Michael Embacher. Today, the room is ingeniously arranged and divided by shelves, vitrines, and niches. Oswald Haerdtl’s original Thonet chairs from the early 1950s and Ernst Schwadron’s 1946 Dining Chairs, reissued by the Hamburg-based Wohnkultur 66, complete the furnishings. The chairs and settees were upholstered with Josef Frank’s colorLeft

With their cream-

colored shades and stands of rosewood and blackened brass, the Admont chandeliers, a design by J. T. Kalmar from the 1930s, produce a warm, pleasant light.

ful Mirakel, Baranquilla, and Hawai fabrics, whose hues offer a pleasant contrast to the original parquet flooring. The chandeliers by J. T. Kalmar give the space, despite its size, a cozy and intimate atmosphere.

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Top

Some of the chairs

and settees were covered with dark-red velvet, others with the Baranquilla fabric, designed by Josef Frank. Bottom Ernst Schwadron’s Dining Chairs, a design from 1946, were reissued by Wohnkultur 66. Right The original beechplywood armchairs, designed by Oswald Haerdtl for Thonet in the 1950s, were reupholstered with blue fabric. The backrests of the settees are covered with Josef Frank’s Hawai fabric.

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A journey in time back to the 1950s: Café Prückel

Café Prückel is an icon of 1950s Viennese coffeehouse design and is protected as a historic monument. It was opened in 1903 by the former European cycling champion Maxime Lurion as Café Lurion and later renamed Café Prückel. Even at that time, there were events held on a stage in the souterrain, and in 1931, the actress Stella Kadmon founded the city’s first politically and socially critical cabaret there, Der liebe Augustin, where numerous artists who had fled Germany to escape the Nazis performed as well until 1938. Cabaret and theater are still performed at Café Prückel. In 1955, the new owner, Fritz Palouda, commissioned Oswald Haerdtl to renovate the café. Haerdtl created a spacious, lightfilled space and also designed the entire interior: the crystal chandeliers were produced by the Viennese glassworks J. & L. Lobmeyr, the floor lamps by J. T. Kalmar, and the seating furniture by Vienna Sitzmöbel und Tischfabrik Emil & Alfred Pollak. Haerdtl paid great attention to small details: he equipped the top of the armchairs’ backrests with a handle with which one can easily slide the chair back and forth with one hand. The armrests also have wood coverings to prevent the fabric from becoming worn. The many small details are evidence Left

The imposing crystal

chandelier by the Viennese glassworks J. & L. Lobmeyr illuminates the café.

that in his designs, Haerdtl took the habits of the coffeehouse visitors into consideration, with the result that today, guests still feel “at home” at Café Prückel.

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Top

The distinctive floor

lamps with their perforated metal shades and bamboo rods were produced especially for Café Prückel by J. T. Kalmar. Bottom As with the coffeehouse tables, the legs of Oswald Haerdtl’s spoke-back chairs are fitted with metal ends. Swiveling gooseneck lamps on the wall illuminate the tables and the velvet-upholstered settees. Right The top of each chair’s backrest is equipped with a handle with which one can easily move the chair. The wood coverings on the armrests prevent the fabric from becoming worn.

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5

When time stands still: original furniture design from the 1950s

Just how trend-setting and modern Viennese furniture design of the 1920s and ’30s was is demonstrated by the degree to which aesthetic inspiration was drawn in the 1950s from this such artistically productive period. Space-saving and multifunctional wood furniture, small tables and stools with tapered legs, and tulip-shaped lamps with colorful shades of painted metal are reminiscent of the designs of the leading figures of Neues Wiener Wohnen. At the beginning of the 1950s, the Viennese architect Oskar Riedel designed the complete interior furnishings of an apartment on Bognergasse, in downtown Vienna, for the Oblegorski family—from fitted cabinets, floor lamps, and mirrors to the dining-room chairs, the house bar, and a toiletry table in the bedroom of the mistress of the house. The comLeft

Toiletry table in the

bedroom of the lady of the house with an adjustable mirror and a black-glass top. The fronts of the drawers and compartments are painted a contrasting cream color.

plete furnishings have been preserved in their original state. The children of this Viennese family, who today live in New York, recently gave up the apartment, and the furniture was sold through the Lichterloh design shop in Vienna.

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Top

Typical for the interior archi-

tecture of this period are the built-in cabinets, which are incorporated into the room in an intelligent and spacesaving manner. Bottom The lamp, designed by Oskar Riedel, is an adjustable lighting fixture but also serves as a room divider, and with a small glass table provides a storage surface beside the chaise longue. TOP R. In front of the windows in the salon, plants climb up room dividers. The couch table, with a two-toned glass top, is complemented by a matching rug whose pattern picks up the stripes of the table. Bottom R. Oskar Riedel outfitted the dining room with comfortable, stacking upholstered chairs with a brass handle on the backrest. The individual chairs can be converted into a settee.

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Glimpses into Apartments, Houses, and Cafés

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276

6

The Guesthouse Vienna— a brasserie with Viennese furniture design

The former student dormitory on Führichgasse, originally built in the 1950s and surrounded by the magnificent buildings of downtown Vienna, was remodeled in 2013 by the British “high priest of design” Sir Terence Conran as a boutique hotel with thirty-nine rooms. The affection that hotel manager Manfred Stallmajer has for design classics is evident in the entire interior décor: for the restaurant, Thonet chairs by Oswald Haerdtl—a design from 1951— were adapted, while the lamps are from the French designer Serge Mouille, and the umbrella stands and coat hooks in the restaurant as well as the bookends for the small libraries in the rooms from Left

The armchairs made

of dark-stained bentwood are a model designed by Oswald Haerdtl for Thonet in the early 1950s.

the Werkstätte Carl Auböck. Design classics were skillfully combined with new elements in the hotel, resulting in a successful blend of Viennese charm and international flair.

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278

Left

The original cocktail

chairs from Vienna, 1959, were reupholstered with gray fabric. Top

The adjustable lamps

are by the French designer Serge Mouille, while the bronze umbrella stands, mounted on the side of the settees, are from the Werkstätte Carl Auböck. Bottom The colors of the leather and wood seating niches— lime green, brown, and black— lend the room a harmonious overall appearance.

Glimpses into Apartments, Houses, and Cafés

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280

7

A bohemian life above the rooftops of Vienna

As a young man, Josef Frank was already enthralled with bohemian life in an attic apartment, with its large windows, high ceilings, and many corners, columns, and beams— something very unusual at this time in Vienna. In an apartment building in Döbling designed by the architect Richard Modern in 1909, several living units and the attic were merged to create a light-filled apartment and a rooftop garden with views all across Vienna. All the elements designed by the Viennese architect—from the oversized windows, the doors, and the staircases to the wall units—as well as the parquet floors, have been preserved in their original state. In 1940, at the age of sixty-seven, Richard Modern was forced to flee Vienna to escape the Nazis and emigrated to New York. In 2000, the new owners renovated the building with great sensitivity with respect to the historic structure and furnished the apartment with furniture, lamps, and fabLeft

The original circular

staircase leads to a gallery; below it is a seating area with a Lady wingback chair by Marco Zanuso and a footstool by Josef Frank.

rics by Josef Frank, Carl Auböck, Oskar Payer, Oswald Haerdtl, Charles and Ray Eames, Gabriella Crespi, and Serge Mouille. The result is a wonderful mixture of furnishings from the 1930s to the 1960s from Vienna, Milan, Paris, Stockholm, and the US.

Glimpses into Apartments, Houses, and Cafés

281

Top

The spacious salon

in the finished attic with a table by Carl Auböck and chairs by Oswald Haerdtl and Charles and Ray Eames. Bottom A footstool with brass feet and a blue fur cover from Vienna (c. 1950). Top R. In the original alcove, designed by Richard Modern in 1909, a sofa by Johannes Spalt and a small “tree trunk table” by Carl Auböck create a sublime atmosphere for relaxing and reading. Bottom R. Next to an old Viennese leather sofa from around 1930, lamps by Serge Mouille and Louis Kalff provide pleasant light for reading. The couch table was designed by Nanna Ditzel, the table lamp by Gabriella Crespi, and the armchair by Marco Zanuso. The original cocktail chairs from the 1950s were manufactured in Vienna.

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Glimpses into Apartments, Houses, and Cafés

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8

Mid-Century Modern furniture design in an elegant palace

Several years ago, one of Austria’s most prominent private art and design collectors purchased and revitalized a Viennese city palace from the 1880s. The new owner meticulously restored the villa, which is protected as a historic landmark, according to the original plans, creating a breathtaking setting for his superb art and design collection. Original furniture from the 1950s to the 1970s, by designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, De Sede, Left

Orangery with views

across the expansive park; in the foreground a “tree trunk table” by Carl Auböck.

Knoll, Martin Eisler, and Carl Auböck turn a stroll through the house into a sensational journey back through time to the Mid-Century Modern era.

Glimpses into Apartments, Houses, and Cafés

285

286

Left

The salon in brown and

orange with the painstakingly restored ceiling is illuminated by Sputnik lamps. Top

Furniture design and

art in front of original doors and on parquet floors from 1881 in one of the house’s many salons. Bottom A very rare, light-brown Lounge Chair Wood by Charles and Ray Eames from 1956 provides a cozy reading spot. p 288 The dining room with table and chairs by Knoll and a Reversível Chair by Martin Eisler offers a stunning view of the park.

287

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https://www.fundacionida.org/ en/node/1139

https://www.wohnkultur66.de

Bibliography

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ILLUSTRATION CREDITS Cover illustration: Design for a garden room by Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer, Sammlung GS, © Friedl Dicker & Franz Singer © Backhausen Archive: p. 29 all pictures, p. 147 top right; p. 155 all pictures; p. 159 left; p. 161 bottom left; p. 182. © Carl Auböck Archive Vienna: p. 240; p. 245; p. 246. © Dorotheum Vienna: p. 33 left; p. 38

© Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna: p. 104; p. 105 both pictures; p. 106; p. 168. © Sammlung CW, Caroline Wohlgemuth/photographer: Stephanie Weinhappel: p. 100; p. 112 all pictures; p. 114 bottom; p. 116 top left; p. 119 top right; p. 123 top; p. 125; p. 129 all pictures; p. 232; p. 237; p. 250 bis p. 288 all pictures. Sammlung GS, Georg Schrom: cover illustration; p. 71; p. 73; p. 74 both pictures; p. 75 all pictures; p. 76 both pictures; p. 77 both pictures; p. 132; p. 198; p. 200 both pictures;

bottom; p. 40 top; p. 57; p. 59 top, bottom; p. 88 right; p. 89 right; p. 116 all pictures (except top left);

p. 201 top right, middle right, bottom all pictures; p. 202; p. 205

p. 119 all pictures (except top right); p. 120; p. 121 both pictures; p. 123

p. 208 top; p. 209 bottom left; p. 216.

bottom, middle; p. 154; p. 160 top right, bottom both pictures; p. 161 top right; p. 176; p. 192; p. 193 bottom; p. 197 middle left; p. 201 top left; p. 208 bottom; p. 209 all pictures (except bottom left); p. 223 top both pictures. © FS, Franz Singer: cover illustration, p. 71; p. 73; p. 74 both pictures; p. 75 all pictures; p. 76 right; p. 77 both pictures. © JMW, Jewish Museum Vienna/ Archive: p. 175 top. © Joseph Binder/MAK: p. 81; p. 99 both pictures. © H. Gallery: p. 222 bottom right; p. 223 middle left, bottom both pictures. © KAUAK, Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts Vienna: p. 40 bottom; p. 45 top; p. 48; p. 51 bottom; p. 55; p. 90 bottom; p. 93 both pictures; p. 126 bottom right; p. 144; p. 147 top left; p. 161 top left; p. 193 top; p. 201 middle left; p. 210. © MAK, Museum of Applied Arts: p. 16 bottom; p. 18 both pictures; p. 20 both pictures; p. 23; p. 24 all pictures; p. 27; p. 31 both pictures; p. 33 right; p. 34 all pictures; p. 37 both pictures, p. 38 top; p. 45 bottom; p. 51 top; p. 58 and 59 large picture; p. 60 all pictures; p. 61; p. 62 both pictures; p. 63; p. 64; p. 65; p. 66; p. 67; p. 68 both pictures; p. 80 both pictures; p. 81; p. 88 left; p. 89 left; p. 90 top; p. 99 both pictures; p. 114 top; p. 118; p. 122; p. 127 top; p. 130; p. 135; p. 138 top; p. 146; p. 147 middle right, bottom right; p. 188; p. 196; p. 205 middle right; p. 212 all pictures; p. 213 all pictures.

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middle left, bottom right; p. 206; Sammlung K, Alexander Kahane: p. 127 bottom left; p. 161 bottom right; p. 162 bottom left, both lamps. © ST, Svenskt Tenn: p. 109; p. 126 top, bottom left; p. 127 bottom right; p. 138 bottom; p. 139; p. 140 and 141 large picture; p. 156; p. 159 right; p. 160 top left; p. 162 top, bottom right; p. 163 all pictures. © Tacchini: p. 220. © Tacchini/Andrea Ferrari: p. 222 top, middle, bottom left; p. 223 middle right. © VT, Liane Zimbler Architectural Collection, Ms1988-005, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg: p. 180; p. 183 all pictures. © VS, Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken: p. 177 right. © VS, Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken/ photographer: Klaus Meier-Ude: p. 102 both pictures; p. 172. © VS, Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken/ Richard Neutra: p. 175 bottom; p. 177 top left. © Wien Museum: p. 83 both pictures; p. 84 and 85 large picture; p. 86 both pictures; p. 87; p. 186; p. 187 both pictures. © Wien Museum/Wiener Photographen-Association: p. 16 top. © Wohnkultur 66/Andreas Weiss: p. 197 top, middle right, bottom all pictures. We have made every effort to seek permission for and credit all photographs in this book. If you think you have not been acknowledged correctly for a photograph, please contact us at [email protected].

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Caroline Wohlgemuth studied law and arts management in Vienna and London. In the course of her studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, she conducted scholarly research into the history of Viennese furniture design and the exile of countless Jewish architects and furniture designers from Vienna in 1938.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Christian Einwaller, Einwaller Ateliers, Vienna Matthias Dorfstetter, Vienna

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to

Andrew and Dorothea Demmer, Vienna

the following people and institutions whose

Konrad Friedel, Vienna

tremendous help and support made this

Agnes and Michael Schaumann, Vienna

book possible:

Katharina and Sebastien de Ganay, Vienna Marina Schmutzer, New York

Marion Elias and Roswitha Janowski-Fritsch, University of Applied Arts Vienna

For their work on the book:

For providing me with large amounts of

David Einwaller, graphic design

information, data, documents, photographs,

Stephanie Weinhappel, photography

sketches, and books:

Ela Angerer, photography Irina Pálffy-Daun-Seiler, copyediting and

Nathalie Feitsch, Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna Paulus Ebner, Archive of the University of Technology, Vienna Thomas Matyk, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna Martin Böhm, Dorotheum Vienna

proofreading (DE) Douglas Deitemyer, translating and proofreading (EN) Kinga Liechtenstein, for the creative support at the photo sessions Catharina Rosenauer, for research assistance Katharina Holas, Birkhäuser Verlag, Vienna

Maria Elisabeth Ritter-Lipp, Dorotheum Vienna Felicitas Thurn-Valsassina, Dorotheum Vienna

Special thanks go to my dear friends Marcel

Florian Pollack, Wien Museum

Javor and Reza Akhavan for their generous

Gerd Zillner, Austrian Frederick and Lillian

support of this project, to Alexander Kahane

Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna

for his hospitality and our many interesting

Katharina Lischka, Jewish Museum Vienna

conversations, and to my family—my dear hus-

Georg Schrom, Atelier Georg Schrom, Vienna

band and our three children—for their sense

Dani Singer, London

of humor.

Maria Auböck, Auböck + Kárász Landscape Architects, Vienna Christine Zwingl, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky Raum, Vienna Ursula Graf, Backhausen Archive, Vienna Marc Brodsky, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg Alexander Kahane, Haus Krasny, Vienna Lothar Trierenberg, Haus Beer, Vienna Familie Sedlar, Café Prückel, Vienna Barbara Fabiankovits, Salonplafond, Vienna Manfred Stallmajer, The Guesthouse Vienna Elin Lervik, Svenskt Tenn, Stockholm Manfred Werner, Wohnkultur 66, Hamburg Helen and Percy Thonet, Thonet Vienna Dorothy Singer, Book Shop Singer, Vienna Dagmar Wolf and Christian Pernhaupt, Lichterloh, Vienna Christian Puffer, Design Lichtblick, Vienna Peter Lindenberg, Vintagerie, Vienna Jelmar Hufen, H. Gallery, Utrecht Stefania Evans, Tacchini, Baruccana di Seveso

295

PUBLISHING INFORMATION

ISSN 1866-248X ISBN 978-3-0356-2409-0

Author: Caroline Wohlgemuth

e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-0356-2420-5

Concept: Caroline Wohlgemuth Project Management “Edition Angewandte” on behalf of the University of Applied Arts Vienna: Roswitha Janowski-Fritsch, A-Vienna

German print ISBN 978-3-0356-2177-8 © 2022 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel P.O. Box 44, 4009 Basel, Switzerland Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Content and Production Editor on behalf of the Publisher:

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 www.birkhauser.com

Katharina Holas, A-Vienna Copyediting and Proofreading: Irina Pálffy-Daun-Seiler Translations and Copyediting: Douglas Deitemyer Layout, Cover Design, and Typesetting: David Einwaller Image Editing: Stephanie Weinhappel Printing: Holzhausen, die Buchmarke der Gerin Druck GmbH, A-Wolkersdorf Printed in Austria Library of Congress Control Number: 2021934004 Bibliographic information published by the German National Library The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.

With the kind support of