Arts & Culture

The Vienna Secessionist Building and Movement @ the Library

July 23, 2010 | Bill V. | Comments (1)

The iguanas framing the entrance door to the Secession Building in Vienna remind me of backpacking through Europe 20 years ago.

 

Vienna Secessionist building July 2010 lizard front door

 

The Secession building is a key architectural icon and visual image of Vienna.  It was designed and built by Joseph Maria Olbrich  in 1898.  Olbrich is the subject of a special exhibit at the Leopold Museum this summer (see my previous blog posting on that museum).  The Secessionist building was designed to act as an exhibition hall for the newly formed Secessionist movement. Its golden dome of laurel leaves (also called the big cabbage) stands out as one of its more noticeable features.

Vienna Secessionist building July 2010

Above the door is the motto of the Secessionist Movement which translated into English is "To every age its Art. To Art its Freedom".  The building still serves as an avant garde art gallery as seen by the large photograph of a naked woman hanging at its front entrance this summer.   Likely its greatest claim to fame now is the Gustav Klimt mural frieze in the basement  – an homage to Beethoven's 9th symphony.

Gustav Klimt The Beethoven Frieze and the Controversy over the Freedom of Art

Vienna at the end of the 19th century was a hotbed of radical design and artistic controversy.  The Secession Movement began in 1897 when a group of progressive artists, led by Gustav Klimt, broke away from the conservative Kunstlerhaus Association to be able to exhibit freely.  There was great intermingling between architects and designers with fine and decorative artists.  You will also see this style called Jugendstil (youth movement)  and it is closely related to both the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts styles.

Vienna 1900 art, life & culture:At the turn of the 20th century, Vienna was one of the most exciting cities on earth -- the central gathering spot of the European avant-garde in art, architecture, literature, music, journalism, philosophy, psychiatry, and theater. The dynamic cross-pollination among the revolutionary figures involved -- Klimt, Kokoschka, the Wiener Werkstdtte, Mahler, Freud, Wittgenstein, and many more -- turned the Austrian capital into an extraordinary laboratory for new ideas and concepts. It is where modern was born. With more than 500 illustrations, "Vienna" 1900 is a unique, concise portrait of a vibrant world and its most important protagonists.    Vienna Secession 1898-1998 the century of artistic freedom. With superb color reproductions and a wealth of previously unpublished material, this publication is an impressive kaleidoscope documenting 130 exhibitions held over the last 100 years in the Vienna Secession, from the beginning of the Modern Movement to the art scene of our own time. "To the Times their Art -- To Art its Freedom", which appears on the facade of this famous gallery, was the motto of the pioneers of the Modern Movement. After a group of dissident Viennese artists "seceded" from the established artists' guild, they inaugurated their own exhibition space, the "Vienna Secession", in 1898. In 1902, Gustav Klimt painted the famous Beethoven Frieze for an exhibition, in the center of which stood Max Klinger's monumental sculpture of Beethoven. Today, the delightful Art Nouveau building by Joseph Maria Olbrich, with its striking golden dome of filigree laurel leaves and Klimt's spellbinding cycle of paintings, continues to captivate its visitors. Thanks to the many artists who exhibited at the Vienna Secession between 1898 and 1998, the development of international art during this period can be readily traced. Documents from the archive testify to a unique history, marked by artists' intentions and their experience with collectors, critics, and the public.   Secession the Vienna Secession, from temple of art to exhibition hall. In honor of its one hundredth anniversary, this book brings together a comprehensive overview and analysis of one of the most important institutions in the development of modernism, the Vienna Secession. Founded by Gustav Klimt in 1897, the Vienna Secession -- like the Berlin and Munich Secessions of the same time -- represented a flowering of new movements in art and architecture, at a time when the heterodoxy of high modernism was still vehemently disdained. As the home of Art Nouveau and "Jugendstil", and as an exhibition center which presented such figures as Matisse, Rodin, Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso, the Secession has had a profound influence on art and culture, and does to this day -- exhibiting Beuys, Gilbert and George, and many others in recent times. This book contains essays on the Secession's importance, and features a wealth of photographs of both the art that has shown there, and the building itself.

Art nouveau - see here for copies you can borrow from your local library   Art nouveau architecture - see here for a list of books on Art Nouveau Architecture - some you can borrow from your local branch and some you can only use at the Toronto Reference Library   The arts & crafts movement in Europe & America design for the modern world

Joseph Olbrich was a student of the great Viennese architect Otto Wagner.  Wagner designed the classic modernist apartment buildings at 38 & 40 Linke Wienzeile (just down the road from the Secessionist Building) .  The buildings are notable for their flattened and simple fronts devoid of the excess typically seen in Viennese architecture of the time which often was neo Renaissance/Baroque in its detail.

The two buildings are not plain by any means and have floral rose designs in ceramic tiles on one side (designed by Olbrich)  and gilded applied medallions, palm branches and other ornaments (designed by Kolo Moser who also designed the owls and ornamentation of the Secessionist building) on the other side. 

Otto Wagner, 1841-1918 forerunner of modern architecture Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt - see here for this book and many others on Otto Wagner   Koloman Moser - see here for books on Moser only available to use at the Toronto Reference Library

 

Below is a photo of No 40 Linke Wienzeile with its Jugendstil patterns of red majolica tile roses -  notice the leafy green tiles on the balconies.

Vienna July 15 060

And below is No 38 Linke Wienzeile with its gilded stucco  medallions and floral decorations.

Vienna July 15 059

 

Josef Hoffmann, the Austrian architect and furniture, metal and glass designer, was also a student of Otto Wagner.  Hoffmann founded the Wiener Werkstatte or Vienna Workshops which united fine arts and design with applied arts to create high quality objects of modern design.  These initially used the ideas of the Secessionists but later moved with the times and stayed cutting edge.

Josef Hoffmann interiors, 1902-1913. This companion catalog to a new exhibition examines Josef Hoffmann?s early career, from his student days in Vienna to his worldwide influence on twentieth-century decorative arts.Illustrated with color photographs of Hoffmann?s masterpieces?on their own and as parts of interiors?this monograph focuses on significant aspects of Hoffmann?s career: his early years as a member of the Secessionist Movement and founder of the Vienna Workshops, his role in the intellectual rebellion that took place in Austria; and his progression toward a Modernist ethic. It takes readers through four dazzling interiors designed by Hoffmann and furnished with his signature pieces, including furniture, wall and floor coverings, textiles, lighting, ceramics, glassware and metalwork. The overall effect of these rooms is to be transported to a world in which form marries function, and simplicity and refinement reign supreme.      Wiener Werkstætte 1903-1932. Copies to borrow from your local branch library. In 1928 Josef Hoffmann described the Wiener Werkstdtte, a group of studios and workshops which he had founded 25 years previously with Koloman Moser and Fritz Waerndorfer, as follows: "The Wiener Werkstdtte, established in 1903, is an enterprise for the active promotion and cultivation of all endeavours in the pursuit of art and quality in modern crafts." For thirty years, a group of highly qualified architects and craftsmen succeeded in realizing their dream of fusing architecture and interior design into a Gesamtkunstwerk - a "total work of art."The Wiener Werkstdtte combined fine and applied arts to convey a whole new outlook on life, liberated from the strictures of historicism and superfluous ornamentation. The buildings and objects that resulted combine classical elegance with streamlined functionality. No everyday object was too banal, no architectural task too complex for the artists of the Wiener Werkstdtte. They experimented with an endless variety of materials, from gold and precious stones to papier mbchi and glass beads, and their work still bears lasting witness to a unique and vital artistic movement. Even today, architects and designers continue to cite in their work the innovations and ideas of Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstdtte.    Wiener Werkstätte, design in Vienna 1903-1932 Architecture, furniture, commercial art. Founded 100 years ago in Vienna, the Wiener Werkstatte--"Vienna Workshops"--was an idealistic movement to unite the fine and applied arts with the goal of creating beautifully designed and crafted objects for every purpose. Begun by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, the movement eventually involved hundreds of artists and craftsmen working in architecture, furniture design, tableware, metalwork, ceramics and glass, books, posters, carpets, jewelry, fabrics, and haute couture, not to mention paintings and the traditional fine arts. This heavily illustrated, compact-format book offers as complete a record as we are ever likely to see of the group's astonishingly creative work, from complex, integrated environments such as Hoffmann's Palais Stoclet in Brussels and Cabaret Fledermaus in Vienna to individual objects such as enameled-glass stemware by Otto Prutscher and vibrantly colored postcards by Oskar Kokoschka. Wiener Werkstatte provides a comprehensive overview of this fascinating movement, one of the high,points of modern design history.

Thanks for reading these Viennese blog posts – yesterday I had my first piece of Sacher torte and it was delicious.

Comments

One thought on “The Vienna Secessionist Building and Movement @ the Library”

  1. Hi there. I am Iman. I live in Iran. I am currently a high school teacher. I hold an MA degree in Architecture. I am especially interested in studying ancient cities and civilization. I like to meet and greet people who can help me my English and a thorough recognition of their country’s architecture.
    Looking forward to hearing from you…

    Reply

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