The Wiener Werkstatte
The Austrian equivalent of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, the Wiener Werkstatte [VEEN-er VEHRK-shtet-teh] (German for “Vienna Workshop”) was a direct offshoot from the fin-de-siacle Vienna Secession. Together, Josef Hoffmann (1870 to 1956) and Koloman Moser founded the Wiener Werkstatte Produktiv-Gemeinschaft von Kunsthandwerken, Wien (the Viennese Workshop and Production Cooperative of Art Works in Vienna) in 1903 as an association of artists and craftspeople working together to manufacture fashionable household goods. The concept was modeled after Charles Robert Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft, mainly to provide an outlet for graduates from the Kunstgewerbeschule.
By 1905 the Werkstatte had over a hundred craftsmen involved in jewellery making, the production of fabrics for dressmaking (the funding for the Wiener Workshop initially came from a wealthy fabric manufacturer), the construction of furniture, ceramics and other art forms which could be incorporated into daily life. Simplified shapes, geometric patterns, and minimal decoration characterized Wiener Werkstatte products.
A change in style beginning circa 1915 (proto-Art Deco) from Hoffmann’s rectilinear style to a more florid, organic approach which presaged the Werkstatte’s decline and final closure in 1932.