Book Description
Founded 100 years ago in Vienna, the Wiener Werkstätte-"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 Werkstätte provides a comprehensive overview of this fascinating movement, one of the high points of modern design history.
About the Author
Christian Brandstätter is the author of numerous books about Viennese art of the 20th century, and the leading publisher in the field. He lives in Vienna.
Wiener Werkstatte: Design in Vienna 1903-1932 FROM THE PUBLISHER
At the turn of the twentieth century, Vienna was the European epicenter of innovation in the arts. In 1903, original members of the Vienna Succession Josef Hoffman and Kolmon Moser founded the Wiener Werkstatte - "Vienna Workshops" - an idealistic offspring of Art Noveau that, in resistance to increasing mass production and industrialization, called for integration of the fine and applied arts, the union of form and function in design, and treatment of everyday objects with refined craftsmanship and aesthetic care. Ultimately involving hundreds of artists, including Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Carl Otto Czescka, Michael Powolny, and Oskar Kokoschka, the movement neglected no area of the arts or design. The prodigious talents of the participants extended to everything from furniture, metal work, glass, and ceramics to jewelry, books, and graphic design, examples of which are included in this edition.
This book details the breadth of the workshop's design vision, and provides a comprehensive overview of the movement, one of the high points of modern design history and a beacon for artists and designers ever since.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
If one picture is worth a thousand words, then this book offers a fortune in information-it is an extravagantly illustrated tour of the artists' cooperative in early 20th-century Vienna known as the Wiener Werkstatte. Influenced by Arts and Crafts Movement designers like Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow, it was an artistic reaction against cheaply made, mass-produced household goods in favor of handmade, high-quality objects (which included everything from architecture and bookbinding to mural painting and haute couture-what the artists called Gesamtkunstwerk). The cooperative involved more than 100 artists, architects, and designers, including Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Koloman Moser, and Josef Hoffmann, and was in many ways the creative link between Viennese Secessionism and the later Bauhaus. While this book might be dismissed as primarily a picture book, enough information is included in the introduction and captions to more than adequately convey the group's premise. Written and compiled by the Vienna-based Brandstatter (Klimt and Fashion), this compact-sized book is highly recommended for all art and design libraries.-Margarete Gross, Chicago P.L. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Art & Photography
Book Info
