The Wiener Werkstatte ("Vienna Workshop") bears many hallmarks of a
modern creative movement. Founded in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann,
Koloman Moser, and Fritz Waerndorfer, this progressive alliance of
artists and designers was particularly interested in challenging
industrialised society with individual handcraftsmanship, and in
bringing different facets of life into one unified, elegant
artwork. The workshop began life in three small rooms, but soon
expanded to fill a three storey building with special departments
for metalwork, leatherwork, and woodwork, as well as a book binder
and a paint shop. Artists experimented with various materials such
as gold, precious stones, and papier mache and applied their
simple, often geometric, designs across ceramics, textiles,
typography, interior design, furniture, and fashion. In
architectural commissions such as the Purkersdorf Sanatorium and
the Palais Stoclet in Brussels, the group was able to realize its
ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork"), in which every
detail of an environment was designed as an integral part of a
coordinated whole. Though the workshop lasted only 30 years, it
enjoyed major commercial success, with outlets in Karlsbad,
Marienbad, Zurich, New York, and Berlin. It also garnered designs
from many of the leading artists of the epoch, including Gustav
Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka,and Egon Schiele. Today, the Vienna Workshop
is recognized for its comprehensive approach to artistic practice
and its stylistic influence on Art Deco and Bauhaus.
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