Josef Hoffmann 1870-1956; In the Realm of Beauty

Koln: Taschen, 2007. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. Very good. The format is approximately 7.375 inches by 9 inches. 96 pages. Illustrations (some in color). Map. Bibliography. Cover has back and front folding flaps. August Sarnitz is a practicing architect and professor of history and theory of architecture at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna. His many publications include books on Josef Hoffman, R. M. Schindler, Lois Welzenbacher, Ernst Lichtblau, Adolf Loos, and E. A. Plischke. Josef Hoffmann (15 December 1870 - 7 May 1956) was an Austrian-Moravian architect and designer. He was among the founders of Vienna Secession and co-establisher of the Wiener Werkstätte. His most famous architectural work is the Stoclet Palace, in Brussels, (1905-1911) a pioneering work of Modern Architecture, Art Deco and peak of Vienna Secession architecture. The Stoclet Palace, made in collaboration with Gustav Klimt, is the most famous work of Hoffmann, the Vienna Secession, and of the Wiener Werkstätte. It is a visible turning point from historical styles to modern architecture. In 1903, along with Koloman Moser, and banker Fritz Wärndorfer, he launched an ambitious venture, the Wiener Werkstätte, an enterprise of artists and craftsmen working together to create all the elements of a complete work of art, or Gesamtkunstwerk. including architecture, furniture, lamps, glass and metal work, dishes and textiles. Hoffmann designed a wide variety of objects for the Wiener Werkstätte. Some of them, like a lamp, and sets of glasses are on display in the Museum of Modern Art and a tea service in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The avant-gardist The influence of the Austrian architect and designer Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) is extraordinary: for a period of over 60 years he kept up an aesthetic dialog with Modernism, the International Style, and Art Deco. Before being rediscovered in the 1980s by the Post-Modernists, his work was nearly forgotten; now his importance is unquestioned. As a designer he was one of the leading proponents of the Wiener Werkstätte, with its close connection to the Arts and Crafts movement. As an architect, he built the first modern buildings in Europe, such as the Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) and the Palais Stoclet (1905-1911). Traversing several styles and schools during his lifetime, his work shows a consistent Formalism. He abandoned Functionalism long before it became obsolete. In a historic sense, Hoffmann was doubly avant-garde: in both the rise and fall of Modernism.