AUSTRIAN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN: BEYOND TRADITION IN THE 1990s
In the years approaching World War I Vienna was an international center of culture and intellect that produced such luminaries as Freud and Wittgenstein in the social sciences, Schiele and Klimt in painting, Schoenberg and Mahler in music. Early 20th-century Vienna also produced some of the greatest architects of the early modern movement known as the Jugendstil or the Vienna Secession. Designers such as Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, and Josef Hoffmann left behind the precepts of heavy German classicism and lavishly ornamented surfaces that made 19th-century Viennese buildings resemble wedding cakes, and conceived buildings that were pure geometry, with only the most severe and stylized decoration.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The architecture firm Coop Himmelblau has received international attention as well, but its work is somewhat less accessible than Hollein’s. Its designs are often composed of seemingly discordant arrangements of intersecting volumes, making them avatars of deconstruction. But according to Zukowsky, “the firm feels more comfortable with the description ‘architectural dematerialization.’ They think of it as ‘dearchitecture that decomposes and destructs’ buildings.” If this is somewhat difficult to grasp, so are many examples of deconstruction, which as an architectural movement has found greater favor in academic and theoretical circles than in the real world. Coop Himmelblau’s philosophy may become clearer when it finishes its first major U.S. project, a commercial complex currently under construction on Melrose Avenue in the heart of Hollywood–the model of which looks like another unruly mass of randomly arranged asymmetrical shapes.
It’s difficult to think of a piano as “flashy,” but that’s how Wardropper describes Hollein’s. Its madly sensuous, curvilinear body is supported by powerful, polished bronze legs and pedals that seem to float on air, setting it apart from more conventional instruments. But it is most striking in its use of color. Closed, its rich black enamel finish is similar to other pianos and gives little hint of the surprise it holds when the lid is opened and the keyboard is exposed. The vivid scarlet finish and gold-leaf patterns that adorn these hidden surfaces give the piano a distinction that is almost alarming. One might go so far as to call it kitsch, but one would certainly never call it irrelevant. Amos Elon may well be right about the decline of the Austrian intelligentsia, but this exhibition suggests that its design community is still vital.
