Josef Hoffmann

Josef Hoffmann
Josef-Hoffmann.jpg
Personal information
Name Josef Hoffmann
Nationality Austrian
Birth date December 15, 1870(1870-12-15)
Birth place Brtnice,Moravia, Austria-Hungary
Date of death May 7, 1956 (aged 85)
Place of death Vienna, Austria
Work
Significant buildings Stoclet Palace
Villa Primavesi
Sanatorium Purkersdorf
For the Polish-American pianist, see Józef Hofmann.

Josef Hoffmann (December 15, 1870 Brtnice, Moravia – May 7, 1956 Vienna, Austria) was an Austrian architect and designer of consumer goods.

Contents

Biography

Hoffmann studied at the Higher State Crafts School in Brno beginning in 1887 and then worked with the local military planning authority in Würzburg. Thereafter he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer and Otto Wagner, graduating with a Prix de Rome in 1895. In Wagner's office, he met Joseph Maria Olbrich, and together they founded the Vienna Secession in 1897 along with artists Gustav Klimt, and Koloman Moser.[1] Beginning in 1899, he taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. With the Secession, Hoffmann developed strong connections with other artists. He designed installation spaces for Secession exhibitions and a house for Moser which was built from 1901-1903. However, he soon left the Secession in 1905 along with other stylist artists due to conflicts with realist naturalists over differences in artistic vision and disagreement over the premise of Gesamtkunstwerk.[2] With the banker Fritz Wärndorfer and the artist Koloman Moser he established the Wiener Werkstätte, which was to last until 1932. He designed many products for the Wiener Werkstätte of which designer chairs, a lamp, and sets of glasses have reached the collection of the Museum of Modern Art,[3] and a tea service has reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[4]

Sanatorium Purkersdorf

Hoffmann's style eventually became more sober and abstract and it was limited increasingly to functional structures and domestic products. In 1906, Hoffmann built his first great work, the Sanatorium in Purkersdorf. Compared to the Moser House, with its rusticated vernacular roof, this was a great advancement towards abstraction and a move away from traditional Arts and Crafts and historicism. This project served as a major precedent and inspiration for the modern architecture that would develop in the first half of the 20th century, for instance the early work of Le Corbusier.[5] It had a clarity, simplicity, and logic that foretold of a Neue Sachlichkeit.[6]

Palais Stoclet

Through contacts with Adolphe Stoclet, who sat on the supervisory board of the Austro-Belgischen Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, he was commissioned to build the Palais Stoclet in Brussels from 1905 to 1911 for this wealthy banker and railway financier. This masterpiece of Jugendstil, was an example of Gesamtkunstwerk, replete with murals in the dining room by Klimt and four copper figures on the tower by Franz Metzner. In 1907, Hoffmann was co-founder of the Deutscher Werkbund, and in 1912 of the Österreichischer Werkbund. After World War II, he took on official tasks, that of an Austrian general commissioner with the Venice Biennale and a membership in the art senate.

Selected works

References

  1. ↑ Pg. 79, Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History. Thames & Hudson. 1980, 1985, 1992.
  2. ↑ Vienna Secession history by Senses-ArtNouveau.com
  3. ↑ MoMA.org | The Collection | Josef Hoffmann. (Austrian, 1870-1956)
  4. ↑ Josef Hoffmann: Tea service (2000.278.1-.9) | Works of Art | Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  5. ↑ Pg. 81, Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History. Thames & Hudson. 1980, 1985, 1992.
  6. ↑ Dr Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory: a historical survey, 1673-1968. Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0521793068

Literature

External links

Persondata
NAME Hoffmann, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Austrian architect and designer
DATE OF BIRTH 1870-12-15
PLACE OF BIRTH Brtnice
DATE OF DEATH 1956-05-07
PLACE OF DEATH Vienna