Content:

Architecture, urban planing, city landscapes and design.

This architecture and design course will explore the relationship between architecture and society in Vienna 1900. It will examine how key protagonists including architects Otto Wagner, Carl König, Adolf Loos, Josef Hoffmann, and their students developed and fashioned the urban landscape. Our discussions will consider how the design of both the exterior and interior of Vienna’s major buildings relate to the evolution of different styles such as Historicism, Jugendstil, and modernism. The course will contextualize this art historical examination within the broader spectrum of cultural and professional networks and the critical role of the mass media in promoting and shaping modern design.  The study of the cooperation of architects with artists, the flourishing modern design industries, and the fruitful, reciprocal exchange between fashion and design will help illuminate the critical relationship between modern design and the transformation of social and cultural patterns in Viennese society.

The course will include the following topics:

• The Ringstrasse and the Heritage of Historicism: the construction of the Ringstrasse as a European cultural project, the positivist philosophy and the liberal educational agenda of the chosen Historicist style; the high bourgeois and aristocratic patrons of the Ringstrasse; Theophil Hansen’s Neo-Renaissance buildings and Carl König’s Neo-Baroque buildings.
• Urban Planning and City Landscape: the organization of the city as a modern capital of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy; the role of public sculptures and gardens in fashioning the city landscape; development of industrial areas, shopping centers, and the entertainment park Prater.
• The Wiener Secession and the “Sacred Spring”: Otto Wagner’s railway stations and modernist buildings; the salon of Berta Zuckerkandl and the patrons of the Vienna Secession movement; architect Joseph Maria Olbrich and the Secession building; the “artist-designer” and the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk (Total-Art-Work).
• Rebellion in the Coffee House: Mass media and architecture – the question “what is modern?” – the reception of European trends in art journals; public debates about design and identity in newspapers; the cultural networks of critic Hermann Bahr and the literary group “Jung Wien” (Young Vienna) and the coffee house circle of poet Peter Altenberg, critic Karl Kraus and architect Adolf Loos.
• Fashion and Social Emancipation: Women’s fashion and its discontents, men’s fashion and bourgeois ethics, and the invention of the modern androgynous youth ideal; departments stores such as Herzmansky, Gerngross and Rothberger, and fashion firms such as Kniže & Comp., Maison Zwieback, and the Schwestern Flöge.
• Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshops): the founders and directors of the Wiener Werkstätte architect Hoffmann, designer Kolo Moser and the textile industrialist Fritz Waerndorfer; British and French forerunners of design workshops; Hoffmann cooperation with secessionist artist Gustav Klimt; Hoffmann’s Hohe Warte villas colony, Purkersdorf Sanatorium, Cabaret Fledermaus, Ast House.
• Adolf Loos and the English Gentleman: Loos’s writings and works; criticism of the Secession movement and the relationship between design and men’s fashion; Loos’s Café Museum, Goldman & Salatsch Building, Steiner House, Scheu House, and the American Bar; Loos and his protégée, the Expressionist artist Oskar Kokoschka.
• The Schools of Otto Wagner and Carl König: Wagner’s students Max Fabiani, Jože Plečnik, Hubert Gessner and Leopold Bauer and their buildings, and König’s students Ernst Gotthilf, Oskar Marmorek, Arthur Baron, Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank and their buildings.
• Design Industries: Furniture, textile, carpets and glass industries including Gebruder Thonet, Jacob & Josef Kohn, Bothe & Ehrmann, Bernhard Ludwig, Portois & Fix, Friedrich Otto Schmidt, Mundus AG, Johann Backhausen & Söhne, I. Ginzkey, and J. & L. Lobymyer.
• Social in Design pre- and post WWI: Hoffmann, Loos, Strnad and Frank addressing questions of design ethics, hygienic conditions, affordable furniture, sustainable material, social housing, integration of weak members in society, and empowerment through design; Women architects and designers post WWI.

Requirements: Attendance and participation in class discussion constitute 30%, small group discussion of reading-assignments and the presentations 30%, and a written final exam 40% of the grade.