The
Secession, as seen through Josef Hoffmann and Josef Maria Olbrich
Hoffman's "Purkersdorf Sanatorium"
"To
the age, its art. To art, its
freedom."
This was the motto of the Secession, founded in 1897 by progressive
artists in Vienna, including Josef Hoffman and Josef Maria Olbrich. The Secession fought against the historicist
tendencies of Viennese
architects of the 19th century, and against the loss of artistic
quality due to a lack of innovation.
Artists of the Secession were determined to create a "true and
proper"style that derived from its own time and spoke to contemporary
life. While the movement was
concerned with aesthetic values and decoration, it was also distinctly current,
especially in its use of materials and building techniques which could only
have occurred after the Industrial Revolution. The careers of Olbrich and Hoffmann run parallel to one another
in their exploration of the "modern",
in both architecture and the decorative arts.
Olbrich and Hoffman met as students at
the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the 1892, and immediately began to spend
their time debating and discussing the architecture of their time. Hoffmann characterized the atmosphere
of their discussions by a "mixture of youthful joie de vivre and avant-garde
fervor"
[2]
. Both architects had close relationships
with their teacher, Otto Wagner, and had taken from him the enthusiasm for
creating a newly modern architecture.
Hoffman and Olbrich, however, did not share Wagner’s rationalist
and classicist fundamental
attitude. They wanted to take
the Jugendstil movement represented by Wagner
even further, and were determined to educate the public to appreciate the
art of the avant-garde. Thus,
following Gustav Klimt, they created the Secessionist movement in 1897.
The Secession began its work at a time of artistic as well as political
change. Not only was there a
positive turn toward the radically new in the arts, but Lueger had just been
appointed mayor of Vienna, against the Emperor's wishes. Lueger was a liberal, and soon after the
creation of the Secession he permitted the construction of a Secession building
[3]
. Olbrich was commissioned to
design the building, which was originally supposed to be along the Ringstrasse.
Olbrich's designs however, representative of the Secessionist style,
did not fit in with the established standard of designs along the Ringstrasse,
and the building site was moved. The
design, much like many of the buildings by Olbrich and Hoffman, was functional,
massive, and dynamic. The ground
plan of the Secession building reveals very simple geometric forms, while
the building is rich with symbolism and decoration.
This speaks to the style of the Secession, which can be defined by
simple and geometric abstraction, as well as rational, geometric decoration
and symbols. The Secessionist
architects had three major principles:
that art should "express its own time", that each object
"should be like a contemporary piece of clothing, which is not patterned
on historic costumes of the past", and that the beauty they create should
be "the fruit of awareness, and not a pack of lies."
[4]
They sought a decorative language that
was more fitting for their time, and in this search, their designs grew to
be more rational, simple, and less ornate.
This remained consistent in the architecture of Olbrich and Hoffmann
as well as in their furniture and objects.
Though the work of Olbrich and Hoffmann exemplify the Secessionist
style, their specific approaches were different.
Olbrich was unique in Vienna for his closeness to the European Art
Nouveau, from which
he adopted motifs of curves and flowers and delicate ornamentation, creating
a rich combination of rigid geometry and delicate decoration. Hoffmann, on the other hand, paid less
attention to ornamentation, and his work shows a more consistent desire for
order and control. His work is
characterized by thin planar surfaces, with flat decorative borders, which
serve to break down the masses of the structure, Hoffman's architecture, interiors
and decorative objects all use geometric patterning, which came to define
his work. Olbrich, Hoffman, and other Secessionist
architects grasped Wagner’s philosophies of functionalism and industrialization
and took them even farther from the societal norms and traditions of the late
19th century, but they, like Wagner, never reached the potentially
distinctive style they were seeking. The Secessionist style, too, held onto
the artistic values of historicism, particularly in the decoration and ornamentation
of their buildings. Their designs
were still variations (if refined versions) of past styles, as opposed to the completely
new form of architecture that was yet to come.
| Klimpt
and the Secession |
| A Closer Look: Palais Stoclet |
| A Closer Look:
The Secession Building |
| Adolf Loos |