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Wiener Werkstatte: A Revolutionary Design Movement From Vienna
| Article
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13214 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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10 / 1987 |
1,501 Words |
| Author
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Rosemary G. Rennicke
Rosemary G. Rennicke is a freelance writer from Buckingham,
Pennsylvania, who specializes in interior design and antiques. |
By the late nineteenth century, Vienna was well on its way to becoming a thoroughly modern city. The inexorable march of a new century was drowing out the waltz of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. Leaving aside the nostalgic, tradition-loving image of Strauss and strudel, smoke-filled cafes and comic operettas, Vienna produced some fearless minds that leapt into the future. Freud delved into man's unconscious, Schonberg explored atonal music, and Mach probed relative time and space before Einstein formulated his famous equation.
As a symbol of progress, the municipal government had ordered a boulevard lined with public architecture to be built over the site of the city's ancient walled fortifications. Yet these stunning monuments - the city hall, the university, and the imperial palace among them - shared more with the past than the ground on which they were built. The prevailing cultural attitude called for a revival of former styles. Thus the university was built in Renaissance style to honor that great period of learning.
One group of artists was particularly outraged by the introduction of outmoded excrescences into contemporary life. These people did not want to update the past but rather to abandon it completely. Looking at their own age for guidelines to innovation rather than imitating the past, they demanded a naissance in the arts rather than a renaissance. They belonged to the Wiener Werkstatte - the Viennese Workshop Society of Craftsmen.
In an era that was just embracing the benefits of the Industrial Age, the Werkstatte determined to mold the look of the current culture literally with its hands. Quality handcraftsmanship,
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