Similar in many ways, Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos had competing ideas about Modernism

The exhibition presents a contrasting selection of works from two pioneers of Modernism, complete with historical background and examples of their impact extending up to the present day. Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) and Adolf Loos (1870–1933) were the most important architects and designers in Vienna around 1900 in the generation after Otto Wagner (1841–1918). They developed two contrary approaches to the expression of individuality and self-realization among modern consumers. Josef Hoffmann followed a revolutionary path that led to the creation of utilitarian objects and architecture as aesthetic products in an ever-changing array of new designs. Adolf Loos pursued an evolutionary strategy that viewed utilitarian objects and architecture not as art products, but as the discrete background for individual lifestyles. These two contrary mindsets represent fundamental interpretations of the tasks of modern architects and designers as well as different images of modern lifestyles of the emancipated citizen.
MAK Exhibition View, 2014 WAYS TO MODERNISM. Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, and Their Impact n the front: Otto Wagner, Façade reconstruction of the “Die Zeit” dispatch office, 1902 Following plans by Alfred Krischanitz and Otto Kapfinger, 1985
MAK Exhibition View, 2014 WAYS TO MODERNISM. Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, and Their Impact n the front: Otto Wagner, Façade reconstruction of the “Die Zeit” dispatch office, 1902 Following plans by Alfred Krischanitz and Otto Kapfinger, 1985 © eter Kainz/MAK

In five segments, the exhibition shows key works, their influences, and the impact of the work of Hoffmann and Loos. Beginning with the establishment of individual expressions of taste around 1750, the first two chapters show the achievements and developments of the previous generations upon which Hoffmann and Loos built or to which they reacted. The focus is on the reactions to the crisis in the applied arts in the in-dustrial age as well as the development of a genuinely modern language of form by Otto Wagner.

The central chapter is dedicated to the period around 1900. In original drawings as well as utilitarian objects, furniture, and models, these two opposing interpretations of modern lifestyles are contrasted with one another. One central topic is the modern city building: the Looshaus on Michaelerplatz in Vienna and Hoffmann’s Stoclet House in Brussels. For the first time, reconstructions of two interiors created around the same time by Loos and Hoffmann will be shown. In the bedroom from Josef Hoffmann’s Salzer Apartment (1902) objects are organized into a strict system of square ornamentation, while the bedroom in Loos’s own apartment (1903) evokes intimacy through the appearance of textiles that were not designed by the architect.

Two other segments illuminate the continuation of Josef Hoffmann’s aesthetic approach to Modernism and Adolf Loos’s evolutionary and emancipatory strategy. From 1910 onward, changes in society and a new generation of architects resulted in new approaches to Modernism that built on the ideas of Hoffmann and Loos. Humancentered and socially oriented concepts by Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank combine the two mindsets. Reconstructions of Hoffmann’s opulent Boudoir d’une grande vedette [Boudoir of a great star] (1937) and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s Working Single Woman’s Apartment (1929), by contrast, illustrate contrary positions. The internationally oriented Austrian avant-garde is represented by Ernst Plischke and the Vienna office of Singer & Dicker. Bernard Rudofsky’s interpretations of modern lifestyles demonstrate a further development of Loos’s cultural criticism.

The final chapter shows the continued influenceof Hoffmann’s and Loos’s approaches from 1945 onward. After the rediscovery of Viennese Modernism, postmodernism experimented with these concepts, as works by Hans Hollein, Hermann Czech, and others show. Contemporary architecture follows Loos’s economical and emancipatory path, as evidenced by recent ready-made concepts (Lacaton & Vassal, Paris), „Raumplan“ strategies (Werner Neuwirth, Vienna), and selfbuilt projects (Anna Heringer, Laufen, DE).

Guest Curator Matthias Boeckl
Curator Christian Witt-Dörring, MAK Curator

Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos, the two most important architects in turn-of-the-century Vienna, were born five days apart in 1870, a few dozen miles from each other in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now in the Czech Republic.

Their friendship, rivalry and divergent philosophies of Modernism are explored in a riveting new exhibit at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (MAK). “Ways to Modernism: Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, and Their Impact,” on view until April 19. ... dizzying array of furniture, textiles, household items, original sketches, paintings and architectural reconstructions—intelligently organized and arrayed by curators Christian Witt-Dörring and Matthais Boeckl—the exhibit of more than 600 objects brings to life the milieu of the early 20th-century Vienna whose celebrated look was largely shaped by these two men.

Much of show’s success has to do with how persuasively the architectural and design ideas of its two protagonists are presented as reactions to industrialization, democratization and emerging aesthetic practices. The wall texts in German and English are impressively thorough and well written, although visitors who want to take in the whole exhibit in under two hours are encouraged to selectively skim.

Source: WSJ