Relations in Architecture: Writings and Buildings 9783035618785, 9783035618433

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Relations in ­Architecture: Writings and Buildings

0.1  August Sarnitz, 2010 Wittgenstein House, 1926–1928, entrance hall. Detail photo, intentionally blurred in reference to Ludwig ­Wittgenstein’s statement on blurriness: “Is a photograph that is not sharp a picture of a person at all? Is it even always an advantage to replace a picture that is not sharp by one that is? Isn’t one that isn’t sharp often just exactly what we need?” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, p. 38e

August Sarnitz

Relations in ­Architecture: Writings and Buildings

Birkhäuser Basel

Dedicated to: Stanford Anderson Beatriz Colomina Kristin Feireiss Kenneth Frampton David Gebhard Otto Graf Hans Hollein Victoria Newhouse Gustav Peichl Wolf D. Prix Eduard Sekler Julius Shulman Kathryn Smith Markus Spiegelfeld Linda Tyler

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 New Historiography and Big Data History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Social Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations . . . . . . 48 Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 The Fiction of Space: On projection differences: Spatial envelope, spatial plan, spatial form, plan libre, white cube, dark room, art space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Case Study: The Private House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Four Approaches from Vienna: Josef Frank, Friedrich Kiesler, Hans Hollein, Wolf D. Prix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Furniture and Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Emigration – The Loss of Everyday Life: Ernst Lichtblau and Ernst A. Plischke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Architectural Photography – And an Album of Photographs . . . . 214

Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Imprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

0.2  August Sarnitz, 2015 Entrance door (view from the inside) to Sigmund Freud’s ­apartment, Berggasse 19, Vienna. The Uncanny, published in 1919, was written behind these doors.

Introduction

Relations in Architecture: Writings and Buildings is like an album, a collection of documentaries with a poetic narrative accompanied by interviews and musings. Architectural images not only complement the writings, but also exist as autonomous images, as photographs in their own right. Relations in Architecture: Writings and Buildings reflects different theoretical and exemplary approaches to the architectural discourse. A complex system of codes, conventions and limitations defines our postmodern late capitalist society. Architecture, design, fashion and the arts reflect this complex system in a differentiated manner. The aesthetics of postmodern society are manifest as a consensus negotiated in ­cultural life.1 Around the turn of the 20th century in Vienna, Sigmund Freud defined the concepts of ego, id and super-ego, describing a society that believed – at least on a conventional level – in a set of binding moral and cultural standards.2 Postmodern societies suggest an id that exists without a corresponding super-ego. Thus human action, architecture, design, the arts and fashion are generally a reflection of real-life everydayness, an excitement of the average, an event society of constructed idiosyncrasies. Rarely does critical discourse lead to active political reflection. Bernard Tschumi’s book Event-Cities provides commentary on these changed urban structures of the late 20th century, while also conforming to market expectations.3 Two terms that help describe this postmodern discourse are boundless (without limits) and uncanny. Boundless seems to be a term quite suitable to discussing this architecture and art world, rooted in a time when borders are being redefined and in which boundless has both positive and negative connotations. In an era of financial capitalism, the hunger of globally active multinational corporations is boundless, but a world in which people can move freely is likewise boundless. Boundless is not only anything without limits, restrictions or constraints, the wishes of our projections and desires are also boundless. The fact of the matter is that we live in a world of boundaries, limitations and defined spaces. Restricted access is ubiquitous and present

1 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell, Oxford and others 1990; Jean-François Lyotard, Das Postmoderne Wissen, edited by Peter Engelmann, Passagen Verlag, Vienna 2012. Original: La Condition postmoderne (1979). 2 Sigmund Freud, “Das Ich und das Es”, in Psychologie des Unbewussten, student edition, Volume 3, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982, pp. 273–325. 3 Bernard Tschumi, Event-Cities, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1994.

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Introduction

in all areas: from nations to universities and clubs. This imbues architectural spaces with new meaning. Architecture now creates boundless spaces, social spaces, psychological spaces, public spaces and private spaces. This production of different spaces reflects our economic and cultural structures. This brings us to our second concept: the uncanny. While boundless (grenzenlos) is reminiscent of Otto Wagner’s book Die Großstadt (1911, Metropolis), the word uncanny (unheimlich) brings us back around to Sigmund Freud.4 Wagner and Freud both lived in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century, a time in which Vienna was the fifth-largest city in the world and an economic, intellectual, artistic and cultural center of Europe. Wagner died in 1918, before the end of World War I, an event that changed the world in ways nobody could imagine. Twenty years later, in 1938, Freud was forced to emigrate to London when the ­German Empire annexed Austria. This, too, was an act with boundless and uncanny consequences. The uncanny was a central topic for Freud as early as 1913, however, his book on the subject was not published until the fall of 1919. Freud described the uncanny as a kind of interface between aesthetics and emotion: “There is no doubt that this belongs to the realm of the frightening, of what evokes fear and dread. It is equally beyond doubt that the word is not always used in a clearly definable sense, and so it commonly merges with what arouses fear in general.”5 Conceptually, the uncanny is also associated with mechanical processes and automation, in which there is no defined association with a human. A mathematical algorithm is thus likewise uncanny: Its ability to decipher “truth” (in the sense of a high probability) is strange and therefore uncanny. Our postmodern era reflects this uncanny world of algorithms on many levels. The boundless and the uncanny seem therefore to be well equipped to describe the many aspects of our postmodernity through association. This publication brings ten viewpoints into the discussion, five of which reflect a theoretical approach and five presenting example of excellently constructed architecture. Additionally, we look at four ­decades of contemplating the designed and built world: as an architect, architectural historian, architectural theorist, and as an exhibition ­curator, exhibition designer, architectural photographer and educator. The author develops an architecture that enters into a contextual dialogue, assigning great importance to topos. He tries to avoid building an architecture of excitement, a trend currently shaping much of the architecture seen in the media. His buildings try to integrate a sense of creating and making into their perception. Materials and details are intended to generate atmosphere. The first chapter of this book, “New Historiography and Big Data History”, addresses the construct of historiography and, in a broader

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4 Sigmund Freud, Das Unheimliche (1919), S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1999. English translation: The Uncanny, trans. by David McLintock, Penguin Books, London 2003. 5 Ibid., p. 123.

Introduction

context, the flood of data, world of algorithms, Google indexers and the “Google factor” as a surprising source of information on society’s perception of architecture. In chapter two, titled “Social Housing”, the author shows us examples located in Vienna: new buildings in an urban context and new urban settlements. The third chapter, “Boundless Urbanism”, tackles the topics of “Cityscapes of Modernity” and “Cityscapes of Postmodernity”.6 Chapter four, “Transformations”, addresses changes to existing buildings. The “Fiction of Space” essay in chapter five talks about how spatial production is dependent upon the various theoretical approaches. The chapter titled “Case Study: A Private House” discusses how we live in private. “Four Approaches from Vienna” discusses several essential viewpoints on 20th-century architecture that had a very special relationship to Vienna. “Furniture and Installations” is a commentary on our cultural understanding of small-scale architecture. The ninth chapter, “Emigration”, is dedicated to cases of forced emigration from Austria, showcasing a very special network of intellectual and artistic individuals. The tenth and final chapter, “Architectural Photography”, is about important impulses generated by the photographic perception of architecture. The author would like to thank the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna – my “home base” – and the Institute for Art and Architecture, as well as all my colleagues for the hours of intense discussion we shared. The research was supported by the University Library of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Special thanks go out to Inge Scholz-Strasser, former director of the Sigmund Freud Museum, and Christof Schremmer, partner and managing member of the Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning (ÖIR). Gratitude to Ada St. Laurent and Alexandra Fialla for their help with the English edition, appreciation also goes out to Michael Wagner, Robert Kiermayer and Eva Santo. Great thanks to my publisher, Birkhäuser, for the discussion that accompanied this book, especially with David Marold, Angela Gavran and Katharina Holas. August Sarnitz, Vienna, 2020

6 David Frisby, Cityscapes of Modernity, Polity Press with Blackwell Publishers Ltd., Cambridge (UK) 2001.

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m: 1:50 Viktoria Schandl

1.1  Axonometric drawing of the Margaret Stonborough-­ Wittgenstein House, architects Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul ­Engelmann, Vienna, 1926–1928. Reconstruction of the hall and the room volumes. August Sarnitz with students of the ­Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2009–2010

New Historiography and Big Data History »The theoretical knot that must be confronted is how to construct a history that, after having upset and shattered the appar­ ant compactness of the real, after having shifted the ­ideological barriers that hide the complexity of the strategies of domination, arrives at the heart of those strategies – arrives, that is, at their modes of production. But here we note the ­existence of a further difficulty: modes of production, isolated in themselves, neither explain nor determine. They themselves are anticipated, delayed, or traversed by ­ideological currents. Once a system of power is isolated, its ­genealogy cannot be offered as a universe complete in itself. The analysis must go further; it must make the previously isolated fragments collide with each ­other; it must dispute the limits it has set up.«1 Manfredo Tafuri

In his book The Sphere and the Labyrinth, Manfredo Tafuri argues that the production of history is an artificial construct defined by an ideological framework. Tafuri takes it a step further when, in the sentence following the above quote, he references Sigmund Freud’s definition of analysis as being fundamentally infinite. He goes on to state, “Regarded as ‘labor’, in fact, analysis has no end; it is, as Freud recognized, by its very nature infinite.”2 This way of understanding of architectural history addresses the vital issue of what analysis is able to achieve and where the parameters within which an analysis can be considered valid lie.

Analyses and Positions The concept of analysis is not only infinite, as stated in the above cita­ tion, but is subject to changes in the modus vivendi. New concepts in the discourse of architectural theory and architectural history, such as critical reenacting or critical reconstructing, establish special con­nections between research and teaching and are discussed as

1 Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1987; quoted from: first MIT paperback edition, Cambridge (USA) 1990, p. 10. 2 Ibid., p. 10.

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c­ omplementary and/or alternative methods to exploring new ways of ­analyzing in historiography. This new discourse is also expanded by big data history, i.e. the collection of large amounts of data to be sorted and evaluated by various algorithms. Search algorithms and recom­ mendation ­algorithms are seen as superordinate carriers and mediators of ­information. Big data expands and differentiates our understanding of reality and history. However, algorithms are not objective. In fact, they can be discriminatory and reflect constructed codes that are ­integral parts of programming. In this context, the “Google index” and the “Google factor” of architecture will be discussed using recent examples. In principle, analysis always attempts to divide and allocate given information. In architecture, this relates to generating aspects such as materiality, structure (construction and function) and aesthetics (visual perception, in the broadest sense). These aspects were discussed during the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries as defined and reciprocal aspects. Two French architectural theorists played a major role during that era: Abbé Jean-Louis de Cordemoy (1655–1714) and his devotee, Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier (1713–1769). In a writing titled “Essai sur l’Architecture” (1753), originally published anonymously, the layman Laugier argues that the “primitive hut” is to be regarded as the germinating cell of all architecture – in the characteristic style of Rousseau’s theory of a primitive state of happiness of man. For ­Laugier, the elements of the primitive hut – column, truss and gable – are the very architectural elements from which architecture develops naturally, sensibly and functionally. Therefore, there is no need for historical ­legitimation – nature itself shows us the way. For Laugier, the wall is nothing more than a “licence”, similar to what Gottfried Semper later termed Bekleidung, dressing or cladding, and no longer a constitutive part of architecture. This paradigm shift established the ideological groundwork for the development of modernism: it is nature and the natural sciences that define the discourse of architecture in modernity. However, the path that leads to modern architecture led through the “detour” of the 19th century. Starting with colonization in the 16th century, industrialization in the 18th and the capitalization from the 19th century, the global world of products and consumption emerged: commodities production and trade. The fetishization of commodities brought a fetishization of architecture along with it. Towards the end of European historicism – a reflection of the commercialized world of goods – the question of “truth” in architecture is again discussed, increasingly and intensively. At a time when materiality and aesthetics function to a large extent as cover ups for a given structure without ever establishing an inner relationship, the question repeatedly arises as to how coherence – no matter the definition – can be attained. Otto Wagner describes this situation on several occasions in his ­writings on architecture. His statement that “the impractical cannot be beautiful” is carried forth in the two Latin sentences he inscribed on the main facade of his private villa in Vienna-Hütteldorf. When

New Historiography and Big Data History

s­ tanding in front of the main facade, one can read Sine arte sine amore non est vita (There is no life without art and love) on one side, and Artis sola ­domina necessitas (The only mistress of art is necessity) on the ­other.3 The s­entences complement one another, two parts of a statement. Yet when quoted individually, each sentence has a different meaning. Here in his own house, the architect and theorist Wagner openly presents information about his artistic and architectural concept in a way rarely done by an architect until then. These guiding principles signify two of the most important aspects of Wagner’s work: the union of utility and beauty, carried out with great passion for the cause. Wagner’s very direct short statements refer to the fundamental instructions for the production of architecture. These quotes have always been particularly relevant in the context of architectural history and the analysis and interpretation of Wagner’s work. His referencing of time-related architectural actions in crucial. In the foreword to his book Modern Architecture (1896) he refers to this directly: “THE BASIS OF TODAY’S PREDOMINANT VIEWS ON ARCHITECTURE MUST BE SHIFTED, AND WE MUST BECOME FULLY AWARE THAT THE SOLE DEPARTURE POINT FOR OUR ARTISTIC WORK CAN ONLY BE MODERN LIFE.”4 Wagner opens this permanent discourse on architecture with the notion of “modernity”, i.e. the time-related existence of human beings. Similar to analysis, architecture is also subject to permanent change, and thus there can be no “definitive” approach to architecture. The production of architecture must always be understood as a process, as a permanent work in progress. This is the reason that Wagner gave his fourth edition of Moderne Architektur (Modern Architecture), published in November 1913, a new title: Die Baukunst unserer Zeit (The Architecture of Our Times). The new title no longer assigns a descriptive adjective to architecture but only a “time-related reality” as an indicator of its substance and quality. In the Viennese tradition of architectural discourse, the positions of individual architects often differ in clarity and definition. Adolf Loos provides his analysis of architecture through various texts and narratives. His understanding of truth is very precisely founded on a post-Semperian understanding of materials and the culturally defined “utility value” of architecture. In his 1910 essay “Architecture”, Loos simultaneously explains and elaborates on his own work, describing the essential difference between architecture and art: “A house must please everyone. A work of art, on the other hand, does not need to please anyone. A work of art is brought into the world without there being a need for it. A house satisfies a need. A work of art is respon-

3 August Sarnitz, Otto Wagner, Taschen, Cologne 2005, p. 26. Translated by the author. 4 Otto Wagner, Modern Architecture, The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, Santa Monica CA 1988, excerpted from the introduction to the 1st edition. Translation by Harry Francis ­Mallgrave. Emphasis Wagner’s own.

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sible to no one, a house to everyone. A work of art tries to draw people out of their state of comfort. A house serves to comfort. A work of art is ­revolutionary, a house conservative. A work of art shows humankind new ­directions and thinks about the future. A house thinks about the ­present. […] A house has nothing to do with the arts and yet should architecture not be classified as an art? It is thus. Only a very small part of architecture is part of art: tombs and monuments. Everything else, all that serves a purpose, must be excluded from the realm of art.”5 Loos even goes a step further in his architectural discussion by completely ignoring the horizontal production of architecture in the sense of floor plans as we know them and contrasting this with his Raumplan (spatial plan), a new design principle corresponding to modernity. This way of designing in space also includes the austerity demanded by Loos, as not only surfaces but also spaces are to be used optimally. Accordingly, small interior spaces should not be unnecessarily high (in order to maintain their proportions as well). Here, Loos reflects upon austerity as a reduction to what is necessary and what is really “true”. For Loos, truth can be found where necessity and reality meet. For this reason, nudity is not an obscene representation but a necessity that helps express reality. This viewpoint explains his intellectual friendship with Karl Kraus, who summarizes Loos’s architectural position with a single sentence: “Adolf Loos and I – he with facts, I with words – have done nothing but show that there is indeed a difference between an urn and a chamber pot, and that it is within this difference that culture plays out. The others, however, the defenders of positive values, can be divided into those who use the urn as a chamber pot and those who use the chamber pot as an urn.”6 It is interesting to note that Loos did not reference his thoughts on the Raumplan method to the German art historian August Schmarsow, who, in his inaugural lecture “Das Wesen der architektonischen Schöpfung” (The Essence of Architectural Design) at the University of Leipzig on 8 November 1893, described architecture as being about spatial design. At the same time, Schmarsow took a critical view of Semper’s statements on cladding, see it as if architecture were nothing more than a “clad” structure.7 Schmarsow’s portrayal of architecture as spatial art remain of eminent importance for the entire 20th century, since space itself is imbued with architectural quality and thus a new reality. The large interiors of modern architecture acquire a double meaning: as the architectural visions and public spaces of civil consumer society. In contemporary discussions, Richard Sennett’s work reflects upon the

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5 Adolf Loos, Trotzdem, Brenner Verlag, Innsbruck 1931. Translated by the author. 6 Cited from the anniversary publication on Adolf Loos’s 60th birthday, Löcker Verlag, Vienna 1930. Translated by the author. 7 August Schmarsow, inaugural lecture, 3 November 1893, University of Leipzig, 1893. Cited from: August Schmarsow, “Das Wesen der architektonischen Schöpfung” (1894), in Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften, edited by Jörg Dünne and Stefan Günzel, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 482.

New Historiography and Big Data History

many investigations into the historiography of architecture and urbanity. His book The Fall of Public Man impressively describes changing society and the effects of industrial capitalism on public life: on urban economies, on consumer purchasing behavior and on the positioning of the great temples of consumerism in bourgeois society.8 An analysis of works of architecture does not always lead directly to the establishment of a theory, as was the case for Wagner and Loos. A Viennese contemporary of Loos, architect and designer Josef Hoffmann (both were born in 1870 in Moravia, a crown land of the Habsburg Empire), repeatedly criticized this theory in art and architecture, which to him connoted a very subjective and auratic design approach. “­Hoffmann, however, avoided […] any art theory argument he did not believe in. His distrust of intellectual theorizing in art is probably most clearly expressed in a statement he made when declining an invitation to talk about art on the radio: ‘What is there to say about art? Do it or let it be! There’s nothing to talk about, is there?’ On another occasion, he said about himself: ‘There are two kinds of artists, those that rationally build and systematically develop one thing and those that come up with ideas – I am more on the imaginative side.’”9 An analysis of Hoffmann’s work is, essentially, only possible using terms such as Alois Riegl’s Kunstwollen, or artistic volition, since his core position appears possible only through the cumulative sequence of his work. The idea of the modernity of architecture as linear progress is clearly questioned by Hoffmann. His subjective artistic design process imbues his works with timelessness, the qualities of which are primarily defined by brilliant ideas and material skill. Reflecting on architectural history, a simple and direct analysis of architectural parameters is simply not possible. In his frequently quoted essay “The Fiction of Function”, Stanford Anderson describes the supposed functionality of modernism, which is often superficially defined by its “functionality”. However, Anderson shows that the fiction of functionality was more important than actual function. The image of function – a quasi-metaphor of function – suffices to express modern functionality. His analysis includes a critique of pseudo-linear modernity that referentially ties itself to the concept of functionality without actually reflecting upon content. “My argument will be that ‘functionalism’ is a weak concept, inadequate for the characterization or analysis of any architecture. In its ­recurrent use as the purportedly defining principle of modern architecture, functionalism has dulled our understanding of both the theories and practice of modern architecture. Further, if one then wishes, as many now propose, to reject modern architecture, this is done without adequate knowledge of what is rejected or what that

8 Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1974, see Chapter 7 in particular. 9 Eduard F. Sekler, Josef Hoffmann, Residenz, Vienna/Salzburg 1982, pp. 236–237. Translated by the author.

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r­ ejection entails. Thus, I wish first to argue that, within modern architecture, ­functionalism is a fiction – fiction in the sense of error. Later, I wish to incorporate fiction within a richer notion of fiction – that of ­storytelling.”10 Stanford Anderson’s writing is of great importance to the discussion on postmodernism (Heinrich Klotz), which critically accompanies the evolution from modernism to postmodernism and exposes the terms function and fiction to permanent changes in content.

Critical Deconstruction Architecture history research is connected to the referential deconstruction of apparent objective facts. With the help of the techniques of critical reenactment and critical reconstruction, it is possible to make aspects of a design or an architectural idea visible again.11 In recent years, architecture students at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna have made repeated attempts at analyzing architecture through critical reconstruction as part of the History / Theory / Criticism platform. The parameters of architectural discussion are subject to change, the causes of which often lie in socio-economic and technical developments, beyond the controllable professionalism of architecture. Implementing acting and reacting as design and analysis parameters is of fundamental importance. Critical reenactment is therefore a promising method and mode of architectural history research.12 For example, students of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna critically reconstructed Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein’s house in Vienna (1926–1928, designed and built by her brother, Ludwig Wittgenstein), using all available historical (contemporary) information, including the furniture and different types of glass panels in the doors. Room sequences and viewing directions were precisely simulated, and in addition to new photographic documentation, analytical drawings recorded comprehensible architectural qualities. The photographer not only reconstructed the original angles of Moritz Nähr’s historical black-and-white photographs, the new photos also reference Ludwig ­Wittgenstein’s writings. The term blurriness was deliberately used to introduce new realities of the building to the discussion.

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10 Stanford Anderson, “The Fiction of Function”, in Assemblage, No. 2, 1987, pp. 18–31. 11 August Sarnitz, Die Architektur von Wittgenstein – Rekonstruktion einer gebauten Idee, Böhlau, Vienna 2011. See “Umfeld Theorie – Beispiel einer Offenen Matrix”, p. 33. 12 entwerfen erforschen. Der “performative turn” im Architekturstudium, edited by Angelika Schnell, Eva Sommeregger and Waltraud Indrist, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2016.

New Historiography and Big Data History

1.2  Video still from Resor House, Mies van der Rohe, 1937–1938, winter semester 2013, work by students of the Institute for Art and Architecture, Mario Kaya, Julian Nocker, LMVDR Animated Collage (patterned off Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, “Collage for Resor House”, 1938), HTC design studio “Building the Design” 2012/13, Angelika Schnell, Eva Sommeregger, IKA, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

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Other analyses developed out of this critical reenactment. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s first project in the United States, the Resor House (1937–1938), was chosen as an example. Starting with the famous collage in the main room, the students created a video animation simulating various daylight and seasonal situations (including snowfall).13 This impressively and comprehensibly documented the theme of transparency in Mies van der Rohe’s work. The characteristics of the glass architecture provide a reference to time – enabling a conscious experiencing of the seasons. The genius loci of the architecture is consciously superimposed with the real time of the structure, creating atmosphere from the spatial situation. This new creation and conscious re-thinking lead to a more holistic understanding of architectural history. Critical reenactment can lead to relevant discourse in a variety of situations. Students have often conducted fictitious interviews by deconstructing original writings and reinterpreting them using new combinations of questions and answers. In the winter semester 2009/10, my students at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and I deconstructed texts by Karl Kraus, Adolf Loos and Ludwig Wittgenstein using the fictitious interview method. The dialogues created by these interviews led to extensive temporal collages and situationistic incidents, with the original texts of the authors being reactivated and discursively conveyed by the students.

Big Data History and Statistical Frequency Other modes of research focused on the collection and analysis of large amounts of data. In 2008, I began conducting a study titled “Big Data History” together with my students at the Academy of Fine Arts V ­ ienna. The research project was based on the Deutsche Bauzeitung, ­Germany’s oldest technical periodical for architects and civil engineers, founded in 1867 by Karl Emil Otto Fritsch, Wilhelm Böckmann and Hubert Göbbels. The magazine was first published in 1867 under the title ­ Wochenblatt des Architekten-Vereins zu Berlin. For decades, the ­Deutsche Bauzeitung presented a representative overview of relevant debate in the fields of architecture, civil engineering, design and architectural critique. The task for the students was to query specific data fields one decade at a time, and to present these as digitally quantified text images – without adding subjective commentary. The aim was to obtain a statistically true depiction of information, for example, the frequency with

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13 Video still, work by students at the IKA, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, winter semester 2013/14.

New Historiography and Big Data History

which architects were mentioned by name (Big Data) juxtaposed with the canonical historiography. The 1920s and 1930s were an important period for our research as these were decades in which the political and cultural changes sweeping Germany were of great relevance. For the longest time, the international perspective on the architectural history of modernism was defined by Sigfried Giedion’s publication Space, Time and Architecture, based on his “Charles Eliot Norton Lectures” (1838–1939). Space, Time and Architecture was published by Harvard University Press in March of 1941, while the actual writing and translation was completed in the spring of 1940. From the very outset, this book was an essential building block of academic architectural history. This was particularly true given ­ niversity – the fact that Walter Gropius – then professor at Harvard U had personally invited Giedion to write about “The Growth of a New Tradition” (the subtitle of Space, Time and Architecture). It is interesting to read Giedion’s italicized note in the preface to the book: “History is not a compilation of facts, but an insight into a moving process of life.” And further on, not italicized, “Moreover, such insight is obtained not only by the exclusive use of the panoramic survey, the bird’s-eye view, but by isolating and examining certain specific events intensively, penetrating and exploring them in the manner of the close-up. This procedure makes it possible to evaluate a culture from within as well as from without.”14 During the project, the students statistically relativized Giedion’s statements by creating a statistically true representation using the ­Deutsche Bauzeitung. Research focused on the names of architects, cities and construction projects. The study presented below was conducted by students in the 2016/17 winter term and only results regarding the frequency of architect name mentions are shown.15 The 1920s and 1930s during the seizure of power in Germany by the National Socialists (1932–1934) were selected as examples. The frequency with which architect names are mentioned makes the respective changes visible. The results for the years 1926, 1927, 1932, 1933, 1934 and 1937 are shown as examples. (The font size of the names indicated the relative naming frequency, the colors blue, black and red are used for better readability only.)

14 Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, 7th edition, June 1947, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (USA). Note: In his preface Giedion does not mention Walter Gropius. 15 Students of the winter semester 2016/17, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute of Art and Architecture. Research on 1925 and 1926: Manuel Bonell, Andreas Zißler, 1927: Helvijs Savickis; 1930s: Adam Hudec, Solmaz Kamalifard, Adrian Man, Silvano Patton, Suna Petersen.

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1.3  Illustration No. 1: Frequency of architect names in ­Deutsche Bauzeitung in 1926, research by students of August Sarnitz, ­Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2016–2017

New Historiography and Big Data History

1.4  Illustration No. 2: Frequency of architect names in ­Deutsche Bauzeitung in 1927, research by students of August Sarnitz, ­Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2016–2017

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1.5  Illustration No. 3: Frequency of architect names in ­Deutsche Bauzeitung in 1932, research by students of August Sarnitz, ­Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2016–2017

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1.6  Illustration No. 4: Frequency of architect names in ­Deutsche Bauzeitung in 1933, research by students of August Sarnitz, ­Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2016–2017

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1.7  Illustration No. 5: Frequency of architect names in ­Deutsche Bauzeitung in 1934, research by students of August Sarnitz, ­Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2016–2017

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1.8  Illustration No. 6: Frequency of architect names in ­Deutsche Bauzeitung in 1937, research by students of August Sarnitz, ­Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2016–2017

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New Historiography and Big Data History

Image No. 1: 1926 The most common name in 1926 is Peter Behrens. The technical administration building of the Hoechst AG chemical company in F ­ rankfurt am Main, completed in 1925, was seen as a very special example of Expressionism. Image No. 2: 1927 In 1927, the names Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and O. Kurz (first name unknown) are most frequently mentioned. Gropius build the ­epochal Bauhaus building in 1926. Image No. 3: 1932 In 1932, the names Fritz Schumacher, Franz Schuster and C. Kühn (first name unknown) are mentioned most often. Less frequently, but documented, is Peter Behrens. Walter Gropius is mentioned only rarely. Image No. 4: 1933 Fritz Schumacher is again mentioned most frequently in 1933, together with Otto Risse and A. Schumacher (first name unknown). On 3 May 1933, Fritz Schumacher was removed from his position at the Hamburg Building Authority by National Socialists. Image No. 5: 1934 1934 was a year in which architects who today are no longer wellknown are mentioned with frequency: H. (Helmuth) Hille, E. Jäger, H. Bley (first names unknown). Peter Behrens still has a presence. Surprisingly, a number of historical architects are mentioned: Schinkel, Pöppelmann, Weinbrenner, Dientzenhofer and Wren. Image No. 6: 1937 The changes here are quite obvious. For comparison: The index of Giedion’s book Space, Time and Architecture (7th edition, June 1947) mentions architects with the following frequency from most to least: Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius. By contrast, the names Otto Salvisberg, Franz Schuster, Fritz Schumacher and Hermann Muthesius are missing from the index altogether.

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New Historiography and Big Data History

Big Data History, the Architecture Google Index and the Architecture Google Factor I have been conducting interviews of first-year architecture students at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna regarding specific names and Google results since 2008. Certain names were to be matched with estimates of what Google searches would return. Students are asked to write their anticipated Google results next to specific names from the fields of art, architecture, politics and media (film and music). The subsequent ­discussion usually reveals considerable surprise about the actual data: not only with regard to the respective results, referred to as the “­Architecture Google Index” (only referring to the statistical number, i.e. an indication of frequency), but also with regard to relationships between individual results. We used the Architecture Google Factor to help establish these connections. The Google Factor is calculated by dividing the highest number of results from the Google Index by the lowest. For example, the Google Index for Frank Lloyd Wright on 17 February 2014 at 10 a.m. was 15,500,000. The Architecture Google Factor shows weighted relations: Certain mega-stars of architectural history – such as Frank Lloyd Wright – have an Architecture Google Factor that is up to 70 times higher than that of well-known international architects as Hans Hollein (228,000), and an Architecture Google Factor that is 15 times higher than that of such international star architects as Norman Foster (1,020,000).16 These data increasingly reflect the intensified situation of a global presence. The difference between quantity and quality brings a growing challenge to the discourse of the new historiography. Big Data History research exerts a major influence on historiography. Data is processed as quantifiable information, subjective weighting by experts such as Giedion will become increasingly uncommon. History becomes a negotiable consensus, depending on correspondingly different groups and initiatives. The majority of individuals (e.g. participants on the Internet) will focus on a few main topics, which will be determined by the reality of everyday life. Historical perspective and knowledge will gradually fade into the background and the present will become a “one-minute story”. With postmodernism, not only has meta-narration in the spirit of Jean-François Lyotard become obsolete (The Postmodern Condition, 1979), but so has meta-history. In a next step, Lyotard’s discourse will be replaced by partial algorithms. Thus, every form of apparent authorship will finally end. Fragmentary reflections on history will take the place of subjectively formulated images of world history. The realities of a perceived present will replace the historical past. In our future, the

16 Google search results for examples with time and date: 17 February 2014,10:00 a.m.

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New Historiography and Big Data History

past will therefore be relativized – and for many, the past and history will only exist in part. This statistical comparison shows different realities, without adding any primary commentary. This is precisely the difference between big data and historiography: statistical data versus discourse on a constructed history. The algorithm formats cause authorship to be lost entirely. Possibilities for interpretation are manifold.

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New Historiography and Big Data History

1.9  Ground floor plan of the Margaret Stonborough-­Wittgenstein House, architects Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Engelmann, ­Vienna, 1926–1928, reconstruction of the main floor and various glass doors. Drawing by students of August Sarnitz, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2009–2010

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2.1  August Sarnitz Perspective drawing of the courtyard with children’s playhouse (detail above), Wulzendorfstraße residential building, 1220 Vienna, 1993–1995

Social Housing

Opinion statement and selected example projects: The emerging industrialization English and development of the modern capitalist economic system that prevailed in England in the late 18th century gave birth to a debate on social redistribution – a discussion that continues to this day. At the time, redistribution was primarily aimed at providing the population with adequate housing and medical and elderly care. Housing was a central tenet of the architectural debate and discussion in general. In 1824, the entrepreneur Robert Owen, who had emigrated to the United States from England, founded New Harmony, a communal village built for some 1,200 persons in the state of Indiana. Although the experiment failed, Owen’s ideas greatly influenced the future development of socialistic communities and social housing. A similar concept was developed by the theorist Charles Fourier with his Phalanstère, a model cooperative economic system that combined production and consumption to eliminate trade. The design of a palatial complex aesthetically modelled on Versailles was conceived to accommodate around 1,800 inhabitants. Such futuristic visions of living and working were carried forward with the ideas of Tony Garnier, William Morris and Ebenezer Howard.1 Housing is a reflection of social, political and economic conditions. Distinctive residential projects are integrated into a social system with unique conventions and different normative expectations of the individual: from the liberal pluralism of postmodernism to deterministic socialism. The Russian engineer and poet Aleksei Gastev, for example, believed in a disciplined schedule that reduced living to sleeping and sexual contact: In his concept, lights were switched off centrally at 10 p.m. and turned on again at 6 a.m., after eight hours of sleep. The working day was also to follow a strict schedule. Living and working were understood as elements of a centrally organized life. The 1927 film Metropolis by Fritz Lang addresses the dangers of technology, industry and capitalism. In mass scenes with up to 27,000 extras in the background, Lang contrasted the world of workers with that of the upper class. Rarely has the discourse on the inequality of living conditions been more vividly illustrated. In 1932, five years later, Aldous Huxley published his novel Brave New World, introducing “soma”, an opiate that induces happiness and suppresses worry and fear: one possible response to living and working.

1 The topics of housing, urban development, architecture and society are continuously highlighted by major exhibitions and publications, such as Cities: Architecture and Society, La Biennale di Venezia, 10th Mostra Internationale di Architettura, catalogue, Venice 2006.

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Social Housing

Red Vienna was a built utopia, an unconventional and radical residential program realized with conventional architecture. The new Bauhaus in ­Dessau strove to find new solutions for living that had a technological aesthetic and supported a social and idealistic revolution. The term “apartments for the minimum subsistence” (Wohnungen für das Existenzminimum) alone illustrates the processual character of the new living culture: for the masses, normative planning and distribution covered only the bare minimum. In his book Architecture and Utopia (1976), Manfredo Tafuri describes an alliance between the processes of modern capitalism and industrial production that is reflected in architecture. The linear apartment blocks of ­modernity were a reflection of optimized building processes. In postmodernism, housing is pseudo-individualized – standardized apartments in conformance with market standards are concealed behind differentiated facades. Only a small segment of the housing market allows for alternative housing models. The following three examples, all located in Vienna, were built with the help of committed property developers: 1. Residential building at Wulzendorfstraße, 1220 Vienna, (1993–1995) An additional playground, located at the centre of the residential complex, was made possible by numerous small economies in other areas. 2. Residential building at Leberberg, 1110 Vienna (1993–1995) A light-filled staircase with glass blocks in the floor creates a “luxurious” circulation area for all residents. 3. Residential building at Laubeplatz, 1100 Vienna (2000–2004) An ideal interpretation of Viennese building code made it possible to design apartments with different room heights and, on the ground floor, additional rooms for a variety of uses. A collaboration with the artist Eva ­Schlegel created an “interactive” facade with mirrors and reflectors.

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Social Housing

2.2  View of Wulzendorfstraße residential building, 1220 Vienna, 1993–1995, jutty and ground floor clad in aluminum, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 1995

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Social Housing

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2.3  August Sarnitz View of Wulzendorfstraße residential building, 1220 Vienna, 1993–1995, south-facing balconies, photo by Margherita ­Spiluttini, 1995

Social Housing

2.4  August Sarnitz View of Wulzendorfstraße residential building, 1220 Vienna, 1993–1995, close-up of jutty, clad in aluminum, photo by ­Margherita Spiluttini, 1995

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Social Housing

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2.5  August Sarnitz View of Wulzendorfstraße residential building, 1220 Vienna, 1993–1995, jutties to the east, clad in aluminum, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 1995

Social Housing

2.6  August Sarnitz Wulzendorfstraße residential building, 1220 Vienna, 1993–1995, view of children’s playhouse, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 1995

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Social Housing

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2.7  August Sarnitz Leberberg residential building, Reimmichlgasse, 1110 Vienna, 1993–1995, northwest elevation, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 1995

Social Housing

2.8  August Sarnitz Leberberg residential building, Reimmichlgasse, 1110 Vienna, 1993–1995, south elevation with sliding aluminum shading ­elements, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 1995

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Social Housing

2.9  August Sarnitz Leberberg residential building, Reimmichlgasse, 1110 Vienna, 1993–1995, staircase with side pedestals with glass prisms, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 1995 (right)

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2.10  August Sarnitz Leberberg residential building, Reimmichlgasse, 1110 V ­ ienna, 1993–1995, detail view of the south elevation with sliding ­aluminum shading elements, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 1995

Social Housing

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Social Housing

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2.11–2.13  August Sarnitz Leberberg residential building, Reimmichlgasse, 1110 Vienna, 1993–1995, detail photos of staircase, photos by Margherita Spiluttini, 1995

Social Housing

2.14  August Sarnitz Residential building at Laubeplatz, 1100 Vienna, 2000–2004, building entrance with red door for the fire brigade ladder, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2004

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Social Housing

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2.15  August Sarnitz Residential building at Laubeplatz, 1100 Vienna, 2000–2004, view from Laubeplatz, facade with silver-colored mica ­plaster and ­mirrored balconies (art installation by Eva Schlegel), ­photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2004

Social Housing

2.16  August Sarnitz Residential building at Laubeplatz, 1100 Vienna, 2000–2004, entrance hall with light sculpture by August Sarnitz, photo by ­Margherita Spiluttini, 2004 2.17  August Sarnitz Residential building at Laubeplatz, 1100 Vienna, 2000–2004, entrance hall with bench and letterboxes, walls made of precast concrete elements, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2004

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Social Housing

2.18  August Sarnitz Residential building at Laubeplatz, 1100 Vienna, 2000–2004, view of a living space with split levels, photo by Margherita ­Spiluttini, 2004 (right)

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2.19  August Sarnitz Residential building at Laubeplatz, 1100 Vienna, 2000–2004, view of the garden facade with partially mirrored winter gardens (art installation by Eva Schlegel), photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2004

Social Housing

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48

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

Introduction The publication of Collage City (1978) by Colin Rowe and Fred K ­ oetter1 gave the discourse on postmodern urban development an essential new impulse that brought perspective to modern architecture and urban planning aspirations. What had been obliquely criticized as a crisis of the object and an unpleasant state of texture was ultimately a critique on the perceptibility and shape of urban architecture. The end of the ­typological perimeter blocks after World War II in western industrialized nations can also be interpreted as a victory of anti-­ urban ­modernism and big capitalism in the sense of Manfredo Tafuri’s ­Architecture and Utopia (1976). An attempt by Leon Krier, Rob Krier and Maurice Culot to revive urban planning in the tradition of Camillo Sitte according to artistic principals was detached from the historical and economic conditions of the city and doomed to failure a priori. The retro look of ­traditional urban space only served to camouflage a staged ­historicity. The problems and tasks of shaping urban space have been perpetuated since the 1980s without ever reaching a satisfactory ideological consensus. New urban implants tried to work with different design means, with deconstructivist models or – in a more contemporary context – with biomorphic structures. What both approaches have in common is their inherent attempt to creatively reinterpret urbanity without ever noticing that actual social realities are increasingly abandoning sculpturesque models and mutating into pure communication models of an urban strategy. The real challenges to our modern communication society are new options for the temporary spatial compression of multitudes of people, for exhibitions, events, clubbings and meetings of all kinds, for example. In this context, Bernard Tschumi’s “event cities” concept is of great relevance, for architecture cannot exist without action and pro­ irectly gram. The intensity and dynamization of social processes has a d ­proportional impact on the built form. Irrespective of functional requirements, which are rapidly changing, built architecture in­creasingly demands that identity and identification are primary values: the uniqueness of a location emphasizes the singularity of a specific event.

1 Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, Collage City, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1978.

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Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

In his book The Condition of Postmodernity (1990), David Harvey highlights some of the essential aspects that accompany the evolution from modernity to postmodernity,2 as Jean-François Lyotard did a decade earlier in The Postmodern Condition (1979).3 In his book The First Moderns, Joseph Rykwert associates the architects of the 18th century and the Enlightenment with the concept of ­modernity.4 He sees intellectuality and reason as rational instruments for improving the world and a promising path leading to a new and better age in the conjoining of reason and science. Modernity was therefore a promise to the future, mostly tied to socialist or communist societal forms and cooperative or anti-capitalist economic models. The demise of old Europe in 1918 brought with the development of positions for a technical and functional modernity. The new challenges were the creation of minimal housing for those living at the subsistence minimum, the rationalization of construction and, from 1920 onwards, growing industrialization.5 The digital industrial revolution in the late 20th century finally replaced and made obsolete the old “images of modernity”. Asia, particularly China, and the United Arab Emirates became home to the world’s tallest buildings and the greatest number of skyscrapers. Today, of the fifty tallest buildings in the world, nineteen are in China and fourteen in the United Arab Emirates (a combined total of two thirds of all buildings), eight are in the USA, two in Taiwan, two in Russia, two in Saudi Arabia, one in Kuwait, one in Malaysia and one in Vietnam. In Saudi Arabia, the Jeddah Tower is projected to be the tallest building when it is finished in 2019, at around 1,007 meters.6 Skyscrapers embody the very DNA and architectural typology of postmodernism like no other type of building. With a phallic presence, such towers document the absolute possibilities of factual reality – without metaphysical referencing Gothic church towers. Hans Hollein thematized this in his drawing of the Phallus Tower in 1958 for Chicago, without perhaps realizing how intense the discussion on male supremacy would become in postmodern discourse. The urban reality of postmodernism is defined by clusters of highrises, huge shopping malls and entertainment centers. Disneyland, for example, became part of the postmodern urban context and can no longer distance itself as a separate “family park”. The commodity of architecture extends to encompass the seemingly cheerful world of Mickey Mouse, symbol of a consumerist society.

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2 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Blackwell Publishers, Malden 1990. 3 Jean-François Lyotard, La Condition postmoderne, Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1979. 4 Joseph Rykwert, The First Moderns: The Architects of the Eighteenth Century, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1980. 5 The terms second and third industrial revolution are used differently in German- and English-speaking science. 6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings, accessed on 7 February 2017.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

(page 48) 3.1  August Sarnitz Tokyo at night, Ikebukuro 2017 3.2  Hans Hollein, Skyscraper, Chicago 1958

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Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

Walter Benjamin could still describe the world expos of the 19th century as places where the exchange value of goods was glorified: “They create a framework within which utility value recedes. They open up a phantasmagoria into which one enters in order to be distracted. The amusement industry makes this easier by raising the individual up to the level of the commodity. Visitors abandon themselves to manipulation by enjoying the alienation from self and from others.”7 Benjamin’s description of the world fair has now become the general madness of postmodernism. In 1910, Vienna was a cosmopolitan city with 2,083,630 inhabitants, the fifth largest city in the world and the third largest city in Europe.8 London was the world’s largest city (7,160,441 inhabitants), followed by New York, Paris and Chicago. Berlin was almost the same size as ­Vienna, followed by Tokyo and St. Petersburg. About one hundred years ago, Vienna was a global city, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The unique socio-economic and cultural position can be explained by this function and presence, something recognized by numerous reflections on Vienna around 1900. Architects like Otto Wagner and others derive their special significance from this context. Today, the ranking of the world’s largest metropolitan regions (as of April 2016)9 shows a shift to Asia: Tokyo (metropolitan area) is the largest city in the world with a population of 37,750,000, followed by ­Jakarta, Delhi, Seoul and Manila, the fifth largest city with just under 23 million inhabitants.10 To have a hypothetical discussion about today, one would have to imagine Vienna as the fifth largest city with a population just under 23 million (comparable to Manila). Wagner, with a mega-office, would be the one the most important architects of the city, planning the entire infrastructure including office and residential buildings. Looking at this larger context, we can reframe the text of Die Großstadt – eine Studie über diese (The Development of a Great City) by Otto Wagner (1911)11 against the background of a critical re-­enactment. An ­important reference for this is the book The Endless City, a work by the London School of Economics (2007).12 A central result of the Urban Age Project, it makes a statement about the urbanization of the world. In the time around 1900, about 10 percent of the world population lived in cities. By 2007, this had already grown to 50 percent, and by 2050

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7 Walter Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 2 volumes, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1982, Volume 1, p. 50. Translated by the author. 8 www.kollermedia.at//die-größten-staedte-der-welt-im-jahr-1910, accessed on 7 February 2017. 9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_population, accessed on 7 February 2017. 10 London, in 1910 the largest city in the world, is at 34th place on the list of the largest metropolitan regions with 10,350,000 inhabitants, Note 9. 11 Otto Wagner, Die Großstadt – eine Studie über diese von Otto Wagner, Schroll, Vienna 1911. 12 The Endless City, edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, Phaidon Press, London 2007: “The Urban Age Project: Urban Age is an investigation into the future of cities organized by the London School of Economics and Political Science the Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society.” Text from the book cover.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

a projected 75 percent of the world population will live in an urban context. The current discussion on urbanity has become one of the most important areas in planning and architecture – just as it was one hundred years ago. Die Großstadt is Wagner’s great architectural legacy. It reflects modernity, capitalism and possibilities for representing socio-economic reality in architectural terms.

Pioneers of Modernity – Realism versus Verniedlichung 1. The premise of this exploration is that Wagner was a pioneer of modern architecture13 because he accepted the notion of reality as part of his architectural program,14 using and specifically emphasizing it while rejecting the approaches and concepts of historicism, eclecticism, and any type of diminution or “cutification” (Verniedlichung) in his architecture and especially in his urban development program.15 The acceptance of reality in architecture, that is, the acknowledgment of the socioeconomic and technological forces that decisively influence the architectural work at the time of its creation (in contrast to an architectural approach that denies present conditions, instead modeling off the past or interpreting specific stylistic epochs), was fundamental to Wagner’s way of thinking. His acceptance of reality in 1894 included coming to terms with new technologies and socioeconomic relationships, among them automobiles, telephones, pneumatic letter chutes, vacuum cleaners, electricity, big-city traffic and municipal rail systems, along with a host of new products and materials including, for example, aluminum. This view culminated in his 1911 Großstadt essay, which included the sociological concept of “anonymity”. My exploration begins with a pair of heteronomous concepts: reality (Realität) and diminution or cuteness (Verniedlichung). These appear suited to describe the fundamental characteristics of modern archi­ tecture in general and Wagner’s notion of architecture in particular.

13 Here, the notion of “modern” refers to classical architectural Modernism, in the sense of Louis Sullivan, Charles Mackintosh and Otto Wagner. 14 Realität (reality) and Wirklichkeit (reality) are not employed in their strict philosophical senses but for their literary affinity with an essay by Elias Canetti, “Realismus und neue Wirklichkeit”. See Elias Canetti, Das Gewissen der Worte, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1981. 15 “Diminution” (Verniedlichung) is used here in the sense of Theodor Fontane, who understood it as the denial of the real world. Verniedlichung is an approach that replaces the complex relationships of life with an apparent simplicity that is without problems.

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Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

In the German language, the word for reality (Wirklichkeit) derives its meaning from the word for working or effecting (Wirken), referring to the activity that causes something to become a reality. But how does something become real through work? Surely not because a concept, an approach or an object is simply imitated or repeated, therefore substantiating its origin in the repetition. Work in the conventional sense implies a newly established reality, consisting of innovation on the one hand and a factual transformation on the other hand. Conceptual innovation and factual transformation in architectural activity substan­ tiate this definition by materially transposing the agens architecturae from a condition of manifold possibilities into the physical existence of a building.16 There are at least two criteria for any transformation: intention and selection. Both suggest that architecture, in its true essence, interprets the reality of the present time. If Realität suggests true work, then its conceptual antithesis – Verniedlichung – contradicts this true work by inductively reducing. (Induction – to infer the universal from the particular – is the opposite of deduction – to infer the particular from the universal.) Verniedlichung implies reduction in that it changes the definition of the true standard. It is a distortion or a de-realization (Ent-Realisierung) of a real object or an attitude towards life itself. Consequently, Ver-Niedlichung is a form of limitation (Be-Schränkung); blocking and hindering the connection to true work. Ver-Niedlichung, as a form of limitation, is akin to the classical concept of idyll (Greek eidyllion, meaning small image), as a small likeness tries to vicariously replace a complex reality. The idyll was an important aspect of Jean Paul’s considerations on style in his book Vorschule der Ästhetik (Introduction to Aesthetics) from 1804.17 On the genre of epics, he writes: We have at least one small epic genre, namely, the idyll. This is, to wit, an epic presentation of pure happiness in its limitation. Higher rapture belongs to the lyric and to the romance, for otherwise Dante’s heaven and Klopstock’s occasional heaven could also be considered idylls. The limitation in the idyll can sometimes refer to the good, sometimes to insights, sometimes to social standing, and sometimes to all these things at the same time. Since one mistakenly relates it more to pastoral life, one also mistakenly places it in the Golden Age of mankind, as if this age could only move in a never-rocking cradle and not just as well in a flying chariot of Phaethon. […] At its best, one can understand that the idyll, as a pure happiness of limitation, restricts the number of actors and the power of the great state machinery, that it suits a beautified, fenced-in, bucolic life that has torn a page from the book of bliss,

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16 The Latin term is the author’s. The intention is to emphasize more forcefully the timelessness of architectural design. 17 Jean Paul, Vorschule der Ästhetik, C. Hanser, Munich 1963.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

and that it is also suited to the happy Lilliputians, for whom a flower bed is a forest and who need a ladder to harvest a dwarf tree.18 As remote, at first glance, as the connection may appear between Wagner’s affirmative concept of reality in architecture and Jean Paul’s rejection of the literary idyll as an overly starry-eyed stylistic device, the comparison of these two notions is instructive when put in relation to Wagner’s ideas on urban planning and to those of his rivals and contemporaries. In essence, the debate places Wagner and Albert E. Brinckmann against the forces of Camillo Sitte, Karl Henrici and J­osef Stübben.

2. The primary focus of this study is the twenty-three-page pamphlet titled Die Großstadt (The Development of a Great City), published by Wagner shortly before his seventieth birthday in 1911.19 This work presented his fundamental approach to the topic of city planning, and, together with its illustrations, provides a compendium of his thoughts on the field. It was occasioned by, as Wagner relates in the preface, “a flattering invitation which came to the author in March, 1910, from Professor A. D. [F.] Hamlin [sic!] of Columbia University, conveyed the request to prepare a paper for an international congress on municipal art, which it was proposed to hold in New York under the patronage of the City and State.”20 Historically, this period was rife with exhibitions and ­discussions on urban development,21 beginning with the debate surrounding the expansion of Stuttgart (1903), the plans for Greater Berlin (1907), the urban planning exhibition in Berlin (1910), the expansion plans for Amsterdam (1917) and Daniel Burnham’s urban proposals for Chicago in the United States (1908).22 Wagner made a significant restriction in his paper: He would concern himself exclusively with the concept of the Großstadt, or major urban centers in general,

18 Ibid. Translated by the author. 19 Otto Wagner, see Note 11, p. 1. Wagner’s Großstadt essay appeared in March 1911 in Vienna and in May 1912 in English as “Development of a Great City” in the magazine Architectural Record 31, pp. 485– 500. The American journal publishes the aerial perspective view of the new twenty-second district but not the site plan. 20 Ibid. 21 Various planning models were proposed for urban expansion, the most frequent being the ring-street model. In 1905, for example, Eugène Hénard developed a theoretical diagram for the expansion of ­Paris, which proposed a three-belt system of streets around the urban center. See Eugène Hénard, Études sur les transformations de Paris, fascicles, Paris 1903–1906). 22 Daniel Burnham’s 1908 plan for Chicago calls for a brief discussion. He praised the work of Georges-­ Eugène Haussmann in his report and documented his work in Chicago with forty-three plans, photos and drawings of European cities. Among these, fourteen illustrations are dedicated to Paris, five to Vienna, four each to London and Rome and three to Berlin. See Chicago Architecture 1872–1922, edited by John Zukowsky, Prestel, Munich 1987.

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Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

and would not dwell on any one specific city. He would therefore disregard all questions dealing with the establishment of new cities (e.g., Tony Garnier’s Cité industrielle, 1899–1901, 1904, 1917) or the Garden City Movement (e.g., Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin’s Letchworth, 1903). Wagner organized his study into three chapters: (1) “Das Stadtbild” (The City Plan); (2) “Die Regulierung” (Regulation of the City Plan), with a site plan and perspective drawing; and (3) “Ökonomischer Teil” (Economic Considerations), which examined square footage, costs and possible economic returns for the city.23 Complementing this tripartite division of theoretical reflections, practical examples and pragmatic analysis, he underscored the most important concepts typo­ graphically.24 Die Großstadt is quite specific in the particulars of its architectural proposals. The basic assumptions are that the most important factor in any urban solution is the scrupulous fulfillment of purpose and that art, in implementing this task, must sanction everything created. Since lifestyles have changed and technical and scientific a ­ ccomplishments are very different from what they were a thousand years ago, or even a short time ago, art must take into account these changes and adapt the cityscape to contemporary life. Wagner therefore rejected the ­nostalgia of popular phrases, such as “the art of the home” (Heimatstil/­ Heimatkunst), “co-operation in city-planning” (Einfügen in das Stadtbild) and “sentiment in city-planning” (Gemüt im Stadtbild). Also seen as ­unjustified and artistically objectionable were intentionally irregular solutions for the layout of streets and squares in an effort to create ­artificial picturesque effects imitating urban conditions arising from actual need. Wagner concluded the first chapter by noting, “There can be no doubt of the fact that the majority of mankind prefer living in a great city to living in a small one or in the country. A large proportion of the ­inhabitants of a great city are forced to do this by their occupations. Profit, social position, comfort luxury, low death rate, the presence of all the spiritual and physical necessities of life, possibilities both good and evil of recreation, and lastly Art, are all factors in this tendency.”25 Following these basic observations, Wagner presented his urban concept, distinguishing between the regulation of existing parts of the city and planning for future expansion.26 When dividing the city into

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23 Otto Wagner, Note 11. This chapter division is true only for the German edition. The translation in Architectural Record breaks the text into two chapters: “Regulation of the City Plan” and “Economic Considerations”. 24 Typographical emphasis was an important didactic feature in Die Großstadt, with the essay receiving an almost suggestive character from the use of this device. Wagner did the same in various editions of Moderne Architektur. The attractiveness of his remarks and the importance of particular concepts are clarified for the reader in this way. The device, however, was not carried over into the English translation. 25 Otto Wagner 1911, see Note 11, p. 10. Translated by the author. 26 Ibid., p. 7. It is noteworthy that discussion on regulating the old part of the city was limited to a single sentence in the twenty-three-page report: “To preserve its existing beauty and to exploit its advantages in the city plan.” The future development of the city, on the contrary, must be systematized. “Safety features” for the expansion of the city must be planned and generously provided to future inhabitants.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

3.3  Otto Wagner, Die Großstadt, Vienna, 1911, “View of the ­central open space of the future twenty-second ward of Vienna”

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districts, he suggested creating a social and economic mix of people, preventing any one district from becoming monolithic. His experience showed that each district should have a population ranging between 100,000 and 150,000 inhabitants.27 In the third chapter, devoted to economic considerations, Wagner proposed different models for financing urban expansion. These were: (1) the municipal control of all public utilities; (2) a property tax, although Wagner immediately threw in the caveat that any additional tax would only increase the already enormous tax burden; (3) the relatively simple means of having the city operate as a real estate agent, buying and selling properties and using the profits to fund future expansion. Wagner’s economic proposals basically viewed the city as a capitalist entrepreneur, whose profits were to be socially and culturally reinvested in the city to finance construction of public housing, municipal sanatoriums, monuments, museums, theatres, observation towers, pavilions, etc. The tastelessness of impulsive historicism was, for Wagner, the first characteristic of “barbarism” in city planning; the second was the ­general acceptance of “the painterly” (das Malerische) as a desirattribute, something he vehemently opposed as an aesthetic able ­ standard. The painterly in the sense of planned accidents – a characteristic of the late-Romantic theory of surprise, and implemented by the curving of paths, skewing of corners and shifting of vistas – did not, in Wagner’s view, enrich the cityscape but was instead an absurd argument put forth to tarnish the idea of a straight street. “If these advocates of the ­painterly would only open their eyes, they would soon be ­convinced that a straight, clean, practical street, leading to its ­destination in the shortest possible time, occasionally interrupted by monumental buildings, aptly dimensioned squares, beautiful and ­imposing vistas, parks, etc., is by far the most beautiful.”28 Wagner ­further ­remarked that the c­ oncept of realism – repeatedly invoked in causal relationship with modern architecture – stood for and supported the new premises of said a ­ rchitecture: “Our realism, our traffic and modern technology today imperiously demand straight lines. Only by its use can we build the transit routes that are essential to a great city; only a straight line can ensure that houses, streets and people fit ­together.”29 Wagner’s approach to the large city stood in contradiction not only to the theories of Camillo Sitte but also to the opinions of most critics beyond Vienna.30 The competition report of 1893 dealt with the prob-

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27 Ibid., p. 10. 28 Otto Wagner, “Erläuterungs-Bericht zum Entwurfe für den General-Regulierungs-Plan”, Vienna 1894, printed and published by Friedrich Jasper, quoted from Otto Graf, Otto Wagner, Das Werk des Architekten, Volume I, Böhlau, Vienna/Cologne/Graz 1985, p. 93. Translated by the author. 29 Ibid. Translated by the author. 30 An important positive response to Wagner’s competition project for Vienna appeared under the title “Der General-Regulierungsplan für Groß-Wien”, Deutsche Bauzeitung 28, No. 20, March 1894, pp. 123–125.

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lem of traffic in the metropolis in a logical and functional manner. Wagner insisted upon the necessity of public rail transportation (either elevated or underground), and of radial and ring roads. Vienna served as an example of a centralized European city, and his planning proposals sought to preserve the new and exemplary character of it. He thus vigorously assailed the romantic and painterly architectural concepts of Karl Henrici, even using the example of the Champs-Élysées. Their divergence is crystallized in the following interchange: Wagner noted that he could not imagine a more beautiful vista than these seven kilometers of magnificent Parisian boulevard, whereas Henrici much preferred a two-hour hike in the Alps.31 This particular example is indicative of Wagner’s unequivocal, straight-line attitude and demonstrates that his theory of modern architecture appears to have gelled even before 1894, the year in which he began teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and two years before the first edition of Modern Architecture was published. A seminal step in the formation of Wagner’s theory can be found in the preface of the first volume of Sketches, Projects and Executed Buildings, published in 1889. Here, for the first time, he described realism as a healthy sign of progress, manifesting itself, for example, in the excellently engineered designs of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. Wagner viewed realism as a fundamental attribute of modern life and used it to ridicule the false pathos of historicism. Just as Wagner did not see the task of a single building as being that of finding a new stylistic form but rather a new formulation of an architectural hypothesis (something which he indirectly answered with the concept of Nutzstil, style of usefulness or functionality), so the task of urban planning was not to invoke historical models but to address the issues of the modern metropolis. But what distinguished the modern city? What interests were to be represented? What technological and economic changes were relevant? In response to the altered conditions of the city, Wagner felt that city planning must not only dismiss all stylistic and historical associations but must also seek a new analytical interpretation. Reality was a phenomenon to be interpreted: the supreme ethic was to make visible its internal structure, materials and processes. Consequently, the designs of Wagner’s individual buildings emphasized structural elements, not static walls and panels but just the opposite: the dynamized steel structure under pressure by immense tensile and compressive forces. In city planning, traffic arteries were highlighted, not typologically monotonous blocks of housing, but the dynamism of the traffic system. Several years later, Wagner’s dualism of static and dynamic forces was revived

The author, Josef Stübben, wrote: “Otto Wagner is one of the most outstanding architectural Austrian architects. His competition work would earn high praise simply for the charming and stylish renderings that depict the proposed designs for Kaiserin Elisabeth-Platz, the square in front of the Karls­kirche, and the urban railway stations. But in addition to his divine imagination, this artist also possesses h ­ ighly developed intellectual powers and understanding, which he puts at the disposal of modern traffic problems. We want to be modern, he says in his spirited competition report; to be modern and to be tasteless are by no means the same thing.” Translated by the author. 31 Otto Wagner, see Note 28; Karl Henrici cited in Deutsche Bauzeitung, 1893, p. 271.

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by the ­Italian Futurists, elaborated upon and interpreted with new designs into complex urban structures.

3. The Großstadt essay of 1911 was Wagner’s best, the shortest and most pointed summation of the topic. Historians have frequently pointed out that he saw the urban transformation of Paris by Baron Georges-­ Eugène Haussmann from 1853 to 1869 as a model for the European city. Like Haussmann, Wagner presented both an architectural and economic solution with Die Großstadt. The original investment capital for ­changing and enlarging the city was to be compensated by later profits, that is, profits earned by the appreciation of land values. Like Haussmann, Wagner relied exclusively on the profitability of public investment. He diverged from Haussmann in that his proposals dealt solely with urban expansion and not with the redevelopment of the historical district. Almost all recent studies of Die Großstadt have emphasized its contrast to Sitte’s book City Planning According to Artistic Principles from 1889.32 Sitte’s city planning concepts were based on historical experiences with the square: “This is the true center of an important city, where a great people’s philosophy of life becomes tangible.”33 Sitte saw the new monumental buildings as generally being poorly situated with respect to the square. For this reason, city planning needed a “practical aesthetic” that would resolve future questions of design. His instructional manual for practitioners was based on historical research and proposed to embellish the layout of all squares by projecting past examples into the future. His treatise on the relationship of buildings, monuments and squares and on the size, form and irregularities of old squares further sought to communicate a design approach in which the emotional reminiscence of delightful old urban forms could serve as criteria for new planning. Sitte consulted Aristotle, “Who summarized all rules of city planning by observing that a city must be so designed so as to make its people both secure and happy.”34 Like Wagner, Sitte saw art as the only possible basis upon which to revitalize city planning. However, in Sitte’s view, art was to be reduced to its motifs and compositional features, with the aim of explaining how qualities such as beauty and happiness

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32 Camillo Sitte, Der Städte-Bau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen, Graeser, Vienna 1889. See also the English translation, “City Planning According to Artistic Principles”, in George R. Collins and Christiane Crasemann Collins, trans., Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning (Rizzoli, New York 1986, pp. 138–329. On the Sitte/Wagner controversy, see also Carl E. Schorske, Wien – Geist und Gesellschaft im Fin de Siècle, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982, p. 60; and, C.H. Beck, Munich 1985, p. 367. 33 Camillo Sitte, ibid., p. 12 (quoted from the 1901 edition). Translated by the author. 34 Ibid., p. 2. Translated by the author.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

are produced. Sitte emphasized not the nature of art but the effect, that is, the subjective or objective pleasure of the thing itself. In this way, art and – in the future – the architecture of the city would be seen as a means to create general wellbeing. Not the content or true work in the sense of Wirklichkeit but the illusion of an urban stage was the indirect result of Sitte’s architecture of the city. Wagner initially formulated his criticism of Sitte’s theory in his 1892/93 report on the Vienna General Development Plan. He went on to develop it in Die Großstadt, harshly rebuking proponents of ­Heimatstil and sentiment in city planning. Such propositions, he argued, were simply phrases that contributed nothing to solving the problems of the great city: “To hark back to tradition, to make ‘expression’ or picturesqueness the controlling consideration in designing homes for the man of to-day, is absurd in the light of modern experience.”35 The denunciation is clear, and was aimed not only at Sitte, who can be described as a historicist by inclination, but also at Wagner’s German antagonists, such as Karl Henrici. Sitte’s eclectic attempts at creating urban spaces without allowing for the necessity and reality of the modern metropolis was also severely criticized by the German art historian Albert E. Brinckmann at the turn of the century. In 1908, Brinckmann published his solution to the artistic challenge of form, Platz und Monument (Square and Monument)36, characterizing Sitte as the romantic among urban planners.37 Brinckmann’s judgment in this regard is interesting in two respects: first, because of his considerable importance as an architecture and city planning theorist; and second, because of his correspondence with Wagner from 1911 to 1912.38 Like Sigfried Giedion, Brinckmann was a student of Heinrich ­Wölfflin, to whom he dedicated Platz und Monument. Brinckmann classified styles and their characteristics by typology. His research extended back to medieval planning models and the German Renaissance and Baroque, concluding with modern efforts in city planning.39 As an art historian, his arguments were not altogether unbiased: “As with the individual work of architecture, so too in city planning did a reaction against mindless schematization have to set in. The credit for having first spoken out against it belongs to the Viennese architect Camillo Sitte and his book City Planning According to Artistic Principles (Vienna, 1889).”40 Brinckmann did not hesitate to enter the contentious debate on contemporary urban planning, describing Sitte’s concept of the

35 Otto Wagner, as per Note 11, p. 21. Translated by the author. 36 Albert E. Brinckmann, Platz und Monument – als künstlerisches Formproblem, Wasmuth, Berlin 1908, 1912, 1922. This book was reviewed in Hohe Warte 22, 1908, pp. 337–338, and all architects were strongly encouraged to abandon Sitte’s viewpoints. 37 Ibid., p. 205. 38 See especially the letter from Brinckmann to Wagner, 27 January 1912, concerning the Study of the Great City; Archives of the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, Santa Monica. 39 Ibid., p. 204. 40 Ibid., pp. 204–205. Translated by the author.

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square or plaza as only a partial truth, the effects of which were overestimated. “As an architect, Sitte is eclectic; the appendix to his book Examples of Urban Planning by Artistic Principle (for Vienna) is a theatrical composite of all architectural styles.”41 Brinckmann saw Sitte as speaking too often of the effects of picturesqueness, which too easily ranged into the theatrical. Brinckmann’s own urban sensibilities were more similar to those of Wagner: “Just as the straight line and the right angle remain the most ennobling elements of architecture, so the wide straight street and the regular architectural square will retain their value in the cityscape.”42 Brinckmann repeatedly emphasized the need to combine history and lived reality in urban design. In a letter written to Wagner in January 1912, he congratulated Wagner on Die Großstadt and in particular for opposing all “picturesque senility” and “Sitte-­ esque sentimentality”.43 He went on to note that, “We must move beyond such petty games and obsequious finery, and so we will.”44 It is evident that Brinckmann, like Wagner, accepted reality and art as the only possible fundaments of modern urban design and that he rejected Sitte’s picturesque approach to city planning due to its Verniedlichung, or diminution, into something akin to an idyll. Realism was employed as a stylistic device in 19th-century novels as a means of achieving the actual – reality – unrestricted and total reality. It was important that nothing was excluded from this reality, neither for aesthetic reasons nor on the basis of social or moral conventions. ­Literature was in search of realism without conventions. In Wagner’s case, the object under investigation, the metropolis, was regulated solely by the concept of art. All necessities, all needs, of a large city – from the transport of coffins to luxury shops and an airport – were acceptable; as long as they were artistically designed. Everything created must scrupulously fulfill its purpose and be consecrated by art, representing for Wagner a visible Kulturersatz, a substitute for culture. In a monument he proposed for the front of the Kaiser Franz Josef City Museum in 1909, he represented culture allegorically as a tamed beast of prey. As noted earlier, Wagner’s publication on the boundless city was composed both of a written report and architectural drawings. The text was sufficiently abstract to be a valid description of a modern metropolis; the drawings, however, were a testimonial to the historical spirit of the moment. The large aerial perspective of the future twenty-second district of Vienna, looking toward the city park, shows two surprising architectural details. One is the central position of the church, clasped by two U-shaped buildings alongside, similar to the original campus design for Columbia University by McKim, Mead and White. The other is that the perspective as a whole is a collage of Wagner’s works from

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41 Ibid., p. 205. Translated by the author. 42 Ibid., pp. 208–209. Translated by the author. 43 Ibid. Translated by the author. 44 Ibid. Translated by the author.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

this period – the unlimited creativity of Wagner himself. The “great city” is Wagner’s city, in which every building and project carefully fulfills its assigned place. It hardly seems accidental that Wagner established the general width of streets at 23 meters (75 feet), prescribing the same height for apartment buildings. Twenty-three meters is almost the exact height of his own apartment building on Neustiftgasse (1909; street height 21.53 meters, courtyard height 23.05 meters), his Hotel Wien project on Kolowratring (1910; street height 23.5 meters), his project for a university library (1910; street height 22.95 meters), as well as his final project, the Künstlerhof (1917–1918; street height 23.5 meters). The similarity between Wagner’s proposals for future urban expansion and his two completed apartment buildings of the period (on Neustiftgasse and Döblergasse) shows him to be a realist: proven architectural elements are immediately transposed into the future. Thus, the proposals presented in Die Großstadt are in fact prêt-à-porter. All technical, aesthetic and economic aspects are clarified down to the last detail. The most important aspect – the social – is, however, the most crucial to Vienna in 1911: as a liberal patrician of the golden era of Karl Lueger, Wagner was a representative of the bourgeoisie. For the aristocracy, which retained the power of administrative decision ­making, his proposals were a call to change. The social atmosphere was at this time still determined by the preservation of appearance, by genteel behavior, by what has been called “good form”. Decorum had to prevail, even if this required the omission of a considerable part of real life. A systematic transfiguration or enhancement of the everyday life of the upper classes took place in the conventional art and literature of the period. Theodor Fontane, in his letters to Georg Friedländer, coined the term Verniedlichung to describe the phenomenon.45 The apparent representation of pure happiness, as we saw in Jean Paul’s definition of the idyll, is similar to the apparent design of the city, which in Sitte’s theory becomes a built theater of the city entirely without irony.46 In such a view, the architectural spaces of the city should define urbanity – entirely in line with postmodern architectural thinking. With Wagner, on the contrary, the architectural design was what would make urbanity possible. Wagner’s demand to acknowledge reality in urban design was directed against appearance and against the idyll of Viennese society. What may appear to us as logical and realistic was, in fact, the precursor of the anonymous metropolis in The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. By accepting the demand for anonymity in the great city as a basic attribute and premise for mass society, in Die Großstadt Wagner approached the true metropolis of the 20th century. In my view, herein resides the true modernity of his urbanism.

45 Theodor Fontane, letter to Georg Friedlaender, edited by Kurt Schreinert, Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1954, p. 2. 46 Jean Paul, Vorschule der Ästhetik, C. Hanser, Munich 1963, p. 257.

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Otto Wagner’s emphasis on the traffic artery and the straight street, and his rejection of any Verniedlichung of squares and streets made the frenzied speed of the metropolis possible, theoretically anticipating the conception of the Großstadt – the “urban interchange” of which challenged city planners from Sant’Elia and Ludwig Hilberseimer to Peter Cook – as the locus of a new reality.47

Collage, Heterogeneity and Multiplicity – from Modernity to Postmodernity The following hypothesis is up for debate: Between 1918 and 1968, the promise of modernity was discussed with fervor for almost half a century. The demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe social housing development in St. Louis on 15 July 1972 was a symbolic act representing the “end” of modernity. In previous decades, “modernity” had been active throughout a fragmented socio-economic and political environment that under­went constant change during this period. In 1932, modern “European” architecture was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in an exhibition titled The International Style: Architecture since 1922 organized by two young architecture ­curators, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson. A year later the Bauhaus, an experimental architectural laboratory, was shuttered by the National Socialists and the emigration of artists and intellectuals began. In other European countries, modern architecture remained of marginal importance until 1939. It was not until after the Second World War that the iconography of modern architecture became relevant again under new auspices. After the icon of modern architecture – the Bauhaus building by Walter Gropius – was completed in Dessau in 1926, two important commentaries on modernism followed in 1927: first, the publication Metropolisarchitecture by Ludwig Hilberseimer (with its own “Proposal for a High-Rise City”), followed by the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang. ­Together, book and film changed the view of modernism even more than Gropius’ Bauhaus building. Hilberseimer describes the metropolis as a product of economic development in modern times: “Today’s metropolitan type therefore owes its origins mainly to the economic form of capitalist imperialism, which in turn is closely linked to the development of science and production technology. Its forces are increasingly influencing the world economy far beyond the national economy. […] Since production is

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47 See Antonio Sant’Elia and his design of the “Città nuova”. See also Otto A. Graf, Die vergessene Wagner­ schule, Jugend und Volk, Vienna 1969; Marco Pozzetto, Die Schule Otto Wagners 1894–1912, Schroll, Vienna 1980.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

no longer able to satisfy its own needs, it is forced into neighborly over­ production and is more concerned with arousing needs than ­satisfying them. Thus the big city appears first and foremost as a creation of all-powerful big capital, as a manifestation of its anonymity, as a type of city of peculiar, economic-social and collective-psychological foundations, allowing for the greatest isolation and closest union of its ­inhabitants. […] The big cities resemble each other in certain respects to such an extent that one can speak of an internationality of their face. They are not, like the princely capitals, related to a particular territory: physiognomy and image of their country and their nation.”48 With these sentences, Hilberseimer describes the capitalist metro­ polis. Georg Simmel argues makes a similar argument in his book The Philosophy of Money, ascribing the “lack of character of both intellect and money”49 to large cities in particular: “There are a large number of occupations in modern cities, such as certain categories of general and trading agents and all those indeterminate forms of livelihood in large cities, which do not have any objective form and decisiveness of activity.” At the end, Simmel formulates the following thought: “That money and intellectuality have in common the trait of impartiality or lack of character is the precondition of these phenomena, which could not grow on a ground other than the surface of contact of these two powers.”50 These critical observations and thoughts on the metro­ polis raise doubts as to whether it is at all possible for a “better” city to emerge through planning and intellect. Fritz Lang took up this theme in his film Metropolis. With intense images, he accused the city of representing the capitalist system in utopian anticipation. He depicted the presence and potency of the metro­ polis in a gigantomania of architecture and a multi-layering of communication: Cars, trains, planes and advertisements illustrate the city. The Tower of Babel depicted has an estimated height of over 500 meters and 120 floors. The film also shows a prominently divided society in the futuristic metropolis. The upper class lives in absolute luxury, while the working class operates huge machines underground. In the sense of “simultaneous inequality”, the day divided into 20 hours for laborers, and 24 for the upper class. An attempt to revolt against the system using a wrongly programmed robot is, however, doomed to failure. The imagery of Metropolis goes far beyond the projections of modernism. The urban world is not neatly ordered as in the urban visions of Le Corbusier and Hilberseimer, instead making use of collage to express hybrid and heterogeneous structures, in which singularity is difficult to discern, disappearing in the totality of urban mass.

48 Ludwig Hilberseimer, Großstadt Architektur, Julius Hoffmann, Stuttgart 1927, p. 1. For his “Proposal for a High-rise City” see pp. 17–20. Translated by the author. 49 Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money (published 1901), here quoted from the 3rd enlarged edition, Routledge, London/New York 2004, p. 468. 50 Ibid, p. 469 and p. 470.

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With the disappearance of borders, the lack of character of the metro­polis, and a boundless change of scale, Metropolis ends the debate on modernity and begins – at least from today’s perspective – to look towards postmodernism. I claim that the film is one of the first to depict postmodernity in urban aesthetics – similar to Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner. In Metropolis, different visual languages are collaged and counterpointed: Images of colossal technical machines represent the realm of work and exploitation, while the realm of wealth and pleasure does not resort to images of modernity, instead referring to a post-expressionist, garden-like imagery with almost biomorphic structures. In this way, the contrast to the iconography of classical modernism is intensified, and modernism is denied the opportunity to act as the projection surface for a “better” world. The film Blade Runner takes place in Los Angeles in 2019, about 110 years after Otto Wagner’s The Development of a Great City, 90 years after Le Corbusier’s “La Ville Radieuse” and 55 after Ron Herron’s “Walking Cities” (1964). Blade Runner premiered on 25 June 1982 in Los Angeles, 55 years after Metropolis was first shown in Berlin. The films are tied by a breathtaking world of images that transport the augigantic architectural metropolises. They also share the dience into ­ theme of ­capitalist production relations and the topics of artificiality, replicants and robots. But while Metropolis still visualizes a garden of pleasures for the upper class, Blade Runner goes without this pictorial representation. Blade Runner depicts a dystopian society, a dark megacity with neither sun nor nature, the inhabitants of which are mainly lower class. The upper classes live on other planets, developed by so-called replicants. These artificial people have a limited lifespan of four years and are forbidden to return to earth. The movie shows four replicants who have succeeded in returning to Earth being hunted down. The special quality of the film originates in its commentary on the possible future political, social and economic conditions of a world steeped in scientific progress. The pyramid-shaped skyscraper of the Tyrell Corporation, manufacturer of artificial humans (genetically engineered humanoids), is reminiscent of the tower house in Metropolis. The fragmented realities, mixes, collages and set pieces draw from different cultures to characterize a late modern world in which the natural and the artificial are not immediately distinct. Trash, slums and high-tech buildings exist in parallel alongside oversized billboards advertising a better future that the film never shows. Design and architecture are lost in a mega-collage of architectural objects without holistic claim. Architecture is denied any opportunity to convey humane and positive content. At the same time, the postmodern world has become a post-human scenario.51 Metropolis and Blade Runner show both post-

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51 David Harvey dedicates an entire chapter to the film Blade Runner in his book The Condition of Post­ modernity.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

modern scenarios – situations of complexity, heterogeneity, artificiality, mixing, collage and alienation. K. Michael Hays published his book Modernism and the Posthumanist Subject in 1992, placing the architectures of Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer in a new, post-humanistic context: “I shall argue that an analogous perceptual shift, which I shall call posthumanism, can be detected within modern architecture – in particular the architecture of Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer. Posthumanism is the conscious response, whether with applause or regret, to the dissolution of psychological autonomy and individualism brought by technological modernization; it is a mobilization of aesthetic practices to effect a shift away from the humanist concept of subjectivity and its presumption about originality, universality, and authority.”52 Hays argues that the rationalization that accompanies the entire movement towards modernization carries within it the genes of a post-humanist situation: “In humanist thought the role of the subject vis-à-vis the object has been that of an originating agent of meaning, unique, centralized, and authoritative.”53 Modern humanist architecture, such as Wagner’s Postal Savings Bank or Louis Sullivan’s department stores, still represents the coded values of a bourgeois world. With the progressive rationalization of modern architecture, an objecthood developed to which the subject had to subordinate itself. From this point of view, the intellectual ­transition from modernity to postmodernity is only gradual. Modernity and the post-human subject became the postmodern post-human subject. In mass society – a post-individual world – the so-called keywords are heterogeneity, consumption and multiplicity. In many areas, social consensuality is actually only minimal consensus; the historical concept of consensuality has lost its importance as a driver of urban planning. In late capitalism, aesthetics leads to a sham discussion because it is not about critical positions, but about options for marketing and appropriation. Postmodern architecture reacts on the basis of an “aesthetic excitement” that is in no way related to its significance in terms of content. The aesthetic excitement wears off rapidly because it cannot age and ripen, instead simply becoming “old”. It does not develop a patina, but rather mutates into aesthetic garbage within a very short time. In order to escape such situations, shopping centers, hotels and restaurants must be continuously redesigned in order to fascinate consumers and provide renewed “excitement”. Postmodern architecture has short life span, similar to that in the fashion industry. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Georg Simmel analyzed the short-lived nature of fashion in his essays titled “Die Mode” (­ Fashion) and “Das Problem des Stils” (The Problem of Style), un­ covering what he termed a “nervousness” of the era.54 This ­nervousness

52 K. Michael Hays, Modernism and the Posthuman Subject, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1992, p. 6. 53 Ibid., p. 5. 54 Georg Simmel, “Die Mode”, in Philosophische Kultur, Klinkhardt, Leipzig 1911, pp. 31–64. Georg ­Simmel, “Das Problem des Stils”, in Dekorative Kunst 11, No. 7, 1908, pp. 307–316.

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is an e­ xpression of the tension that arises from a lack of composure faced with the reality of a situation. The nervousness of an era is therefore also a reflection of maximally alienating socio-economic conditions. Robert Musil addresses with the topics of nervousness and lack of characteristics on a literary level. In his seminal work The Man W ­ ithout Qualities (first published in 1943), the main character Ulrich is a “man without qualities”, who avoids seriously professing any point of view and evades any form of commitment in his private life in order to keep new options open. With this “lack of qualities”, Ulrich symbolizes the metropolitan human. Urban lifestyles combine two positions here: the characterless Ulrich (the individual) and the characterless money (trade) of the metropolis. Half a century later, Rem Koolhaas titled his essay on urbanity “The Generic City” (1994).55 He describes the city as a useful product that functions according to the rules of contemporary needs. The first paragraph opens with critical commentary on the relation of the city to historicity: “To the extent that identity is derived from physical substance, from the historical, from context, from the real, we somehow cannot imagine that anything contemporary – made by us – contributes to it. But the fact that human growth is exponential implies that the past will at some point become too ‘small’ to be inhabited and shared by those alive. We ourselves exhaust it.”56 And the market-compliant adaptability of the city is described as its new functionality: “6.1 The great originality of the Generic City is simply to abandon what doesn’t work – what has outlived its use – to break up the blacktop of idealism with the jackhammers of realism and to accept whatever grows in its place.”57 “The Generic City” analyzes the reality of urban change when subjected to rapid population growth. What Koolhaas calls “the generic city” is in reality a city with new, seemingly featureless characteristics. The lack of consensual models of architectural and urban design is an essential characteristic of the new featurelessness. Therefore, there are partial interventions in the urban structure – but no overarching architectural planning. The postmodern, featureless urban space is fragmented, particularized, zoned and controlled. Future urban spaces will increasingly be characterized by social multiplicity instead of physical objects; cities will be appropriated more through processes and less via function. With the financial crisis of 2008, the economy and society underwent fundamental and lasting changes. Globalization and digitalization have created new parameters to which architecture and urban planning react.

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55 Rem Koolhaas, “The Generic City” (1994), in S, M, L, XL, The Monacelli Press, New York 1995, pp. 1248– 1264. 56 Ibid., p. 1248. 57 Ibid., p. 1252.

Boundless Urbanism: Modern and ­Postmodern ­Situations

Real estate has become an investment alternative on a large scale, especially when the interest rates (zero interest rate policy) of the major central banks in Europe, North America and Asia are low. Architecture as a tradable commodity with good interest rates and inflation protection is now a reality that accompanies postmodern society.

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4.1  Architect team Baumgartner Höhe, Sarnitz and Soyka-SilberSoyka, Otto Wagner Hospital, reconstruction and expansion of Pavilion 16, Department of Psychiatry, 1140 Vienna, 1997–2001, sketch of the additions, statically independent “boxes”

Transformations

Opinion statement and exemplary projects: Transformation has many different levels of meaning. In electrical engineering, it refers to influencing the amplitude of alternating voltage (transformers); in mathematics, graphics and physics it is the conversion of coordinates (coordinate transformation), and in genetics it means transferring DNA to a cell. In architecture, the term can be used for a multitude of different “transformations” of existing architectural objects, the evolution of various uses.1 One could also say that, in architecture, transformations are reality. The history of architecture has seen the conversion, adaptation and restructuring of buildings – going all the way to demolition, which is a form of total transformation, of destruction. All visible and sensitive changes exist somewhere in between. Architecture has a history of transformation: from expansions in the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods to the subtle adaptation of buildings by architects like Carlo Scarpa in Venice in the 20th century. Transformations are a great challenge for architects, requiring a profound understanding and knowledge of the existing structure. One of the most famous examples of transformation is that of a Greek temple converted to a Catholic cathedral in Syracuse, Sicily. Here, columns and walls are interwoven to form a new architecture. The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is a wonderful example of existing architecture being “occupied” by a new religion, a symbol of political change and a new dominance of old history. New York lofts are another classic example of urban transformation, with one existing architectural type merging into another. These transformations are of particular importance for the urban consciousness, reflecting the complexity of architectural structures in the fabric of the city. In many European cities, the entire cityscape has been changed by attic conversions and roof extensions – even though it is not always easy for all to see. The transformation concept was particularly relevant for the architect, designer and artist Hans Hollein. His collage of aircraft carriers “stranded” in the landscape (1964) stretched the very concept of architecture itself: the aircraft carrier acted as a small yet complex town, transposed into a new environment. Castles, factories and railway stations are turned into museums; hospitals, office buildings, hotels, bunkers, schools and churches become

1 Since 2009, August Sarnitz has been on the Editorial Board of the US-based journal Int | AR: Interventions Adaptive Reuse, dedicated specifically to the field of transformation in architecture. Editors-in-chief: Markus Berger, Liliane Wong and the Department of Interior Architecture, Rhode Island School of ­Design. Distributed by Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, Switzerland.

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a­ partments; bank buildings, factories and water towers are converted into hotels – transformations are manifold and omnipresent. They change the DNA of the original building, developing a new structure, function, materiality and scale. Together with committed clients, I have been able to carry out ­several transformations in Vienna. Together as the team of Sarnitz-Soyka-Silber-­ Soyka), we successfully won a Europe-wide competition for the refurbishment of the Otto Wagner Hospital (formerly the Baumgartner Höhe Hospital), which was built between 1997 and 2001.2 Although the structure’s use as a hospital was continued in principle, after almost hundred years therapeutic and technical requirements have changed so fundamentally that one can truly speak of transformation. The listed building’s central wall, almost a meter thick, was removed and replaced by columns. This changed the DNA of the entire building while allowing the project to be completely redesigned within the historic building fabric. The Glanzing Children’s Hospital in Vienna’s 19th district had been vacant for several years before being transformed into a residential building. One of the project’s biggest challenges was its circulation. This was solved by transforming the long hospital corridors were into ancillary rooms such as kitchens, bathrooms and storerooms. The former basement was turned into a wellness landscape with an indoor pool and direct access to the park through a new winter garden (2001–2005). In Vienna-Lainz, a major urban transformation project for the largest former nursing home of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was discussed together with experts. Changes in care standards enabled its transformation into a large complex of some 2,000 new apartments. The concept (by August Sarnitz with Gerhard Brandt and Andrei Gheorghe) won second prize in 2011. Another fine example of transformation is the expansion of the Vienna’s oldest wine tavern in 2007–2008. St. Peter’s Monastery has been operating the wine tavern in Vienna-Hernals since the year 1042. New exterior areas (a patio with pergola) were added to the listed building from the Baroque and Biedermeier periods, and various adjoining rooms below the courtyard expanded available space. The transitions and interfaces between the existing building and the intervention were defined by design, and material transitions were carefully orchestrated.

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2 Die Stadt außerhalb, edited by Caroline Jäger-Klein and Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2015.

Transformations

4.2  Architect team Baumgartner Höhe, Sarnitz and Soyka-SilberSoyka, Otto Wagner Hospital, reconstruction and expansion of ­Pavilion 16, Department of Psychiatry, 1140 Vienna, 1997–2001, entrance facade with “box” and new glass vestibule, photo by August Sarnitz, 2001

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(left) 4.3  Architect team Baumgartner Höhe, Sarnitz and Soyka-SilberSoyka, Otto Wagner Hospital, reconstruction and expansion of Pavilion 16, Department of Psychiatry, 1140 Vienna, 1997–2001, new corridor with new sanitary rooms, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2001 4.4  Architect team Baumgartner Höhe, Sarnitz and Soyka-SilberSoyka, Otto Wagner Hospital, reconstruction and expansion of Pavilion 16, Department of Psychiatry, 1140 Vienna, 1997–2001, new central base at the entrance, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2001 (top) 4.5  Architect team Baumgartner Höhe, Sarnitz and Soyka-SilberSoyka, Otto Wagner Hospital, reconstruction and expansion of Pavilion 16, Department of Psychiatry, 1140 Vienna, 1997–2001, newly “implanted” sanitary rooms and built-in cupboards for patient rooms, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2001

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4.6  Architect team Baumgartner Höhe, Sarnitz and Soyka-SilberSoyka, Otto Wagner Hospital, reconstruction and expansion of Pavilion 16, Department of Psychiatry, 1140 Vienna, 1997–2001, cross-section with additions

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4.7  Architect team Baumgartner Höhe, Sarnitz and Soyka-SilberSoyka, Otto Wagner Hospital, reconstruction and expansion of Pavilion 16, Department of Psychiatry, 1140 Vienna, 1997–2001, lounge areas in the new addition, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2001 4.8  Architect team Baumgartner Höhe, Sarnitz and Soyka-SilberSoyka, Otto Wagner Hospital, reconstruction and expansion of Pavilion 16, Department of Psychiatry, 1140 Vienna, 1997–2001, lounge area in the new addition, photo by Margherita Spiluttini, 2001

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4.9  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building (formerly the Glanzing ­Children’s ­Clinic, transformation of a heritage-protected building), 1190 ­Vienna, 2001–2005, new main wing and attic addition, photo by August Sarnitz, 2001

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4.10  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building (formerly the Glanzing ­Children’s ­Clinic, transformation of a heritage-protected building), 1190 ­Vienna, 2001–2005, secondary wing with new glass ­addition, photo by August Sarnitz, 2001

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4.11  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building (formerly the Glanzing ­Children’s ­Clinic, transformation of a heritage-protected ­building), 1190 ­Vienna, 2001–2005, new glass addition, photo by Pez ­Hejduk, 2001

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4.12  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building (formerly the Glanzing ­Children’s ­Clinic, transformation of a heritage-protected building), 1190 ­Vienna, 2001–2005, indoor swimming pool, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2001

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4.13  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building (formerly the Glanzing ­Children’s ­Clinic, transformation of a heritage-protected building), 1190 ­Vienna, 2001–2005, indoor swimming pool, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2001

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4.14  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building (formerly the Glanzing ­Children’s ­Clinic, transformation of a heritage-protected building), 1190 ­Vienna, 2001–2005, indoor swimming pool, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2001

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(previous double page) 4.15  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building (formerly the Glanzing ­Children’s ­Clinic, transformation of a heritage-protected building), 1190 ­Vienna, 2001–2005, indoor swimming pool, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2001

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4.16  August Sarnitz St. Peter’s Monastery, 1170 Vienna, 2007–2008, expansion and refurbishment of a heritage-protected building, new passage to the service rooms, photo by August Sarnitz, 2008

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4.17  August Sarnitz St. Peter’s Monastery, 1170 Vienna, 2007–2008, expansion and refurbishment of a heritage-protected building, printed glass wall cladding, photo by August Sarnitz, 2008

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4.18–4.20  August Sarnitz St. Peter’s Monastery, 1170 Vienna, 2007–2008, expansion and refurbishment of a heritage-protected building, new reinforced concrete staircase; detail of stair railing; new entrance area with colored concrete staircase; photo by August Sarnitz, 2008

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4.21  August Sarnitz St. Peter’s Monastery, 1170 Vienna, 2007–2008, expansion and refurbishment of a heritage-protected building, new entrance area with historical reference, photo by August Sarnitz, 2008

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5.1  Peter Kogler Exhibition view, ING Art Center, Brussels, 2016, photo by Atelier Kogler

The Fiction of Space

On projection differences: Spatial envelope, spatial plan, spatial form, plan libre, white cube, dark room, art space

1. Boundaries Questions of space are always tied to questions of boundaries, limitations and perceptions. Philosophical questions about space per se – about the concept of space – maintain a manifold presence in the reality of our perception. Space always denotes a political space, defined by boundaries such as border fences and walls – medieval city walls are a frequently cited historic example of this. Space is thus defined by position: exterior space, interior space and interspace. In reality, space is actually spaces. This pluralism of spaces – with all its spatial, temporal and cultural differences – is manifest in the appropriation of space on the social and architectural levels. Discussions about space will always be fragmentary, as there is no ­absolute definition of architectural space. An awareness of different spatial theories and concepts is based on the assumption that the ­ perception of spaces is determined by cultural coding. The sensual per­ception of spaces has been extensively documented by scientific ­research. The pluralism of the spaces of late modernity during the post-­ capitalist period (the late 20th century and early 21st) is one of the most interesting developments of our times. In the postmodern discussion, the problem of the homogeneous spaces of modernity is relativized in theory and in architecture: real space, virtual space, digital space and augmented reality. This is simultaneously the end of the great narrative of modernity. Henri Lefebvre was one of the most important French philosophers of the 20th century. In 1974, he published the book La Production de l’espace, the English translation of which, The Production of Space, has had a lasting influence on the international debate since 1991.1 The

1 Łukasz Stanek, “Methodologies and Situations of Urban Research. Re-reading Henri Lefebvre’s ‘The Production of Space’”, in Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, Online Edition 4 (2007), Issue 3, https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/3-2007/id%3D4715, printed edition pp. 461– 465. “The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre is widely considered to be one of the most important books which facilitated the ‘spatial turn’ in social and cultural theory by introducing space, as an interpretative concept into sociological, political, economic, historical and cultural analysis. This

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work also creates a theoretical starting point for the sociology of space, which analyzes the emergence of spaces through social action as a function of spatial structures. La Production de l’espace is a search for the balance between spiritual space, philosophical space, and physical space – and the physical and social spheres we live in. Within the framework of research, metaphysical and ideological considerations oscillate on the meaning of space in everyday life, at home and in the city. The aim is to bridge the gap between theory and practice, between philosophy and reality. Lefebvre’s reflections encompass the fields of literature, architecture, economics, physics and philosophy. His essential statements on production refer to his Marxist conviction that everything in the human world is produced and socio-­economic conditions must be questioned. In the chapters “Social Space” and ­“Spatial Architectonics”, Lefebvre cites important aspects of a ­discussion on architecture. In the introduction to “Spatial ­ Architectonics”, he relativizes the positions of Baruch de Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm ­ Leibniz, René Descartes, Isaac Newton and I­mmanuel Kant.2 With ­ his concept of “discernment”, Leibniz brings space into the ­modern ­context, ­making it no longer divine as is the case with Spinoza. There is a direct relationship between the body and its space, between the unfolding of the body in space and the occupation of space. The body produces its own space, which in turn is found in space. The body and its perceptions lead us to the limits, boundaries, edges and contact where something else begins. This relationship (termed ­boundaries by Lefebvre) is of utmost importance for the relationship to space. A similar discussion is found in Martin Heidegger’s publication Bauen Wohnen Denken (“Building Dwelling Thinking”).3 The boundary is not where something stops, as postulated by the Greeks (horismos, or horizon); rather, the boundary is where something begins.

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r­ eorientation was the programmatic objective of this book, which aimed to relate and define all possible spaces, whether abstract or real, mental or social’ (p. 299), and thus account for a wide range of spaces, from those of the body to those of the planet.” Translated by the author. 2 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Blackwell, Oxford and others 1991 (first English edition), pp. 169–170. 3 Martin Heidegger, Bauen Wohnen Denken, Neske, Tübingen 1954, pp. 154–155. Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking”, in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, Harper & Row, New York/San Francisco 1977, pp. 343–363.

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2. Differences The architectural discourse as sketched above simply projects the ideas and desires of the past hundred years into the future, without attempting to discuss future space as a potential architectural fiction. This is a discourse that can be conducted independently of architectural style. The “excitement” (of form and of gesture) of contemporary architecture is obviously contrary to its meaning – if this statement can still be defined in the postmodern and post-capitalist age. Since architecture has assumed the character of a commodity and of consumerism, many more subtle discussions have become obsolete: “Nevertheless” (to quote Adolf Loos’s Trotzdem), the discussion of various design theories remains relevant. The apparent differences of architectural representations are quickly reduced into an open typology. Notoriously coined “Ducks” by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, these literal structures can take many forms, but despite their mutations ultimately remain Ducks. Similarly, Venturi and Scott Brown postulated the “Decorated Shed” as an attempt to use symbolism (with cultural, architectural and historical connotations) in order to enhance a simple typology of architecture and give it meaning. Both terms are intelligent commentaries on architecture. This radical approach examines architecture for its medial significance, decoding it in its historical context. Methodologically, Venturi’s book Complexity and Contradiction in ­Architecture is pluralistic and phenomenological.4 Venturi’s book lays out his critical position on modernist architecture, Le Corbusier’s Vers une architecture (1923) and the great tradition of architectural progress in the 19th century. Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace at the 1851 World Exhibition in ­London began a new chapter in architecture. Industrial productions promised infinite, limitless architecture, size and height became relative. Subsequently, the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris set new parameters with the Eiffel Tower and the Galerie des Machines by Ferdinand Dutert and Victor Contamin. The new architecture seemed to now be merely a question of engineering. Technology had become the driving force behind architecture. The history of modern architecture has always embraced technology, incorporating it into its internal discourse. Suddenly, the “infinite interior space” became reality, giant room envelopes were now defined interior spaces. With the help of technology, a new awareness of architectural production emerged. Technical structures once again provided the basis for architecture.

4 Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, The Museum of Modern Art, Papers on Architecture, New York 1966, p. 6.

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3. Spatial envelope, spatial plan, spatial form In 1896, Otto Wagner published a small guidebook without illustrations for his students in Vienna, titling the publication Modern ­Architecture.5 For Wagner, the adjective “modern” summarized the zeitgeist and was an attempt to formulate a valid approach to architecture for his students (in other words, for the future). “One idea inspires this book, namely THAT THE BASIS OF TODAY’S PREDOMINANT VIEWS ON ARCHITECTURE MUST BE SHIFTED, AND WE MUST BECOME FULLY AWARE THAT THE SOLE DEPARTURE POINT FOR OUR ARTISTIC WORK CAN ONLY BE MODERN LIFE.”6 In the fourth edition of this successful publication – now with illustrations of his own buildings – Wagner changed the title to Die Baukunst unserer Zeit (Architecture of Our Time), with a reference to Hermann Muthesius.7 By changing the title to “our time”, Wagner revises the modernity of architecture and calls attention to the process-related aspects of architecture. “Our time” is therefore a priori free of stylistic and aesthetic adjectives and classifications – it is simply the time that we live in. In times of globally operating corporations, there can be neither modern nor postmodern architecture, but only different architecture – pluralism through differentiated variability. In this discourse, the question of architectural quality becomes highly complex. For Wagner, the early 20th century was the beginning of a new era, for which the following statement provides a plausible explanation: “Our modern epoch prefers grand effects, a preference which has its explanation in the demands of the unprecedented concentration of people in large cities and which accounts for a certain grandness that often pervades modern works. […] HERE IT IS APPROPRIATE TO SHOUT A LOUD AND ENCOURAGING ‘FORWARD’ TO THE MODERN CREATIVE ARCHITECT AND TO WARN HIM AGAINST AN EXCESSIVE AND HEARTFELT DEVOTION TO THE OLD, SO THAT HE MIGHT REGAIN A (HOWEVER MODEST) SELF-CONFIDENCE, WITHOUT WHICH NO GREAT ACT WHATSOEVER CAN ARISE.”8 For ­Wagner, architecture of the modern era was an expression of composition and construction: “Thus the formation of our very own art-forms, corresponding to modern construction, lies within ourselves; the possibility of creating them is offered and facilitated by the rich legacy that we have inherited. The useful result of this way of looking at things is very simple. ‘THE ARCHITECT ALWAYS HAS TO DEVELOP THE ARTFORM OUT OF CONSTRUCTION.’”9 Wagner was familiar with S­ emper’s

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5 Otto Wagner, Modern Architecture, Schroll, Vienna 1896. Translated by Harry Frances Mallgrave. 6 Ibid., preface to the 1st edition, p. 60. Emphasis Wagner’s own. 7 Otto Wagner, Die Baukunst unserer Zeit, Schroll, Vienna 1914, 4th edition of Moderne Architektur, published under the changed title, this time with numerous illustrations from Wagner’s work, foreword from November 1913 with reference to Hermann Muthesius. 8 Otto Wagner, see Note 5, pp. 83–84. 9 Ibid., p. 93.

The Fiction of Space

5.2  Otto Wagner Cover of the first issue of Moderne Architektur, Vienna, 1896

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c­ oncept of the primitive hut, the “basic thought behind every construction”10, and with the tradition of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. However, he does not mention August Schmarsow at all. In 1894, the same year as Wagner, the German art historian Schmarsow published the text of his Leipzig inaugural lecture (8 November 1893) under the title Das Wesen der archi­tektonischen Schöpfung (The Essence of Architectural Creation), in which he terms architecture the Raumgestalterin, the creatress of space. The creation of myth in architecture springs from the fascination it exerts on humankind’s physical ability to perceive space: “The history of architecture is a history of spatial perception.”11 The parameters for a new spatial discussion could not be more different. Almost one hundred years later, in his 1995 publication Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, the architectural historian Kenneth Frampton attempts to establish new parameters demonstrating the exemplary qualities of architecture.12 Frampton formulates his re-interpretation of the tectonic as a critique and a way out of postmodern architecture. Like Wagner, Frampton pursues a tradition of construction using examples from architects such as Viollet-le-Duc, Gottfried Semper, Auguste Perret and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In Frampton’s work, Schmarsow is only referenced on the margins when discussing “architecture as spatial art”: “To a greater extent perhaps than any other late nineteenth-century theorist, including the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand, who gave primacy to kinetic vision, and Gottfried Semper, from whom Schmarsow derived his thesis, Schmarsow came to see the evolution of architecture as the progressive unfolding of man’s feeling for space, what he called Raumgefühl. Between 1893 and 1914 Schmarsow’s identification of space as the driving principle behind all architectural form coincides with the evolving space-time models of the universe as these were successively adduced by Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Georg Riemann, and Albert Einstein.”13 The changes in avant-garde art would go on to relativize S­ chmarsow’s position. In his publication Space, Time and Architecture (1947),14 Sigfried Giedion, the most important chronicler of modernism, completely ignores Schmarsow’s existence. Loos, too, is mentioned only fleetingly.15 Already, the divergence of the two fundamental spatial positions of architectural theory becomes apparent: the tectonic “spatial envelope” and the tectonic “spatial art”. In both cases, tectonics is existentially

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10 Ibid., p. 94. 11 August Schmarsow: “Das Wesen der architektonischen Schöpfung” (1894), in Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften, edited by Jörg Dünne and Stephan Günzel, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 482. Translated by the author. 12 Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1995, first published as Grundlagen der Architektur. Studien zur Kultur des Tektonischen, Oktogon Verlag, Munich/Stuttgart 1993. 13 Ibid., p. 1. 14 Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, Oxford University Press, Oxford (UK) 1947 (1st edition 1941). 15 Ibid., the index mentions Adolf Loos only three times.

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present, but with a different value: the spatial envelope reflects the primary quality of the construction as a loft, as a hall (Dutert, later Mies van der Rohe) and as a geodesic dome (Richard Buckminster Fuller), emphasizing the flexibility of its uses. In his publication, Frampton reflects particularly upon the position of Mies van der Rohe: “The career of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886– 1969) may be regarded as a constant struggle between three divergent factors: the technological capacity of the epoch, the aesthetics of avant-gardism, and the tectonic legacy of classical romanticism. Mies’s lifelong effort to resolve these vectors is revealing in itself, since it enlightens us as to the nature of the avant-garde and indicates the relative incompatibility of abstract space and tectonic form.”16 With regard to the last period of his oeuvre, Frampton formulates very pointedly: “During the last two decades of his career Mies enters into a monumentalization of technology, as is evident from Crown Hall, completed at IIT in 1956, the Seagram Building, New York, completed in 1958, and finally the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, under construction from 1962 to 1968.”17 Already with the Barcelona Pavilion (1929), Mies van der Rohe began to interpret architecture as a spatial envelope, one given a wonderful impression of order and proportion by the elegant steel columns. The ground plan of the pavilion is a staged tour – the attending Spanish royal couple only signed the guest book. The official reception hall, the building was not required to fulfill any additional functions. The royal parcourse was constructed with high-quality materials: travertine, onyx, clear glass, dark glass, chrome and furniture specially designed by Mies himself (the Barcelona armchair was upholstered in white leather). Luxurious materials and innovative construction created a new architectural aura. In 1950/51, Mies van der Rohe designed a weekend house for Edith Farnsworth located along the Fox River south of Plano, I­llinois. The ­ rectangular steel structure is approximately 30 feet wide and ­ap­proximately 82 feet long. The house is made of just a few materials, including white painted steel, mirrored glass and travertine slabs for the flooring, both inside the house and on the adjacent terraces. The floor slabs and ceilings are supported by eight I-shaped steel columns set 10 feet apart; all walls are made of glass. The loft-like floor plan has only two bathrooms and a kitchen unit as spatially set fixtures, all other areas are defined by furniture and a 6-foot high cupboard. This ­radical living concept, in which the picturesque garden landscape forms the “boundary” (the facade) in the true sense of the word, completely ­ reinterprets the space. The “glass house” is elevated off the ground and supported by columns, as the Fox River floodplain site is often flooded.

16 Kenneth Frampton, as Note 12, p. 159. 17 Ibid., p. 160.

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It is the proportions and the exquisite materials that make up the space, the room itself is a glass box. Precise craftsmanship, order and proportion create the architectural qualities. In an essay on the IIT curriculum, Mies van der Rohe formulates his attitude to architecture: “It is radical and conservative at once. It is radical in accepting the scientific and technological driving and sustaining forces of our time. It has a scientific character, but it is not science. It uses technological means but it is not technology. It is conservative as it is not only concerned with a purpose but also with a meaning, as it is not only concerned with a function but also with an expression. It is conservative as it is based on the eternal laws of architecture: Order, Space, Proportion.”18 When he received the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal in San Francisco in April 1960, Mies van der Rohe spoke about the relationship between architecture and civilization (not culture): “We are not at the end, but at the beginning of a new epoch; an epoch that will be guided by a new spirit, driven by new forces – technological, sociological and economic – and that will have new tools and new materials. For this reason, we will have a new architecture. […] I am convinced that architecture must come from the supporting and driving forces of civilization.”19 Mies van der Rohe’s confidence in civilization was sufficient for him to formulate a new architecture: Irrespective of history and cultural coding, his architecture emerged on the basis of technology and “truth” – as defined in the sense of Thomas Aquinas’s adaequatio intellectus et rei. Mies van der Rohe further defines truth with the words: “Truth is the essence of expert knowledge.”20 This led to several projects and buildings that thematized flexible interiors. In a series of fully glazed buildings with no interior columns, the 50 × 50 House with its floor area of 50 by 50 feet (1950/51) plays an important role. At the center of each side, a single steel column supports the fixed roof slab, which is welded together from modular roof panels. The corners are left open. A fixed service core containing the kitchen, two bathrooms and a utility room (for the heating system) is placed freely in the interior, but its height remains below the ceiling. Only the shafts and pipes reach up to the ceiling. The result is an open, flexible glass box in which, however, the various pieces of furniture are assigned fixed places and mobility is thereby relativized. With the 50 × 50 House, Mies van der Rohe designed a prototype of a glass cube with almost absolute flexibility, the functionality of which can be questioned on multiple levels. The weekend house for Edith Farnsworth was designed for one person – a maximum of two – and is therefore functional. The 50 × 50 House, on the other hand, shows the limits of flexibility: The three double beds shown in the floor plan ­utterly lack

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18 Ibid., p. 186. 19 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, exhibition catalogue of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Berlin 1968, p. 9. Translated by the author. 20 Ibid., p. 9. Translated by the author.

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5.3  Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 50 × 50 House, project, 1951, floor plan (redrawn)

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any sort of privacy and thus fail to support the needs of intimacy and sexuality. The radical nature of this columnless glass box was later adopted in larger buildings: the Crown Hall (1950–1956) and the ­Bacardi Office Building in Santiago de Cuba (1957). The design for the latter was revised by Mies van der Rohe and built from 1962 to 1968 as the Neue Nationalgalerie museum in Berlin. Eight columns support the 215-by-215-foot roof slab; the interior is 28 feet high and free of columns. Only the installation shafts insinuate a load-bearing function, as they extend up to the ceiling. This flexible glass room was intensively discussed at the time of its construction and later. The Berlin architect Werner Düttmann stated in conversation with Mies van der Rohe, “I said to Mies that there was astonishment in Berlin that the design was so similar to that for Bacardi. […] He replied: I refuse to invent a new architecture every Monday morning.”21 Mies van der Rohe always valued construction over space, his “spatial envelope” was the result of construction. He put it thusly in a lecture in Chicago, “Building, when it became great, was almost always indebted to construction, and construction was almost always the conveyor of its spatial form.”22 Although Mies van der Rohe’s fascination with the glass box addresses the late romantic quality of defining the natural landscape as the boundary of the interior, the glass box in fact illustrates the technical and civilizational feasibility of the time: at the time of its realization, this type of architecture was absolutely new and boundless in its effect. Mies van der Rohe broke down the boundaries of architecture. His glass box is uncanny and sublime in a radical way. Thrown into nature, the crystalline boxes promise everything and nothing. To the attentive user, Farnsworth House shows perhaps the greatest intimacy with the surrounding landscape and its seasonal changes. The darker the day, the more present the interior becomes. Only in the evening, at night, does the glass limit the space against the dark nothingness. The interior is – spatially speaking – unspectacular and lives only from its relation to the landscape.23 Frampton argues that Mies van der Rohe shifted the focus of his architecture to technology and construction on the assumption that the flexible space envelope would enable sufficient freedom of use. The space is not conceived as space per se, but is the product of constructive possibilities. With this, van der Rohe opposes pure functionalism, positioning his architecture as a neutral, autonomous spatial shell. Frampton writes, “Like others of his generation, like Max Weber, Ernst

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21 Ibid., p. 11. Translated by the author. 22 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, lecture given in Chicago, undated manuscript. Source: MvdR Papers, ­Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 23 Compare with Philip Johnson’s Glass House (1949) in New Canaan, Connecticut, also furnished with furniture by Mies van der Rohe. The darkly painted metal of the glass house, which “stands directly on the ground”, has exterior lighting mounted along the upper edge. Johnson deliberately plays with the theme of the romantic garden house, which he built just for himself. His visitors were accommodated in a separate guest house.

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Jünger, and Martin Heidegger and above all like the church architect Rudolf Schwarz, by whom he was directly influenced, Mies recognized modern technology as a dichotomous destiny that was at once both destroyer and provider. He saw it as the apocalyptic demiurge of the new era and as the inescapable matrix or the modern world. It was this that prompted him to shift the focus of architecture toward technique and away from type and space form, always assuming that the latter would be spontaneously fulfilled, either through the limitless freedom of the open plan or through the changing subdivision of cellular space. Within these parameters, the art of building for Mies meant the embodiment of the spirit in the banality of the real; the spiritualization of technique through tectonic form.”24 The principle of this fundamental flexibility of spaces must be questioned: Differentiation is an expression of culture and division of labor, of quality and symbolic quality. Robert Venturi and Scott Brown joined the discussion with their architectural concept of the Decorated Shed and the Duck.25 The ­Decorated Shed promises all kinds of possibilities, but the architecture remains essentially a shed. In contrast, the Duck corresponds to the promise of design that architecture itself can be a symbol, no matter how “beautiful” or “ugly” the duck is. With this statement, Venturi and Scott Brown indirectly reflect on the early discussions of Karl Friedrich Schinkel (buildings as carriers of meaning) and Karl Bötticher, who differentiates between core form and art form.26 The claim that architecture strives to be more than just protection from the environment is a fundamental debate in architectural theory. The industrial revolution of the 19th century changed the fundamental parameters. In his book Contrasts, published in 1840, Augustus W. N. Pugin prophesies the effects of the industrial revolution on society in terms of technology and commodities: “At the same time, he inevitably recognizes in architecture the battlefield on which the struggle between aesthetic production of commodities and ethical values is fought.”27 In Vienna, Adolf Loos took up this debate in a number of ways starting in 1898, with his architectural essays documenting a consistent approach. He advocated an ethical attitude to architecture and the production of goods, an evolutionary and cultural basis for architecture, and critical conventionalism in aesthetics. Ultimately, his arguments on the spatial plan (Raumplan) can also be traced back to his ethical foundations and be interpreted as an attempt to attain an optimal and economical use of space.

24 Kenneth Frampton, as Note 12, p. 207. 25 Robert Venturi, Lernen von Las Vegas, Reihe/Series Bauwelt Fundamente 53, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1979, p. 90. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Learning from Las Vegas, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1972. 26 Kenneth Frampton, as Note 12, pp. 61–62. 27 Ibid., p. 25.

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In the two thoughtful articles “Building Materials” (“Die Baumate­ rialien”, 28 August 1898)28 and “The Principle of Cladding” (“Das Prinzip der Bekleidung”, 4 September 1898),29 Loos presents a radical position: “What is worth more, a kilo of stone or a kilo of gold? The question seems ridiculous. But only for the merchant. The artist will answer: ‘For me, all materials are of equal value’.”30 And Loos goes on to write, “­People say material and mean work: human labor, craftsmanship and art. It takes a great deal of work to take granite from the mountains, hard work to bring it to its destination, work to shape it, to give it a pleasing appearance by grinding and polishing. Our hearts will ­tremble in from of a polished granite wall, filled with awe. Because of the ­material? No, because of the human labour.”31 Loos goes on to address the ­issues of ­illusion and imitation: “But any kind of work, whether that of a ­machine or of a coolie, costs money. And if you don’t have any money? Then one begins to feign the work, to imitate the materials.”32 With ­imitation begins the demoralization of trade; imitation is an ­illusion of reality. Here, Loos deliberately turns against the mass ­productions of the 19th century, against “fake” ornament and against irrelevant historicist copies. Loos carries his argumentative logic ­forward, from building materials it is only a small step to “cladding” as the basis of a space: “But you cannot build a house out of carpets. Both the carpet on the floor and the tapestry on the wall require a structural frame to hold them in the correct place.”33 Loos argues that an architect first feels the effect he is trying to produce, and then, before his mind’s eye, sees the spaces he wants to create: “He senses the effect that he wishes to exert upon the spectator: fear and horror if it is a dungeon, r­ everence if a church, respect for the power of the state. […] These ­effects are ­produced by both the material and the form of the space.”34 Loos’s arguments on modern architecture were not subjectively comprehensible. Since functionalism was based on the standardized uniformity of people’s needs, there was no understanding of the spatial effect. Pure functionality, reduced to the needs of civilization, appeared to be sufficient. Cultural differentiation does not exist in the International Style and Bauhaus functionalism. Function and economy are the very foundations of that architecture. In this context, international also implies the equality of all people and the equal needs of all people. However, for this, good intentions are not enough.35

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28 Adolf Loos, Ins Leere gesprochen, Brenner Verlag, Innsbruck 1932, p. 62. English translation: Adolf Loos, Spoken into the Void, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) 1987. 29 Ibid., p. 66. 30 Ibid., p. 103. Translated by the author. 31 Ibid., p. 104. Translated by the author. 32 Ibid., p. 105. Translated by the author. 33 Ibid., p. 66. Translated by the author. 34 Ibid. Translated by the author. 35 The Bauhaus in Dessau. It is important to differentiate, as there were tremendous differences between the three Bauhaus directors Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Mies van der Rohe.

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5.4  Adolf Loos, Das Werk des Architekten, published by Anton Schroll, 1931, pages 102–103

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5.5  Adolf Loos, Das Werk des Architekten, published by Anton Schroll, 1931, pages 104–105

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Loos was not able to convince his peers. His former colleague ­ einrich Kulka says the following on the spatial plan: “Free thinking H in space, the planning of spaces that lie at different levels and are not tied to a continuous floor, the composition of interrelated spaces into a harmonious, inseparable whole and into a spatially economical structure.”36 However, the idea of the spatial plan remains without a significant successor, although two architects from Vienna who emigrated to the United States did developed their own idea of the spatial plan in architecture: Rudolph M. Schindler and Friedrich Kiesler. The two men both formulated their own theses on Space Architecture in the 1930s in critique of the International Style.37 Schindler went even further than his teacher Loos by placing the spatial quality of architecture above the material. He rated the differentiation of spatial forms higher than structure and cladding materials such as marble or precious woods. The spatial form uses the structure to create spatial sequences, qualities and atmospheres; a defined space that cannot be used ubiquitously. Schindler named his architectural philosophy Space Architecture38 in a conscious reaction against Functionalism, Cubism, Constructivism or any other of the isms. He saw an essential contradiction between space, order and proportion on the one hand, and machine aesthetics on the other. Schindler’s interest in English architecture was paralleled by his preference for “naive” vernacular architecture and in particular for the ­adobes of New Mexico. The connection between Schindler’s spatial ­architecture and the English building tradition can be traced back to A. W. N. Pugin and John Ruskin. English architectural theories were pragmatic. In his two books Contrasts39 and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture40, Pugin, one of the most influential English theorists of the 19th century, set out basic rules for what would later be described as a “functionalist program”.41 Solving architectural problems according to function is the basic principle of Modernism and Pugin’s arguments can, by their very nature, be applied to the English house, as Hermann Muthesius later wrote. Functional arrangement does not allow classical plans based on strict symmetry, instead accepting that complexity and irregularity are more suited to the requirements of a dwelling. The best example of this theory is the Red House in Bexley­heath, in Kent, built by Philip Webb for William Morris in 1860. Muthesius first set out a detailed investigation of the English

36 Adolf Loos, Das Werk des Architekten, edited by Heinrich Kulka, Schroll, Vienna 1931, p. 14. Translated by the author. 37 Rudolph M. Schindler and Friedrich Kiesler. Their theoretical positions on space represent a radical contribution that has not yet been adequately acknowledged. 38 See Rudolph M. Schindler, “Space Architecture”, in Dune Forum, February 1934, pp. 44–46. 39 A. W. N. Pugin, Contrasts, or a Parallel between the Noble Edifices of the Middle Ages, and Corresponding Buildings of the Present Day, Showing the Present Decay of Taste, London 1836 (published by the author), later published by C. Dolman, London 1841. 40 A. W. N. Pugin, The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, London 1841, Weale and London: Henry Bohn, 1853, reprint: St. Barnabas Press, Oxford 1969. 41 Ibid., p. 1.

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residential building in his three-volume work The English House, after becoming acquainted with the architecture of his host country when living in London as a cultural attaché to the German Embassy from 1896 ­onwards.42 Schindler’s concept of dwelling includes the idea of “modern living”, a way of life that did not yet exist in this way. Modern living as described by Schindler in his writings and articles, reveals him as an ­architect who, in his concept of modern architecture, belongs to the tradition of ­Wagner, Loos, Muthesius, Mackintosh and Wright, while diverging from the International Style and in particular from Le ­Corbusier. His 1912 essay “Manifest” plays an important role in his ­ writings, as it lays the groundwork for his later approaches while at the same time ­revealing his architectural role models with great ­clarity.43 Schindler’s idea of space and his attitude towards the interior and exterior of buildings can be described as a physical interpretation of the design theories that originated in the English house: The question of how one lives defines the question of how one builds. The house is articulated around the interior, reflecting the need for a “flexible background to harmonious living” (Manifest), and the exterior is this defined by the spatial sequences of the interior. Schindler’s architectural concept is a coherent consequence of designing a building from the inside to the outside. A brief look at Schindler’s own development provides clarification. While still a student at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, he became acquainted with the works of Frank Lloyd Wright – at the very latest through the Wasmuth Portfolio, titled Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright in German (1910). Using a great number of illustrations, floor plans and interior perspectives, Wright documents his idea of the Prairie style. Wright’s development up to this point in 1910 was extremely consistent; the result was several designs that were more unusual than those of any other architect, notably those of the Martin House in Buffalo (1904) and the Robie House in Chicago (1908), and larger commissions for the Larkin Building in Buffalo (1904) and the Unity Temple in Oak Park (1905/06). The Larkin Building can be described as the most innovative office building of its time.44 The building groups the office accommodations around a central space to create a whole new spatial concept. The plan shows that, apart from the service area, the entire structure consists of a single large room with subspaces. Schindler’s “Manifest” refers directly

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42 Hermann Muthesius, Das englische Haus, 3 volumes, Wasmuth, Berlin 1904/05. Hermann Muthesius, The English House, Crosby Lockwood Staples, London 1979. 43 Four aspects are remarkable: the early date of the manifesto, the non-publication, the parallel to texts by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the question of the authenticity of the date of origin being 1912. In light of these questions, it seems reasonable to extend the period of research to beyond 1912, since Schindler takes up the issue of the manifesto again in later notes and letters. In the Schindler archive at the University of California in Santa Barbara there is only an English version of the text, but no evidence of a German original. 44 See Linda Gatter, The Office Building, thesis at the Department of Architecture, MIT, Cambridge (USA) 1982.

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5.6  Rudolf M. Schindler Theoretical study to explain his concept of spatial architecture, undated (probably after 1930)

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to Wright’s architecture, as documented in his correspondence with Richard Neutra. Structure and construction are one aspect of Wright’s architecture, but his earlier buildings put more emphasis on spatial relationships than on the expression of structure. Schindler regarded the construction as a serving element, and the realization of space as the architect’s primary field of activity. In 1912, H. P. Berlage published the article “Modern American Architecture” in the Schweizerische Bauzeitung, dedicating it to Wright and Louis Sullivan.45 The article shows photographs of the interior and exterior of the Avery Coonley House, the Martin House, the Larkin ­Building and Unity Temple, the exterior of the Dana-Thomas House, and two perspective drawings of the Hardy and Westcott Houses.46 Schindler’s “Space Architecture” article was published three times, the first time in 1934 in Dune Forum, in 1935 in California Arts and Architecture and in 1951 in Atelier. It lays out a theoretical statement that is of central importance to Schindler’s ideas. The article reflects on his twenty years of professional experience, his work with Frank Lloyd Wright, his ideas on the relevance of technology to architecture, and his opinions on International Style. Two years prior to the article’s first publishing, in 1932, the historic exhibition The International Style: Architecture since 1922 was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson simultaneously publishing their book under the same title.47 Schindler’s thoughts on spatial architecture were in part already foreshadowed in his 1932 article “Points of View – Contra”, in which he refers to the cultural significance of architecture and the spatial question as the new design problem. Schindler claims that modern architecture is not a mere style focused on originality, but is instead concerned with the development of space: “The architectural design concerns itself with space as its raw material and with the organized room as its product. […] New architectural problems have arisen, and their infancy is being safeguarded with a mask of practicability by the engineer.”48 Schindler’s statements on spatial architecture are more in correspondence with a perceptive concept of space than with a purely functional and formal use of modern building technology.

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45 H. P. Berlage, “Neuere amerikanische Architektur”, in Schweizerische Bauzeitung, 14 and 21 September 1912, pp. 148–150, 165–167, 178. 46 Ibid., on the Larkin building, Berlage writes: “The building comprises only one single room that, in accordance with modern American concepts, is not to be divided into different rooms. […] I left with the conviction of having seen a genuinely modern work, and with respect for the master who was able to create a work that is unparalleled in Europe.” Translated by the author. 47 Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style: Architecture since 1922, Norton Company Inc., New York 1932. In this context, it is important to note that the adjective “international” was added to modern architecture long before Hitchcock and Johnson. It was the subtitle of a documentation of modern architecture by Walter Gropius Internationale Architektur (Bauhaus Books) and Ludwig Hilberseimer published a book in 1927 titled Internationale neue Baukunst (Stuttgart). Seen in this light, Hitchcock and Johnson only continued a tradition. The term “International Style” is misleading in other respects as well. 48 Rudolph M. Schindler, “Points of View – Contra”, in Southwest Review, Volume 27, Spring 1932, pp. 353–354.

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Schindler’s Space Architecture concept is paralleled by new ­approaches to space as defined in the 1920s by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity in the natural sciences and physics. The theory of relativity brought about a fundamental change in the scientific c­ onception of the spacetime theory, as described by Hermann Minkowski: “From henceforth space in itself and time in itself sink to mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two preserves an independent experience.”49 These definitions and the implicit conventions of space were subject to radical change in the 20th century. With regard to the significance of “where” space exists, there seems to be no characteristic in our individual primitive sensory perception that enables humans to experience space differently than through the order of surrounding material objects. The existence of a concrete object is a means of perceiving persistence in time and continuity. The existence of concrete objects is therefore by nature conceptual. When looking at the discussion about space, a look at Martin ­Heidegger’s concept of space helps clarify matters. The meaning of the conception of objects depends entirely on their connection with elementary sensory experiences. This object – sense – experience link is the origin of the fundamental mental image directly informs us about the relationship among material bodies (objects). These objects are things, and dwelling is always a coexistence with things. Human dwelling is defined by the ways in which we coexist with things, which in turn create space: “What the word for space, Raum, designates is said by its ancient meaning. Raum, Rum, means a place that is freed for settlement and lodging. A space is something that has been made room for, something that has been freed, namely, within a boundary, Greek peras. A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its essential unfolding. That is why the concept is that of horismos, that is, the horizon, the boundary. Space is in essence that for which room has been made, that which is let into its bounds. That for which room is made is always granted and hence is joined, that is, gathered, by virtue of a locale, that is, by such a thing as the bridge. Accordingly, spaces receive their essential being from locales and not from ‘space.’”50 When we now return to Schindler, we see that his idea of architecture is based on the space-creating “location relationship” of bodies. For him, neither function, nor construction nor building technology are the determining factors for creating architecture. Schindler therefore describes the attitude of the modern architect as “not primarily concerned with the body of the structure and its sculptural p ­ ossibilities.

49 Hermann Minkowski, quoted from Encyclopaedia Britannica, (Space), Volume 20, Chicago 1973, p. 1070. 50 Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking” (1951), in Basic Writings, Harper & Row, New York/ San Francisco 1993, p. 332. Heidegger’s texts are very relevant to the architectural discussion, despite evidence of his nexus with National Socialism. See Hugo Ott, Martin Heidegger. Unterwegs zu seiner Bio­ graphie, Campus, Frankfurt am Main/New York 1988; Victor Farias, Heidegger und der Nationalsozialis­ mus, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1989.

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His one concern is the creation of space forms dealing with a new medium as rich and unlimited in possibilities of expression as any other media of art: color, sound, mass, etc.”51 Color, sound and mass correspond directly to the boundaries (peras) “where something begins its presencing”, as described by Heidegger. Schindler’s definition of architecture includes the significance of architecture as art and resolutely turns against the “functionalists”.52 Schindler’s article also takes aim against Le Corbusier’s statements describing the house as a machine for living, lamenting the loss of a cultural model of living through a deterministic model of practically oriented operational functionalism.53 Most architects misinterpret Louis Sullivan’s “form follows function”. Sullivan’s dictate was an analogy to nature – something he repeated countless times in his ornamental forms – and an organic expression of the materials. Those architects who saw only raw physical materialism in “form follows function” failed to understand its spiritual meaning: the idea of life itself – a true organism – form and function as a unity. As a pupil of Wright, the second generation after Sullivan as it were, for Schindler functionalism never had the one-dimensional meaning it held in Europe. This helps to explain Schindler’s concept of space as the primary medium of architectural creation. Spatial forms owe their genesis to attempts to increasingly see architecture as a cultural action, not merely as an economic and functional product of civilization. Schindler consistently rejects the one-dimensionality of the modern “raw machine age”. Architecture should not be a “machine for living”.54 Friedrich Kiesler’s writings on architecture formulate similar thoughts, especially for his Space House project (1933), which he designed as a model for the Modernage Furniture Company in New York. The Kiesler expert Dieter Bogner comments on the Space House in connection with the differentiation of room heights derived from psychological and social conditions of use: “The Space House […] presents different levels. Some spaces require lower ceilings for the function they serve. The living room has a high ceiling, the library a very low ceiling and, in order to further emphasize the importance of this place to which we retire alone with our thoughts, it is set a few steps lower than the living room. On the other hand, the dining room is two steps higher than the living room in order to create a slight impression of ­formality. The ­bedrooms are intimate, private areas; they, too, require a low, ­welcoming ­ceiling.”55 Kiesler’s statements are astonishingly

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51 Rudolph M. Schindler, “Space Architecture”, as Note 38. 52 Ibid. 53 Esther McCoy, Schindler’s long-time colleague, confirmed Schindler’s aversion to Gropius, Le Corbusier and the International Style in conversations with the author on 19 and 22 January 1982 in Los Angeles. 54 August Sarnitz, Rudolf M. Schindler, Brandstätter, Vienna 1986, p. 152. 55 Dieter Bogner, “Inside the Endless House”, p. 29, in Friedrich Kiesler – Lebenswelten / Life Visions. Architektur – Kunst – Design / Architecture – Art – Design, exhibition catalogue, MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2016.

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5.7  Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret Villa La Roche, Paris, 1923–1925, photo by August Sarnitz, 2013

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r­eminiscent of Loos – the spatial plan reformulated as psychological architecture. Kiesler was convinced that his architectural ideas could only be realized in a holistic concept and that a new room architecture could only be created by dissolving floors, walls and ceilings. In his “Manifeste du Corréalisme”, he summarizes his thoughts during the last twenty years of his work, “In 1924, I suspected I had achieved something practical with my ‘Endless House,’ but it was only later, in 1934 (Space House) that I hit on a clear solution to all the problems that preoccupied me, a solution that would hold for every type of building. It was in 1924–25, in the Vienna of Strauss waltzes, and in the Paris of the Beaux-arts, that I eliminated the separation between floor, walls and ceiling, and created of floor, walls and ceiling, a continuous whole.”56

4. Plan Libre “Five Points Towards a New Architecture” is an architectural manifesto by the Swiss architects Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. Corbusier published it in 1923 in his magazine L’Esprit Nouveau and in the essay collection Vers une architecture. In 1927, Alfred Roth published “Five Points” in Zwei Wohnhäuser von Le Corbusier und Pierre Jeanneret.57 Roth was the first to translate “Les Cinq points d’une architecture nouvelle” into German, but the meaning was changed in the process: “Les Cinq points d’une architecture nouvelle” represents the only self-contained set of rules within Le Corbusier’s literary oeuvre that fulfills the classical functions of architectural theory in its focus on practical questions of architectural design as well as in its conscious intention of theoretical foundation and codification.58 The radicality of “Five Points” required precise discussion, especially since changes to the manuscript had already been made by Le ­Corbusier himself. Later comments by Sigfried Giedion led to changes in content and order. Le Corbusier was very precise in his text, speaking of “architectural facts” and clearly presenting a set of rules according to which architecture could be designed and built: “Çe ne sont point des fantaisies esthétiques ou des modes.”59 The original sequence of the five points was: “1-LES PILOTIS, 2-LES TOITS-JARDINS, 3-LE PLAN LIBRE, 4-LA FENETRE EN LONGUEUR, 5-LA FACADE LIBRE.”

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56 Ibid., p. 45. 57 Werner Oechslin, Moderne entwerfen, DuMont, Cologne 1999, p. 218. 58 Ibid., p. 207. Translated by the author. 59 Ibid., p. 208. Translated by the author.

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Starting with the pilotis, i.e. the structure of the house (in the sense of Vitruvius), Le Corbusier explained his points, which even declare teaching at schools of architecture superfluous. Due to the constructive decision to use pilotis with cantilevered ceilings, Le Corbusier enabled an essential point of his theory: the plan libre. At the same time, the pilotis lift the first floor off the ground so that the first level for living in is at a height of “3, 4, or 6 metres”.60 Le Corbusier argues that this also definitively solves the eternal problem of rising soil moisture. The five points are a liberation from architectural design, because the construction is separated from the spatial form: “Toute l’histoire de l’architecture tourne autour de la fenêtre pour donner de la lumière.”61 This important sentence is often translated in a very general way, referring to “wall apertures” and not explicitly to windows.62 However, Le ­Corbusier is indeed specifically concerned with the window as a bringer of light. Natural light – and light in general – is the generating factor behind perceptions of architecture. Le Corbusier, therefore, consistently argues that a plan libre requires a facade libre: “Ces cinq points ont une réaction esthétique fondamentale.”63 On the five points, Werner Oechslin writes: “Le Corbusier does not address individual objects or designs, he suggests the further development of one and the same idea throughout different stages.”64 For the critical observer, one statement by Le Corbusier becomes particularly interesting. He himself repeatedly speaks of objects as house types – an architectural typology in the sense of the French architectural theoretician Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand. The type and its variations are of eminent importance. The Maison Citrohan (first draft 1920) is the best example of this. In an analogy to the automobile industry (using Citroën), house types are adapted to different spatial contexts. All models share the two-story living space as a public space, with the remaining floors reduced to a minimum height. Sketches for the ­Maison Citrohan were made for sites on the sea (Côte d’Azur, 1922) and in the city of Paris (1927) and the model was realized in the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart at Bruckmannweg 2. The building is a built manifesto, offering spatial qualities that celebrate architectural space as volume. In contrast to Loos or Schindler, Le Corbusier’s interior only doubles or multiplies its height, created by omitting a ceiling. The continuous scaling and changing of room heights is not present; partial room height gradations are non-existing. In Le Corbusier’s later work, the five points are interpreted quite freely. In the church of Ronchamp (1950–1953), the sculptural form

60 Ibid., p. 208. Translated by the author. 61 Ibid., p. 210. Translated by the author. 62 Compare Ulrich Conrad’s Programme und Manifeste des 20. Jahrhunderts, Serie Bauwelt Fundamente 1, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1975, p. 94. 63 Werner Oechslin, as Note 57, p. 211. 64 Ibid., p. 212. Translated by the author.

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and stained-glass windows seem like an emancipation from the ­Cartesian order of modernism.65

5. White Cube, Dark Room, Art Space Art spaces are auratically charged spaces that ultimately demand a subjective personal perception due to their fetishistic nature. The white cube offers its apparent innocent and pristine nature to artists, a space within which their subjective art can interact. The white cube is occupied and used by artists to enable a passive subjective perception in dialogue with the persons viewing the art. The art observer (almost) always ­ osition remains in a passive role, intellectually reflecting on an art p that remains without further interaction. The aura of the white cube art space releases the user from active action, conveying something “special” – regardless of any further definition. In a white cube, art is auratized, fetishized and presented as unattainable, as noli me tangere. The aura becomes boundless. Critical artists and theorists see the white cube as a situation in which art is taken out of context through aestheticization. The white cube and the dark room have more in common than might first appear. The dark room is likewise an auratic, fetishized space, but here the users (almost) always lose their passive subjective role to become active agents in the search for sexual contact. The white cube is a space that shows everything and promises everything. The dark room is a space that shows nothing and promises nothing, but makes everything possible. Genuine dark rooms evolved in the 1970s in the USA, sparse basement rooms of gay clubs, often illuminated only by a single lightbulb painted black (with a wet bar, and therefore not accessible to minors). Nowadays, although much more rarely, there are also dark rooms for heterosexuals, mainly in swinger clubs. Dark rooms for lesbians can be found in Berlin and Hamburg.66 Art spaces are a specific form of architectural space. Their presence reflects the total artistic control over three-dimensionality, partly supplemented by temporal processes to create a “fourth dimension”. Art spaces are architectural or artistic statements that invite a discourse on perception. In their totality, these art spaces go beyond traditional perceptions of space to create a new utopia.

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65 From a later historical perspective, this church would be called a Duck in the sense of Robert Venturi and provided inspiration for several spatial architectures by Coop Himmelb(l)au and Frank Gehry. Richard Meier, on the other hand, sees the five points as a set of rules as interpreted in the 1920s and has never actually achieved the creative “freedoms” that appear in Le Corbusier’s late work. 66 Matthew D. Johnson and Claude J. Summers: Gay and Lesbian Bars (reprint on: http://www.glbtq), Encyclopedia Copyright 2015, glbtq, Inc., Entry Copyright 2005, glbtq, Inc.

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5.8  Peter Kogler Exhibition view, ING Art Center, Brussels, 2016, photo by Atelier Kogler

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In recent decades, numerous artists have addressed these illusionistic spatial changes, Minimalists, for example, such as Daniel Buren, Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd. Dan Flavin’s light installations have reopened the examination of the perception of space. Following Dan Flavin, the Austrian artist Peter Kogler, for one, has fundamentally changed our perception of exhibition spaces over the past twenty years: “Kogler’s works continue to revolve around the question of abstraction and its elementary vocabulary, declinated in forms that, at first glance, seem familiar, but whose typology always refers to a general register of forms. Kogler’s specific way of spatializing his work and subjecting the three dimensions of institutional space to his will not only makes the Viennese artist’s presence palpable, but also ­maintains a consistent approach that grants the viewer a special ­position.”67 Kogler’s art spaces are in direct discourse with the archi­ tectural spatial projections of modernism: in direct opposition but also as a perfect metaphor for future infinities. At the same time, Kogler invites us to question positions as different as those of Loos or Kiesler, both extreme approaches to the cultural understanding of ­architecture. Loos fundamentally differentiates buildings from art, arguing: “The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art, which does not.”68 He respected artwork as a subjective, creative act and his friendship with Oskar Kokoschka is documented in portraits. Loos’s relationship to ornamentation is often misinterpreted; he is concerned with superfluous ornamentation on functional objects, not with ornamentation per se.69 Kogler’s infinite art space worlds are metaphorical narratives that only seemingly serve ornamentation: “All of Kogler’s works present themselves as fragments of a virtual infinite series, the beginning and end of which remain hidden from the viewer.”70 Kogler’s infinite spaces also touch on the discussion of Kiesler’s e­ ndless architecture, the projections of which aim at the apparent dissolution of floors, walls and ceilings. Where transitions become fluid, a new spatial idea emerges. Kogler’s computer-generated ­projections in exhibition spaces suggest a total transition of spatial surfaces: “By ­explicitly addressing the wall as a surface, Kogler makes the wall p ­ otentially ­infinite, thus gaining an opportunity to continue the tradition of p ­ alatial mural painting – in a thoroughly contemporary manner.”71 Kogler consistently occupies wall surfaces, regardless of openings or windows. This total approach to area equalizes spatial differences and creates a new

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67 Ami Barak, “Peter Kogler – eine Ästhetik des Verschiebens”, in Peter Kogler, exhibition catalogue, MUMOK, Vienna 2009, p. 47. Translated by the author. 68 Adolf Loos, “Architecture (1910)”, in The Architecture of Adolf Loos, The Council, 1985, pp. 107–108. 69 Ibid., “I have found the following insight and given it to the world: the evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from the object of use.” 70 Boris Groys, “Das unendliche Undsoweiter”, in Peter Kogler, exhibition catalogue, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, p. 19. Translated by the author. 71 Ibid., p. 23. Translated by the author.

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unity. His tectonic tubes and fluid forms h ­ yperactivate the spaces into a state of permanent movement, the i­mpression of permanent change is created. Due to the complexity of the forms, the observer is only granted partial and fragmentary views. Kogler’s virtuosic art spaces become multimedia spatial experiences through video projections joined with music mutate into design forms, generating a total spatial experience. Dynamics, light and music merge into an associative yet fictitious architectural world – even if only for the duration of the video performance. Kogler’s positions on space, ­architecture and the media fulfill an exemplary role at the interface between artist and architect. His art spaces are positive projections that evoke a tremendous range of spatial associations. His labyrinthine structures represent inner and outer worlds, connecting the viewer with the social context. At the same time, these labyrinthine structures recall mythological tales: art spaces as a metaphor for utopian ­architecture.

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6.1  Wolfgang Goethe’s Garden House in the Park an der Ilm, ­ eimar, 1776, photo by August Sarnitz, 2015 W

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6.2  Model house Am Horn, Georg Muche with Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Weimar, 1923, view from the street, photo by August Sarnitz, 2015

Case Study: The Private House

Opinion Statement and selected Examples: “The private individual, who in the office has to deal with reality, needs the domestic interior to sustain him in his illusions. This necessity is all the more pressing since he has no intention of allowing his commercial considerations to impinge on social ones. In the formation of his private environment, both are kept out. From this arise the phantasmagorias of the interior – which, for the private man, represents the universe. In the interior, he brings together the far away and the long ago. His living room is a box in the theater of the world. […] The interior is not just the universe but also the étui of the private individual. To dwell means to leave traces.”1 With these words, Walter Benjamin describes the private world of the bourgeoisie in his Passagen-Werk (in the chapter “Louis Philippe, or the Interior”), published in English as The Arcades Project. A retreat, a private utopia, a space for intimacy, individuality and coziness – private houses experienced their heyday in the 19th century with a backdrop of industrial and capitalist development, division of labor and a desire by the dominant bourgeois class to express themselves. At a time when office work had already become the primary focus of life, private homes provided an “irreal” place of leisure.2 A good example of the illusion of privacy is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Garden House in Weimar. Located on the eastern side of a park on the Ilm River, it was Goethe’s main residence and workplace from April 1776 to 1832. In 1782, he also bought a city residence on Frauenplatz. For more than fifty years, Goethe lived and worked in the small garden house, which had a large dining room on the ground floor used for entertaining. The house and garden as a private retreat – an idyll – reinforced by the romantic riverside site. Reportedly, Goethe would often bathe naked in the river in the moonlight – a full appropriation and expression of his private life. The perceived response of early Bauhaus to the topic of private living is just a few hundred meters away: the Bauhaus experimental building by Georg Muche, designed with a square floor plan as part of the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition. The functional areas – for cooking, eating, sleeping and personal hygiene – are grouped around a central space with a skylight (living area). In 1923 this was a radical concept that particularly emphasized the private sphere in the central room: where the family would connect with friends.

1 Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (USA) / London 1999, pp. 8–9. 2 Ibid., p. 9.

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The emphasis on family communication in households reflects the aspirations of a bourgeois society. Almost simultaneously, in 1923, the electronic home radio was introduced, starting a media revolution, that manifested in Germany starting in 1935 (and swelled after 1945) with the emergence of television and, today, in digital technologies. The private household became the “un-private house” – as Terence Riley described it in his 1999 exhibition on living at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.3 This media revolution and its high-tech equipment radicalized traditional living situations. The term “fragmented living” best describes the phenomenon of individuals of a family or group meeting for specific occasions. The statistically high number of single-person households supports this situation. An imperceptible de-privatization driven by digital tools and digital media creates a pseudo-privatization. “Living” takes place exclusively through soap operas, consumed without true self-reference, as with global sports events, for example. Our lives are a reflection of the media world. Postmodern reality has relativized these projections of modernity: the normative modern living models of architects such as Otto Wagner (private villas in Vienna for the purpose of self-presentation), Peter Behrens (residential building in the Darmstadt artist colony), Konstantin Melnikov (apartment building in Moscow), Rudolph M. Schindler (experimental house in Los Angeles), Adolf Loos and Josef Frank (private apartments in Vienna) and Charles and Ray Eames (case study house in Los Angeles) are wonderful examples of the private and individual residential concepts of the 20th century. The general realities of private living in the 20th and 21st centuries are illustrated by the “Levittowns” of the USA and high-rise residential buildings all over the world. Irrespective of ideological discussions, there are two global housing typologies: residential high-rises and single-family homes. Millions of people experience their everyday lives in dense residential environments with multi-story apartment buildings and limited privacy. For a few people, a private house with a garden (“paradise”) is reality. Martin Heidegger has described living as “being with things”.4 The private house or forms of private living are therefore also an opportunity to withdraw from the collective and an expression of personal freedom. On the illusion of the private home: Currently the most expensive private home for sale in the USA is a mansion in Los Angeles listed for $245 million. As of 2017, this is comparable to the value of almost 1,000 average private apartments in Vienna. The illusion has thus been given a ratio that can be measured: 1:1000. In many Third and Fourth World countries, this ratio would be much higher given the different living conditions.5

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3 Terence Riley, The Un-Private House, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art, New York 1999. 4 Martin Heidegger, Bauen Wohnen Denken, Neske, Tübingen 1954; “Bauen Wohnen Denken”, in Martin Heidegger, Vorträge und Aufsätze, Neske, Pfullingen 1967, pp. 139–156. Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking”, in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, Harper & Row, New York/San Francisco 1977, pp. 343–363. 5 Austrian newspaper Die Presse, 21/22 January 2017, real estate supplement, p. 16.

Case Study: The Private House

6.3  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2001–2005, west view, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2005

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6.4  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2001–2005, east view, detail, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2005

Case Study: The Private House

6.5  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2001–2005, east view with covered walkway, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2005

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6.6  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2001–2005, interior split-level hallway, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2005

Case Study: The Private House

6.7  August Sarnitz Glanzing residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2001–2005, shading element, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2005

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6.8  August Sarnitz Neustift am Walde residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2010–2012, addition from the garden, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2012

Case Study: The Private House

6.9  August Sarnitz Neustift am Walde residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2010–2012, addition detail, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2012

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Case Study: The Private House

(left) 6.10  August Sarnitz Neustift am Walde residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2010–2012, shading element detail, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2012 6.11  August Sarnitz Neustift am Walde residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2010–2012, shading elements, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2012

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6.12  August Sarnitz Neustift am Walde residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2010–2012, addition towards the garden, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2012

Case Study: The Private House

6.13  August Sarnitz Neustift am Walde residential building, 1190 Vienna, 2010–2012, staircase detail, photo by Pez Hejduk, 2012

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6.14  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, garden view, photo by Daniel Hawelka, 2019

Case Study: The Private House

6.15  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, interior, living/dining room, photo by Daniel Hawelka, 2019 6.16  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, south elevation, photo by Daniel Hawelka, 2019

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Case Study: The Private House

6.17  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, living/ dining room and staircase, photo by Daniel Hawelka, 2019

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6.18  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, ­staircase to upper floor, photo by Daniel Hawelka, 2019

Case Study: The Private House

6.19  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, living/dining room and view to the lake, photo by Daniel Hawelka, 2019

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Case Study: The Private House

6.20  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, garden elevation, photo by Daniel Hawelka, 2019

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6.21  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, south elevation at night, photo by Daniel Hawelka, 2019

Case Study: The Private House

6.22  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, garden elevation at night, photo Daniel Hawelka, 2019 6.23  August Sarnitz Attersee Residence, 2016–2018, street elevation at night, photo Daniel Hawelka, 2019

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7.1  Josef Frank, Beer House, Vienna-Hietzing, entrance detail, 1929–1930, photo by August Sarnitz, 2016

Four Approaches from Vienna Josef Frank, Friedrich Kiesler, Hans Hollein, Wolf D. Prix

Introduction Architecture is always a reflection of both regional and international aspects, a medium well-suited to represent transnational cultural situations and processes. The exchange of ideas and building structures is a European and worldwide phenomenon that goes back to the centuries-old tradition of the migration of artists. Vienna is one of the best examples for this type of cultural melting pot. In fact, the city’s identity would be inconceivable without master builders and architects such as Gabriele Montani, Antonio Beduzzi, Jean Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey and Jean Trehet. The exchange of ideas and building structures is a cultural phenomenon characteristic of era in which freedom, including the freedom of thought, is possible. “At the beginning of the Modern Age stands Descartes, who recognized nothing but the clara et distincta perceptio and accordingly declared man, quite logically, to be an automaton. At the end of the Modern Age stands Freud, who, still be purely Cartesian methods, arrives at the notion of the soul as a mysterious, incomprehensible thing whose outlying spurs alone rear their heads in our three-dimensional ­empiricism.”1 The history of architecture is a search for the soul of architecture. It is for this reason that a number of outstanding architects (at least in German-speaking countries) speak of Baukunst (lit. trans.: the art of building) rather than of architecture. Otto Wagner renamed the fourth edition of his final book Moderne Architektur (Modern Architecture) – his personal artistic testament – to Die Baukunst unserer Zeit (1914), loosely translatable as “The Building Art of Our Time”, after Hermann ­Muthesius addressed the issue in his own ingenious book Baukunst, nicht Stil­architektur (Style-Architecture and Building-Art). Ludwig Mies van der Rohe also preferred referring to “the art of building” (Baukunst) rather than architecture. René Descartes’s clara et distincta perception certainly accepts the question of the soul of architecture for that part of the building process that is represented by the physical presence of all materials and their respective qualities and possibilities. What is seemingly less tangible is the soul of art, the auratic potential, the impact and charisma – in short: the breath of soul itself.

1 Egon Friedell, A Cultural History of the Modern Age, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick/London 2010, Vol. III, p. 483.

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The idea behind this writing is based on the observation that V ­ ienna’s central geopolitical position has allowed a cultural network and ability to engage in dialogue to developed here that has existed throughout the ages, more evident at certain times than others. Just as in the 1960s, Viennese Actionism gave art a new and irreversible direction through the artistic struggle for total freedom, with the architectural debate on Hans Hollein, Coop Himmelb(l)au and Haus-Rucker-Co opening up new visions in Austria. The self-painting and self-mutilation of Günter Brus and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, which led to self-destruction through suicide for the latter, are also considered part of Viennese Actionism. Arnulf Rainer’s overpaintings and Walter Pichler’s mythical ideas, manifested in drawings and sculptures, are also connected to this spiritual and intellectual climate. The collaboration between Hollein and Pichler can certainly be regarded as one of the most exciting artistic statements of the period. Springing from Hollein’s expanded concept of “Everything is Architecture” (1967), the ideas of symbol, ritual and myth found their way back into post-functionalist architectural debate. Together with Hans Hollein, Austrian artist Walter Pichler thus enriched the architectural discussion internationally. “Four Approaches from Vienna” is a reflection on how the different Viennese standpoints interrelated, never forgetting how highly intertwined the situation is Austrian really was: different geographical, cultural and linguistic boundaries have always been part of the ­Austrian identity. The most important representatives of Austrian architecture Fabiani, in Europe in the 20th century include Otto Wagner, Max ­ Joseph Olbrich, Adolf Loos, Josef Hoffmann, Josef Frank, Clemens Holzmeister, Lois Welzenbacher, Ernst A. Plischke, Oswald Haerdtl, ­ Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and Friedrich Kiesler. The modern and contemporary context is represented most significantly by Roland Rainer, Gustav ­Peichl, Wilhelm Holzbauer, Hans Hollein, Heinz Tesar, Boris ­Podrecca, Ortner & Ortner, Szyszkowitz Kowalski, Coop ­Himmelb(l)au, Adolf Krischanitz, Baumschlager Eberle, Delugan Meissl Associated Architects, Martin Kohlbauer, BEHF Architects, ARTEC Architekten, ­ BWM Architekten, BKK-3, BUSarchitektur, Margarethe Cufer, Architects Tillner & Willinger, Albert Wimmer, PPAG architects, pool Architektur, Jabornegg & Pálffy, Hermann Czech and Rüdiger Lainer, among others.

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Josef Frank In 1927–1928, Ernst A. Plischke was a young architect working in Josef Frank’s studio. A year earlier, he had graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, in the Master Class of Professor Peter Behrens, before starting in Frank’s private office. Plischke – himself one of the most important architects of Viennese Modernism – was eighteen years younger and admired Frank in many ways. In a contribution to the Josef Frank exhibition catalogue, Plischke describes the different approaches to architecture in Vienna as follows: During these years in Vienna, Frank was the polar opposite of Josef Hoffmann and Dagobert Peche with their sumptuous, decorative designs. Frank’s creations were light, transparent and even almost joyful. Furniture, for example, was mixed into living spaces as if placed at random. Neither axes nor symmetry were present. He designed vividly colored cretons (block-printed linen fabrics) for the curtains and upholstery, managing to further mix up the space as a whole with the individual pieces of furniture. The large Blitz apartment on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, opposite the University of Vienna, was perhaps most representative for his work at the time. [Author’s note: this apartment no longer exists.] But the “casualness” in his designs for houses and furniture was merely a visible expression of his deeply rooted worldview. In architecture and in everything right down to the furniture, he held an opposition to any form of monumentality, and above all to any compulsive formality or stiffness, but was by no means opposed to intellectually developed order. His aspiration for order seems to me to be at the very core of his human interactions and his work. The marking of boundaries between external formalities and inner freedom was an ongoing problem he faced. He was a cosmopolitan Austrian and an Anglophile at heart.2 Another very personal opinion Plischke expressed regarded the way architects in Vienna dressed: While Hoffmann always wore dark clothes, black shoes, white gaiters and dark trousers, a sign of Viennese elegance at the time, and Peter Behrens was always garbed in perfect British conservative style, Frank was probably one of the first in Vienna to walk the streets in light grey flannel trousers with a dark blue jacket with a double row of buttons, always casual but well-fitted – as was the style in Oxford at the time. This emphasis on casualness was also reflected in a recurrent phrase he used: “vacuous banality”.3 In these two short paragraphs, Ernst A. Plischke addresses some essential qualities of Josef Frank’s approach to architecture and life, ­consciously

2 Josef Frank 1885–1967, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Löcker, Vienna 1981, pp. 8–9. Translated by the author. 3 Ibid.

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referring to clothing style, an important topic for his colleague Adolf Loos as well. Frank, an Austrian-Swedish architect, designer, urban planner and architectural theorist, was born in the town of Baden near Vienna in 1885 and died in Stockholm in 1967. Together with Loos and H ­ offmann, he is one of the most important architects of Austrian modernism. Frank’s parents were members of the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie of Vienna. Recent research has shown how important these connections with the Jewish community were – both for Frank and for his clients, who accepted Frank as a trustworthy architect and designer. Frank was fifteen years younger than Loos and Hoffmann, meaning that he was actually part of the “next generation” of architects, especially after Loos died at the early age of 63 in 1933. Frank documented his admiration for these two contemporaries. From 1919 to 1925, Frank taught together with Hoffmann at the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule (­Vienna School of Arts and Crafts) – the predecessor of what is now the University of Applied Arts, where Zaha Hadid and Wolf D. Prix, among others, would go on to teach in the 1990s. As with Loos and Hoffmann, the Anglo-Saxon culture had a special place in Frank’s architectural world, with his interiors referencing the Anglo-Saxon living ideal in numerous ways. After studying at the Technische Hochschule Wien (Imperial and Royal Polytechnic Institution), now the Vienna University of Technology, Frank wrote his dissertation on Italian Renaissance architectural theorist and architect Leon Battista Alberti under the supervision of Karl König (the only Jewish professor of architecture in Vienna) and Max Fabiani from 1909 to 1910. As a result of this research, Frank developed an approach to architecture that can be described as humanistic and that subsequently also led to his critical attitude towards Bauhaus and the International Style, which, in his opinion, overrated the technical aspects of architecture. Frank became a founding member of the Austrian Werkbund in 1912. A year later, in the fall of 1913, he joined Oskar Strnad and Oskar Wlach to found an architecture office. Their first joint project were the single-family homes of Scholl and Strauß (1913–1914) in Grinzing, an upscale residential district of Vienna. Frank was clearly the principal designer, a fact confirmed by multiple sources. The spatial concept and facades of the two houses are atypical for Viennese architecture of the time and reference Frank’s English models: asymmetrical facades, roughly plastered brick buildings (with the individual bricks visible) and a small “English hall” along the inner flight of rooms. This hall references the ideas of the English architect Baillie Scott, whose book Houses and Gardens was published in German in 1912. Scott was a proponent of a culturally reformatory and socially determined way of life (completely in concordance with Loos and Frank), and his most famous statement is emblematic of the ensuing debate on the housing schemes of the socialist city government of Vienna. Scott essentially argued that a simple cottage should be furnished for its residents, and not for outsiders or visitors. He also emphasized the importance of convenience over bourgeois representation.

Four Approaches from Vienna

After the First World War, Frank’s thinking resulted in a strong commitment to the construction of housing estates in Vienna and in opposition to (socialist) multi-story buildings. In this, he shared Loos’s opinion that a detached house and garden was “the dream of every free person”.4 In the post-war years, Frank was eager to resolve the desperate housing situation for the population of the city of Vienna. Frank and Loos saw the answer in English terraced houses with gardens which could be used for growing fruit and vegetables as well as keeping small domestic animals for self-sufficient living. In 1919, Frank built Lower Austria’s first workers’ housing settlement, for paper manufacturer Bunzl. In Vienna, the Settlement Movement (Siedlerbewegung) was not able to assert itself against the governing Social Democratic Party, which favored mass housing in apartment buildings for reasons of space and cost. Nevertheless, Frank was able to build the Hoffinger­ gasse settlement in Vienna-Meidling in 1921. Vienna’s Settlement Movement was organized into individual cooperatives and regarded itself as a grassroots democratic living and building reform movement. Frank was one of its most important proponents, although he was also active in designing multi-story public housing for the City of Vienna and received several commissions. The highlight of his activities in the Austrian Werkbund and the Settlement Movement was the Wiener Werkbund-Siedlung in 1932. In 1921, the share of housing estates (Siedlungsbauten) of the City of Vienna’s overall construction activity was still at 55 percent, while only a year later it had already fallen to 39 percent. The Settlement Movement was made up on more than 50,000 members and 230 different organizations. Two years later, in 1923, the municipal administration decided to address the issue of public housing almost exclusively by building multistory apartment blocks. The result can be seen in the famous Wiener Höfe (Karl-Marx-Hof, Sandleiten-Hof, Friedrich-Engels-Hof), where the various buildings consisted mostly of small apartments (approximately 38 square meters each, with toilets but no bathrooms). The Winarsky-Hof (1924) and the Leopoldine-Glöckel-Hof (1931) were Frank’s contributions to multi-story residential building architecture, with his attempts to establish strong connections to outside space visible in his use of balconies and loggias. Frank worked on the Winarsky-­Hof project together with Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Strnad, Oskar Wlach and Franz Schuster, among others, with each architect designing his own components. Starting in the 1919/20 semester, Frank taught until 1925 at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts (as an “assistant teacher with the title of professor”), where ­Hoffmann had held the position of professor since 1899. In 1925, Frank founded the Haus & Garten home furnishings company together with Oskar Wlach and Walter Sobotka. By 1926, only Wlach and Frank were managing the company. Following in the ­footsteps of

4 Josef Frank, “Der Volkswohnungspalast” (1926), in Josef Frank 1885–1967, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Löcker, Vienna 1981, p. 141.

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English and American magazines such as House and Garden, the two architects’ business was dedicated to the bourgeois lifestyle, which at the time always included a garden. As part of his furnishing activities, Frank designed fabrics, wallpapers, armchairs, side tables, sofas and upholstered armchairs, which – through their lightness on the one hand and fantasy fabrics on the other – were a direct continuation of the English country home style. Today, Frank’s designs are often referred to as Wiener Möbelmoderne (Viennese Modern Furniture), however, they are in fact reproductions and variations of different English and Swedish models that Frank subjectively adapted for Vienna. This new trend shows more references to England and German-Austrian Biedermeier than to German Bauhaus. Frank’s most important residential buildings in Vienna were furnished by his company Haus & Garten. Preparations for the epochal Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart also began in 1925, where Frank’s semi-detached house was to cause a scandal. The Deutscher Werkbund built the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart in 1927 under the direction of the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, addressing the topic of “Neues Wohnen” (new living). Within a very short time – 21 weeks – 21 houses were built. The Weißenhofsiedlung is regarded as the most important architectural settlement of Bauhaus Modernism. Frank was the only Austrian architect invited to participate in the Werkbund-Siedlung in Stuttgart. The overall list of participants is representative of the German avant-garde and includes Walter Gropius, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Ferdinand Kramer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Hans Poelzig, Hans Scharoun, Bruno and Max Taut. Frank was invited, along with other international colleagues such as Le ­Corbusier, J. J. ­Pieter Oud and Mart Stam, to represent the entire spectrum of ­European architectural thought. His semi-detached house for the Werkbund-­Siedlung gave rise to great controversy among German architects as Frank had fitted it with Persian carpets – thus questioning the modern purism of his colleagues. These and other aspects of Frank’s architecture showed that he represented a different canon of modernism, one not based on reduced aesthetic representation, but to the contrary on a complex modernity. This – Viennese modernism – incorporated a cultural multi-layering that seemed unacceptable in Germany. In his 1934 essay “Raum und Einrichtung” (Space and Furnishing), Frank set out his ideas about living, pleading for “freedom” of furnishings, color, wallpaper and carpets.5 The statements were more revolutionary at the time than one would think today, namely because they were against the canon of Bauhaus Modernism, against the dictum of the architect as the total designer. It was sentences such as the following that confused and unsettled the radical modernists in 1934: “Every person is proud of their own personal taste, surely a quality the worthlessness of which can hardly be proven. The act of furnishing one’s own apartment is one of the great moments in life, and it is

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5 Josef Frank, “Raum und Einrichtung” (1934), in Josef Frank 1885–1967, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Löcker, Vienna 1981, p. 96.

Four Approaches from Vienna

7.2  Josef Frank, Beer House, Vienna-Hietzing, entrance hall detail, 1929–1930, photo by Georg Riha, 1997

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here that personal taste can express itself freely.”6 The perfect Bauhaus world left no place for the participation that Frank wanted to concede to those living in the apartments. In 1932, five years after the Stuttgart Werkbund exhibition, the Werkbund-Siedlung opened in Vienna under Frank’s artistic direction. During this time, model housing exhibitions were held in Brno, Basel, Zurich, Wroclaw and Prague. Unlike Stuttgart, in Vienna new technologies and prefabrication methods, steel construction (Mies van der Rohe, housing projects), and reinforced concrete construction were not central themes. In line with Frank’s ideas, the focus was on optimized floor plans and minimal apartment sizes. Frank was critical of exaggerated rationalization processes in architecture that neglected the actual needs of residents. A total of 70 residential buildings were built by 31 architects in Vienna. International participants included André Lurçat (France), ­ Gerrit Rietveld (Holland), Gabriel Guevrekian (France), Hugo Häring (Germany) and two Austrian architects who had emigrated to the USA, Richard Neutra and Arthur Grünberger. Frank’s invitation list alone is a reflection of his different approach to modernism, choosing Häring (not Mies van der Rohe) and Lurçat (not Le Corbusier), to name but two examples. Frank and the architects he invited saw living as a process rather than as a function. To put it more precisely, Viennese modernism is not steel pipes and leather but wood and fabric; it reflects more strongly the user profile and less the dogmatic positioning of iconographically aesthetic Modernism. Part of the tragedy of the Werkbund exhibition in Vienna was its late realization. The exhibition The International Style: Architecture since 1922, curated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock, opened at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York on 9 February 1932. Both were in intense contact with Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier throughout the making of the exhibition and catalogue – this is where the canon of modernism was shaped. When the Wiener Werkbund-Ausstellung (Vienna Werkbund Exhibition) was opened on 5 June 1932, it was already the beginning of the end of modern home exhibitions. The exhibition closed on 7 August 1932. Five months later, on 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany, and the Modernist experiment came to an end. On 20 July 1933, the Bauhaus in Berlin was closed by its director, Mies van der Rohe. Frank emigrated to Stockholm, Sweden in 1934 after the Social Democratic Party was banned in Austria and the corporative state (Ständestaat) ushered in. He became a permanent employee of the Svenskt Tenn furniture company, whose director, Estrid Ericson, he had known since the 1920s. For Frank, the situation was a dramatic change. Sweden became his new home for the next 33 years, with the exception his time in the USA from 1941 to 1947.

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6 Ibid. Translated by the author.

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The Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany in March 1938 led to the mass exodus of thousands of Austrians; they emigrated to Great Britain, the USA, to South America, New Zealand and Sweden. Along with Frank, architects such as Felix Augenfeld (1938 to Great Britain), Paul Engelmann (1934 to Israel), Victor Gruen (also Green, 1938 to the USA), Ernst Lichtblau (1939 to the USA), Ernst Anton Plischke (1939 to New Zealand, 1963 back to Austria) and Franz Singer (1934 to Great Britain) also emigrated – a total of more than 40 architects. The years from 1927 to 1936 were Frank’s most productive, despite the political upheaval and totalization of state and culture. The scandal surrounding the semi-detached houses in Stuttgart, fitted with Persian carpets and furniture by the Haus & Garten company, clearly highlights the differences between the dogmatic Bauhaus modernism and Frank’s undogmatic and pragmatic, individualistic architectural theories. During this period, he not only published his most important writings on architecture theory, but also realized numerous architectural projects based on his theories. Published articles included “Wiens moderne Architektur bis 1914” (The Modern Architecture of Vienna until 1914, 1926), “Die Großstadtwohnung unserer Zeit” (The Urban Apartment of Our Times, 1927), “Die moderne Einrichtung des Wohnhauses” (The Modern Furnishing of a Residential Building, 1927), “Siedlungsbau” (Settlement Building, 1927), “Gespräch über den Werkbund” (Conversation on the Werkbund, 1929), “Wiener Bauten und Wohnungen” (Viennese Buildings and Apartments, 1930), “Das Haus als Weg und Platz” (The House as Way and Place, 1931), “Der Siedlungsbau in der modernen Architektur” (Settlement Buildings in Modern Architecture, 1932) and “Raum und Einrichtung” (Space and Furnishing, 1934), to name only the most important.7 A particularly noteworthy aspect of his writing can be found in “Das Haus als Weg und Platz”, in which he creates an analogy to the urbanity of the city, indirectly referring to Alberti. In De re aedificatoria I, 9 and V, 14 Alberti writes, “For if a City, according to the Opinion of Philosophers, be no more than a great House, and, on the other Hand, a house be a little City […].” The Renaissance architect formulated in this way an idea that for Frank would become the epitome of architectural design. The Beer House (1929/30) in Vienna-Hietzing, created in collaboration with Oskar Wlach for the rubber manufacturer Julius Beer and his wife Grete, implements this architectural theory of way and place. This house has an open spatial concept in the sense of an architectural promenade: the path through the house reflects the diversity of spaces – the axes of view inside the house and those into the garden. Without a doubt, this residential building is an outstanding example of modern architecture in the international arena. The entrance hall with its staggered staircase is a spatial masterpiece in which the hall, dining room, living room, library, tea room and conservatory are realized in a

7 Published in Josef Frank 1885–1967, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Löcker, Vienna 1981.

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discreetly open arrangement of spaces. The house is also a fine example of the enlightened and modern living culture of the Jewish bourgeoisie in Vienna. It is really quite remarkable that within only a few years four differentiated and unique housing theories would be built in Vienna: The Sonja Knips Villa (1923–1924) by Josef Hoffmann was a late example of a Gesamtkunstwerk, the Moller House (1926–1927) by Adolf Loos with his Raumplan, Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein’s house (1926– 1928) by Ludwig Wittgenstein to be a structural spatial envelope and the Beer House (1929–1930) by Josef Frank with its open spatial concept.8 Each architect additionally recommended a specific culture of living. In Hoffmann’s case, this was the artistic exaltation of everyday life through total architectural design, with Loos it was the reference to the English lifestyle with built-in furniture, Wittgenstein referenced collage (“all furniture and objects are possible as long as the quality is right”) and in Frank’s case it was the randomness of everyday life with a multitude of furniture styles. These four houses not only reflect the bourgeois lifestyle and the personal and artistic networks of Vienna, but also show the great lifestyle discrepancies found within society: each of the four housing examples had around 500 square meters of living space, gardens and garages, compared to an average of approximately 38 square meters for apartments in social housing. Of the 70 residential buildings of the Wiener Werkbund-Siedlung (planned for the middle class) only one had a garage and the average floor space was rarely more than 80 square meters. The Wiener Werkbund-­Siedlung reflects the European discourse on modern residential housing, although Frank represented an independent “­Viennese” approach, which differed from Bauhaus modernism. Gropius, for example, focused on economic aspects, advocating the economization (typification) of minimally sized apartments in multi-story buildings. Frank’s ideas of housing developments and low-rise buildings were diametrically opposed to these statements. His critique of functionalism was pointedly directed at Bauhaus functionalism. Frank saw Bauhaus as striving for totality and normativity in the sense of economized architecture that negated the intrinsic individuality and diversity of life. Frank began commuting between Stockholm and Vienna in 1934. His designs and works for Svenskt Tenn were highly appreciated and supported by its director, Estrid Ericson. Thanks to this new collaboration, Frank had a life-long foundation and was able to see his designs implemented. The situation in Germany and Austria changed drastically within only five years: the Deutscher Werkbund was instrumentalized by the National Socialists as early as 1933 and in May 1938 the Haus & Garten company was aryanized by the National Socialists in Austria. After Austria’s Anschluss with Germany, Frank became a ­Swedish citizen (his wife Anna was Swedish).

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8 August Sarnitz, Die Architektur Wittgensteins, Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2011, pp. 210–214.

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In 1931, Frank and Wlach built the Leopoldine-Glöckel-Hof residential building together for the City of Vienna; Frank and Svenskt Tenn exhibited a garden terrace at the 1937 Paris World Fair; the Bunzl House in Vienna-Döbling was completed in 1935; and the Wehtje House in Falsterbo, Sweden in 1936. Both of the latter houses celebrate Frank’s free and liberated living style and include a living hall and differentiated living areas. Both have a delightful interior courtyard enclosed by the U-shape of the houses. The Haus & Garten company is paraphrased here as house and garden – in both cases, Frank achieved a particularly high quality of living through differentiated spaces and lighting situations. Following the Wehtje House, Frank’s architectural activity ended in 1936. Only 51 years of age, he realized no further buildings, neither after 1938 during his exile in Sweden, nor while in America from 1941 to 1947. He transferred his entire work focus to Svenskt Tenn, producing over 200 fabric designs (two thirds of which were made in Sweden) and more than 2,000 documented furniture designs. Today, Frank would be described as the company’s creative director, and was decisively responsible for the success and development of the furnishing store. In December 1941, at the age of 55, Frank fled to New York for fear of a possible occupation of neutral Sweden by the German National Socialists. He continued to work for Svenskt Tenn, sending fabric designs to Sweden. He held a temporary teaching position in New York at the New School for Social Research (the building had been designed by the Austrian émigré architect Joseph Urban, who fled to America in 1911 due to a warrant for negligent bankruptcy in Vienna). The school was a melting pot of immigrants from Europe with teachers including, among others, Emil Lederer (from Vienna), Erich Fromm and Hannah Arendt. Like many European visitors, Frank was aware of the casual way of life that distinguished American leisure time, an attitude that he personally liked very much. His residential furnishings idealized this casualness, something he would later mention in his essay “Akzidentismus” (Accidentism, 1958).9 The piece can be considered Frank’s architectural testament – he was 73 years old at the time of writing. Together with several unbuilt designs for holiday homes for Dagmar Grill in southern France, the essay depicted a cheerful, colorful world without conventions. The architectural language is dissolved, unattached and “free” in the sense of architectural iconography. In essence, the Accidentism essay deals with science, aesthetics, architecture, tradition and art. “In our time of scientific thought, all traditions are gradually being lost; there is no longer reason to accept laws that cannot be proven. As a result, concepts such as art and beauty, which cannot even be defined, have become doubted. Those without tradition are forced to invent their own laws of art, which must

9 Josef Frank, “Akzidentismus” (1958), in Josef Frank 1885–1967, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Löcker, Vienna 1981, p. 236.

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­ ecessarily be quite arbitrary. They must base them on moral or utilin tarian, scientific or mystical motivations in order to be able to believe in them and spread this belief.”10 Here, Frank addresses, among other things, several essential philosophical aspects of existentialism. After the Second World War, at the onset of the nuclear age, everything is possible at any time: total destruction, the nuclear end of the world. In this age of uncertainty, the reaction of his Accidentism text would seem logical, an intelligent response to the morality-free technology in the sense of Heidegger’s process (Verfahren). Without morality, technology and modernity are equally at the mercy of totalitarianism as any of the “isms”. Frank’s skepticism, which never finds its way out in the world of coincidences, recalls the time of Mannerism, when the strict rules of the Renaissance were dissolved into cheerful, playful manners, grotesques and deceptions. Deception, in particular, is of great importance here: Accidentism also pretends to be something it is not. Its apparent randomness is intended, planned and organized – similar to an English landscape garden. In this sense, one could regard Accidentism as the highest form of planning – similar to improvisation in jazz music, where the consumer does not necessarily recognize the act of planning. Only intellectual critics are conscious of the coincidence. In this context, the holiday homes for Dagmar Grill in southern France can be seen as architectural capriccios, examples of paradisiacal abstraction in the Garden of Eden, in contrast to the urban everyday life of northern Stockholm. Bearing names such as “Kon-Tiki” (1947), “Coral” (ca. 1925–1930), “Jungle” (ca. 1943–1945), “Brazil” (1943–1945) and “Karma” (1925– 1930), Frank’s numerous fabric designs could likewise be seen as examples of this “paradisiacal abstraction”. Many of the patters have an exoticism and abstraction that can be seen as a great secular cosmos – freedom and peaceful nature (paradise) as the ultimate rationale of an architect who was a great humanist.

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10 Ibid. Translated by the author.

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Friedrich Kiesler The following two excerpts are from articles on Friedrich Kiesler from 1947 and 2016, almost seventy years apart: two distinct takes on this radical, modern designer, architect, set designer and artist. Frederick John Kiesler, architect, stage designer and structural theorist, is a tiny (5 ft. 1 in.), 51-year-old Viennese who looks like a cross between a mischievous elf and a rather pompous troll. His strut, charm, wit and warm human understanding coupled with a brilliant intellect and fantastic imagination should already have made him a successful and famous man. But F. J. Kiesler has lived and worked in America for the past twenty years in comparative obscurity. Except for the group of architects and artists who comprise the forefront of the modern movement, his name is unknown even to members of his own profession. Here is a man whom experts rank with Walter Gropius and the late Moholy-Nagy as a pioneer in contemporary design, and some even place next to Wright and Le Corbusier. But unlike the ideas of his famous contemporaries, Kiesler’s best mental images have seldom been translated into actuality. Those which did break through the blueprint prison have been erected with a running accompaniment of difficulties which would have turned a less resilient man into a sanatorium case. Kiesler’s U.S. history is that of the avantgarde European astray in the American commercial woods. He came to the U.S. in 1926, 10 years before his famous colleagues, proudly wearing a brilliant continental reputation. There was only one drawback: Kiesler was so far ahead of America that nobody knew what he was talking about … Kiesler’s architectural career had begun in the office of Adolf Loos, working on the slum clearance and rehousing projects which were to make Vienna a model for public housing developments all over the world.11 Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965) diverse artistic oeuvre still inspires architects, theater producers, designers, artists and filmmakers today. The MAK exhibition “FRIEDRICH KIESLER: Lebenswelten / Life Visions” reflects the growing interest in Kiesler’s conceptual and holistic thinking and acting in the international art and creative scene. In addition, it demonstrates the importance of Kiesler’s years in Vienna as a source for his entire creative work, thus positioning Kiesler as one of the outstanding designers of Viennese Modernism. The exhibition will focus on Kiesler’s transdisciplinary work in painting and sculpture, architecture and design, theater and film, while bringing his theory of Correalism and his innovative exhibition practices up for discussion.12

11 February 1947, Architectural Forum, “Design’s bad boy, a pint-sized scrapper who, after thirty years, still challenges all comers”, introductory paragraph to the article, offprint without page number, source: ÖFLKS (The Frederick Kiesler Foundation). 12 Excerpt from the press release of the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, 6 June 2016. Translated by the author.

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Here, it becomes necessary to examine the “Bad Boy” article published in Architectural Forum (1947) in more detail. Kiesler was 57 years old at the time the article was written in collaboration with himself; he made a point of deliberately incorporating information and ideas from ­Vienna and Europe. It is a kind of self-portrayal of Kiesler combined with the author’s attempt to establish a connection with his fellow architects in the American professional world. Architectural Forum was not an avant-garde magazine but a professional journal for readers from the homebuilding industry and from architecture. The magazine first appeared in Boston in 1892 under the title The Brickbuilder and ceased publication in 1974. Kiesler’s “Bad Boy” article must have caused quite a stir among its readers. Two years after the Second World War had ended, his statements on design and architecture were still radical and absolutely new. After 1945, contemporary modern architecture in the United States was primarily influenced by Walter Gropius (Harvard University) and ­Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Illinois Institute of Technology). The two Bauhaus émigrés served as directors at authoritative and influential schools of architecture, where other European colleagues also taught, including Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Hilberseimer, to name but two. In this environment, Kiesler’s positions were clearly defined in theoretical works and publications, such as Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display (1930, Brentano, NY, Reprint 1939), a series of articles in ­Architectural Record titled “Design Correlation” (from February 1937) and the “Manifeste du Corréalisme” published in French (dated 20 ­September 1947, published in a special issue of L’Architecture ­d’Aujourd’hui). These writings were complemented by his designs for the Space House (1933) and the Endless House (Paris from 1947). Kiesler came to New York in 1926 in connection with the International Theatre Exposition at the Steinway Building. His radical work on set design in Vienna and Berlin was characterized by spatial concepts styled after De Stijl and Constructivism. Kiesler began with designs for shop windows on Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City – an activity he discussed in 1930 in his notable publication Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display. Contrary to what the title suggests, this publication is in fact an interdisciplinary approach to the history of art, culture, architecture, design, consumerism and the teaching of art. It includes topics such as “The Fine Arts are the basis of decoration”, “Architecture”, “The store evolved from the market”, “The Bazaar has the right sort of stimulus”, “Dramatizing by lighting”, “Aura Frames”, “Light and decoration”, “Light and Archi­ tecture”, “Movies as a sales aid” and “Architecture and Decoration”. On page 121 of his book, Kiesler discusses the idea of a telemuseum, among other things. “Just as operas are now transmitted over the air, so ­picture galleries will be. From the Louvre to you, from the Prado to you, from everywhere to you. You will enjoy the prerogative of selecting pictures that are compatible with your mood or that meet the demands of any special occasion. Through the dials of your Teleset you will share in the ownership of the world’s greatest art treasures.” In

Four Approaches from Vienna

7.3  Friedrich Kiesler Multifunctional furniture, designed for the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery Art of This Century, 1942, reproduction by Wittmann, “Correalistic Rocker” and “Correalistic Instrument”, photo by August Sarnitz, 2017

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doing so, Kiesler revolutionarily anticipated the digital revolution of the 21st century. The reference illustrations in the book are a personal commentary on avant-garde art and architecture in Europe, including The Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, The Glass House by Bruno Taut and a department store by Erich Mendelsohn – albeit with a critical remark. In the fourth chapter of Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display, “Architecture – instead of national international architecture”, Kiesler writes: “Happily for contemporary architecture, today is no longer a conglomeration of all sorts of materials and styles, but a living expression of the spirit of a community, or of a personality. And so it is in the best way towards becoming an INTERNATIONAL architecture. ONE STYLE FOR ALL. Whether it is in a work of Le Corbusier in France, Frank Lloyd Wright in America, Perret in Tunis, Oud in Holland, Vesnin in Moscow, the modern spirit has, and can only have, the same expression.” And Kiesler continues his argument with new individuality and technical progress: “To build or decorate in a more or less indigenous style in an individual idiosyncrasy: the trend of the age is to break down insularity. Our technical progress in construction will soon have gone so far that every building and the processes of living will be independent of heat and cold. Southern and northern temperatures, climatic conditions, will be regulated from inside our rooms as we regulate our watches.” Almost enthusiastically, he assigns the future of architecture to “brotherhood”: “Technical improvements have conquered space and brought together nations, races, lines of longitude and parts of the earth. Physical and spiritual boundaries are disappearing. Architecture announces simplification, understanding and brotherhood.” (All quotes from chapter four.) One could speculative a connection between Kiesler’s publication and Hans Hollein’s “Alles ist Architektur” (Manifesto, 1967). Hollein later published his complex architectural concepts in the magazine BAU (1968).13 Other parallels between the two architects who had met in New York (as Hollein told the author in 1983) are also noteworthy. Hollein regarded himself as an architect, designer, sculptor and object artist; his architectural work began with a department store, including a project from 1963 in St. Louis, USA.14 Eventually, Hollein became famous for his boutique shop designs, with the Süddeutsche Zeitung describing him as a “Master of Architecture Staging”,15 another un-

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13 Hans Hollein, “Alles ist Architektur” (1966), published in BAU, Issue 1/2 1968, pp. 1–27. In his manifesto, Hollein writes: “These far-developed physical possibilities lead us to think about psychic possibilities of determinations of environments. After shedding the need of any necessity of a physical shelter at all, a new freedom can be sensed.” Translated by the author. In a subsequent publication, “Architecture Is a Work of Art” (1989), as cited in Hans Hollein, edited by Peter Weibel, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2012, p. 111, Hollein continues very firmly: “Architecture is both a spiritual as well as a technological matter, it has psychological as well as physical concerns.” 14 Also compare Hans Hollein’s work for his master’s thesis in architecture at the University of California in Berkeley, titled “Space in Space in Space”, Hans Hollein, edited by Peter Weibel, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2012, p. 34. 15 Süddeutsche Zeitung, 17 October 1987 (“Retti Shop – USA Reynolds Memorial Award”). Translated by the author.

Four Approaches from Vienna

intentional parallel to Kiesler. Hollein received the coveted Reynolds ­Memorial Award (1966) for his Retti candle shop in Vienna. Kiesler’s references to Vienna are manifold and frank: Although his claim of working with Loos is not documented and not mentioned by Loos, many aspects reflect their common backgrounds: common themes such as space, culture, materiality, psychology, art, consumption and urbanity. “The expansion of a great city must be unlimited by today’s standards”, wrote Otto Wagner in March 1911 in his theoretical and practical discourse on urbanity Die Großstadt (The Development of a Great City).16 Thus, in 1911 Vienna, “unlimited” was already an absolutely essential concept in architectural modernity. The projects of the Wagner class at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna – airports, port towns, sports and leisure facilities – were unlimited. Everything was seemingly unlimited to the generation of architects of the first modern age, at least until 1914, the eve of the great war of annihilation, which was to plunge Europe and the world into an abyss. Technological progress had made everything possible, the development of cities and of architecture. Kiesler came to Vienna in 1908 to study, beginning his education at the Technical University before moving to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna a year later. He did not study architecture but attended the Allgemeine Malschule (General School of Painting) and the Spezialschule für Kupferstich Special School for Copper Engraving) for a total of six semesters without, however, earning a formal degree. The artistic skills he acquired in this time would be of particular importance to his later work as a designer, architect and artist. Kiesler’s first important projects reflect his enthusiasm for modˇ ern technology: his stage design for Karel Capek’s play R. U. R., which premiered in March 1923 at the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in ­ ­Berlin, had an electromechanical backdrop and film projections that brought him international recognition from the avant-garde.17 The stage, set d ­ esign and staging became fields that would accompany him ­throughout his life. His design for the International Exhibition of New Theater ­Technology in Vienna in 1924, his presentation of Space City in Paris in 1925 (where Konstantin Melnikov also presented his constructivist ­design for the Soviet Pavilion) and his first design of an Endless ­Theatre (1925) are important advancements: endless was an ­adjective that would ­become fundamental to his architecture. But ­endless is not far off from the unlimited postulated by Otto Wagner in 1911. ­Unlimited means ­having no limits in space, and endless is often used as a synonym. ­Viennese modernism had come full circle. New, modern ­architecture does not want to and should not impose limits

16 Otto Wagner, Die Großstadt, Schroll, Vienna 1911, pp. 10, 15. 17 Friedrich Kiesler – Lebenswelten / Life Visions. Architektur – Kunst – Design / Architecture – Art – Design, exhibition catalogue, MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2016, contribution by Barbara Lesák, “Everything Begins with Theater”, pp. 117–135.

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upon itself, the ­challenge is to overcome conventional and traditional limitations. This reveals a new level of understanding by Kiesler and by modern architecture. With unlimited and endless, came uncanny and foreign in the form of progress, technology, change and emancipation in the early 20th century. Sigmund Freud published a work on the concept in the fall of 1919 titled Das Unheimliche (The Uncanny). Published a year after the end of the First World War, the actual writing went back to 1913: “It is only rarely that a psychoanalyst feels impelled to investigate the subject of aesthetics even when aesthetics is understood to mean not merely the theory of beauty, but the theory of the qualities of feeling.” Freud continues: “The German word unheimlich is obviously the opposite of heimlich, heimisch, meaning ‘familiar’, ‘native’, ‘belonging to the home’; and we are tempted to conclude that what is ‘uncanny’ is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar. Naturally not everything which is new and unfamiliar is frightening, however; the relation cannot be inverted. We can only say that what is novel can easily become frightening and uncanny; some new things are frightening but not by any means all. Something has to be added to what is novel and unfamiliar to make it uncanny.”18 The two terms uncanny (Freud) and endless (Kiesler) would seem to contradict one another. On the contrary, the two concepts harbor an inner cohesion that is mutually dependent. Freud argues that something needs to be added to that which is novel, something difference from what is generally expected, such as fear. There is a high correlation between future and fear in this. For Freud, these facts can be explained: “In the first place, if psychoanalytic theory is correct in maintaining that every emotional affect, whatever its quality, is transformed by repression into morbid anxiety, then among such cases of anxiety there must be a class in which the anxiety can be shown to come from something repressed which recurs. This class of morbid anxiety would then be no other than what is uncanny, irrespective of whether it originally aroused dread or some other affect. In the second place, if this is indeed the secret nature of the uncanny, we can understand why the usage of speech has extended das Heimliche into its opposite das Unheimliche; for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old-established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression.”19 Here we see a possible direct connection to the architectural world of the avant-garde: repression and alienation deal with neurosis in relation to modernity. People experience repression and alienation in the fields of work, consumption and art, where general orientation is no longer effective. Thus Kiesler tries to intervene in these new personal worlds – worlds of consumption, of art and of living – by creating sheltered areas of

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18 Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny”, Imago, Vol. V, 1919, pp. 1, 2. Translation by Alix Strachey. 19 Ibid, p. 13.

Four Approaches from Vienna

privacy where individuals can withdraw. This applies to the Endless House as well as to the areas of his art deliberately referring to archaic constructs. In his publication Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display, he clearly makes his interpretation of the consumer world a topic of discussion. His design for a department store in Paris (1925) is one of the most radical designs of his time. A ramp-like, high-rise tower makes wandering through the world of consumerism easy. Thirty-four years later, the Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was opened in New York with a continuous ramp (planned from 1943, opened on 21 October 1959 after Wright’s death). The architectural proximity of the worlds of consumerism and of art is quite surprising. In his own words, Kiesler describes the department store as follows: “Project for a department store anchored to the ground only at the central axis, which includes elevator shafts, heating and cooling systems. Glass encases the entire structure. The floors are circular and built on the spiral principles of a corkscrew, so that passage is continuously from one floor to the other. Here we have the solution of one of the most pressing problems in department stores today: free, equal distribution of traffic.”20 Let’s look at the American consumer world and Kiesler’s shop window designs: Walking through the products on sale is reminiscent of Walter Benjamin’s notion of the flaneur strolling through Paris and its shopping temples. Benjamin’s critique of consumerism can also be found in his book Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street), in which he addresses sociological inequality, among other things. Contemporary luxury goods are spreading throughout society, exhibiting a shameless massiveness. True luxury, however, “can be permeated by intellect and conviviality”.21 For Kiesler, this critique of consumerism was not relevant. He reflected instead on the American consumer world. For him, the consumer world and the art world ideally were identical worlds of the modern world and modern life.22 For Rudolph M. Schindler, another émigré Austrian architect, shop window design was likewise an essential part of his architectural work. As early as 1916 in Chicago (a project for a commercial building) and later in Los Angeles, Schindler developed arguments for new shop

20 Frederick Kiesler, Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display, Brentano’s, New York 1930. 21 Walter Benjamin, One-Way Street (1928), Harvard University Press, Cambridge (USA) / London 2016, p. 40. 22 Ulrich Wyrwa, “Luxus und Konsum: Begriffsgeschichtliche Aspekte”, in Luxus und Konsum. Eine historische Annäherung, edited by Rudolf Reith and Torsten Meyer, Waxmann, Münster 2003, Cottbuser Studien zur Geschichte von Technik, Arbeit und Umwelt, p. 56: “For North American society in the mid20th century, numerous sociological studies have confirmed the increasing orientation of the middle class towards consumerism. These changes in the history of mentality led to the formation of a composite consumer society. The study of the exiled Jewish social scientist Georg Katona on the position of consumers in society, in particular his study The Mass Consumption Society, became particularly influential. These intellectuals critical of civilization and influenced by the Marxist critique of capitalism, who had fled National Socialist Germany to the United States of America, could not share the optimistic attitude towards consumption that had sometimes been formulated here. According to Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno in their Dialectic of the Enlightenment, capitalist production keeps consumers enclosed with body and soul in such a way that they ‘fall for the goods without resistance’.” Translated by the author.

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l­ayouts. Among other things, façades were to have a long-distance effect on motorists and a close-up effect on pedestrians. Shop windows were understood as being a communicative element. This is shown by the numerous sculptural storefront designs from the 1930s, some of them quite emphatic.23 Kiesler’s exhibition design for Peggy Guggenheim can in this way also be seen as a continuing example of his shop design. Kiesler himself writes that, in this exhibition, the presentation of the pieces was just as important as the actual artwork. Kiesler spent his entire life dealing with the topic of housing. He reflects on the context of the 1930s and notes the “perennial crises in architecture, viz.: the incapacity of society to provide and sustain a healthful and healthy shelter for each of its members; hence the inability of the designer and builder to deal adequately with these demands for all income levels. We have excelled in erecting architectural monuments to gods of heaven and of earth, but we have failed to provide a simple, healthy home for man himself.”24 In 1933, Kiesler built a model house in the showrooms of the ­Modernage Furniture Company that fulfilled his ideas of living in several ways.25 The Space House was based on new building materials such as pre-stressed concrete and glass that made columns and pillars superfluous, and allowing the entire house to be seen as a floor-wall-ceiling continuum. The individual areas can be separated by noise-insulating rubber curtains and the different functional areas are assigned varying room heights. The living area has a high ceiling, the sleeping areas and the library become private retreats by virtue of their low ceilings. This room height variation is an essential element and qualitative feature of the design. Here we find direct references to the debate on space and building in Vienna. Adolf Loos’s Raumplan is further developed by Kiesler into the Space House and Space Architecture. Almost simultaneously, another Austrian architect who had emigrated to Los Angeles – Rudolf M. Schindler – publishes his architectural vision, also calling it “Space Architecture”. In both cases, it is a matter of approaching space as the primary architectural and psychological quality of building. In 1934, Schindler published his programmatic “Space Architecture”,26 expanding it in 1935 to publish it under the title “Furniture and the Modern House: A Theory of Interior Design”. He describes the new “spatial architecture”: “The architect of our time is discovering a new medium: space. The house of the future is symphony of ‘space forms’ – each room a necessary and unavoidable part of the whole. Structural materials, walls, ceiling, floors, are only means to an end: the definition

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23 August Sarnitz, Rudolf M. Schindler, Rizzoli, New York 1988, catalogue of works. 24 Friedrich Kiesler, “Architecture as Biotechnique”, foreword to the separate special edition reprint, without page number, source: ÖFLKS. 25 “Space House by Frederick Kiesler”, in Architectural Record, January 1934, p. 45. 26 Rudolph Schindler, “Space Architecture”, in Dune Forum, Oceano, California 1934, pp. 44–46.

Four Approaches from Vienna

of space forms. They lose their individual importance and are simplified to the utmost – a simple weave of a few materials articulates space into rooms.”27 The statements of the two architects are surprising: two years after the successful exhibition The International Style at the Museum of ­Modern Art in New York, the two architects – Kiesler on the east coast and ­Schindler on the west coast of the United States – criticize the cornerstones of functionalism and the International Style. At the time, their criticism was without response – today, their visions remain ­relevant. The ideas of the Space House are continued in the Endless House, with Kiesler again emphasizing the protective function. Here, an eggshaped architectural object offers the protection that Kiesler considers particularly important for private living. The detached house is seen as the original cell of the family, while the individual house is the germinating cell for the individual family. Kiesler’s vision of architecture is inseparably linked to the Endless House. Countless photographs document the different phases of his work. A portrait of Kiesler with a model of the Endless House (1959) makes a reference to total identity: the vision and concept of “psycho-function”, which Kiesler proposed in the 1930s.28 “With the concept of ‘psycho-function,’ the material condition of the building and its mechanical operations give way to a form of sensuality understood as psychological pleasure. The architect becomes a kind of therapist unlocking repressions. At one point, Kiesler describes the model of his Endless House as ‘rolled up like a sex kitten.’ The primary role of the architect is to satisfy appetites, whether sexual or gastric: ‘If art could be accepted like sex and sex like eating, men and woman would not feel like perverts, shamelessly obscene in the presence of modern art or architecture.’ For Kiesler, modern architecture was filled with repressions that needed to be unblocked in the name of pleasure.”29 It is only a small step from the psychological function of architecture to total correlation in architecture. Kiesler’s concept of “correlation” aims to enable a new world view, a new understanding of the future and of modernity, and also an awareness of the possible danger of destruction through technology.30 The “Manifeste du Corréalisme”, dated 20 September 1947 in Paris, was published two years later as a special edition of L’Architecture ­d’Aujourd’hui. It provides a dense architectural theory with a specially designed layout that included diagrams of Correalism, design drafts, photos and photo collages of furniture, statements on the flexibility of

27 Rudolph Schindler, “Furniture and the Modern House: A Theory of Interior Design”, in Architect and Engineer (San Francisco), Vol. 123, December 1935, pp. 22–25, and Vol. 124, March 1936, pp. 24–28. 28 Frederick Kiesler, as in Note 10, p. 87. 29 Private Utopia, edited by August Sarnitz and Inge Scholz-Strasser, De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2015, contribution by Beatriz Colomina, “Endless Interior: Kiesler’s Architecture as Psychoanalysis”, p. 137. 30 Friedrich Kiesler – Lebenswelten / Life Visions, as in Note 7, essay by Spyros Papapetros, “Magic Architecture: Caves, Animals, and Tools in the Atomic Age”, pp. 59–71.

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furniture, photos about the exhibition design of “Art of This Century for Peggy Guggenheim and photos of the Space House with references to the Endless House.31 In addition to the many programmatic statements on architecture, art and design, there is also a wonderful play on words about Cubism featured on the opening pages: here, Kiesler invents the word cube-prison, which is phonetically almost identical with the French word cubisme. This is surely the most wonderful intellectual and artistic way to express his criticism of art and architecture.

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31 In this context, it is very important to point out the lasting effects of the publication, in particular the article by Matthias Boeckl, “Kiesler und die Wiener Architekten – Bestandsaufnahme einer vielschichtigen Beziehung”, in Friedrich Kiesler. Architekt, Maler, Bildhauer, 1890–1965, edited by Dieter Bogner, Löcker, Vienna 1988, pp. 305–319. Boeckl discusses the ambivalent situations between Kiesler, Josef Hoffmann, Oswald Haerdtl and Adolf Loos with a precise classification of historical possibilities and information. Also important is his reference to the period after 1945, when Walter Pichler, Hans Hollein, Raimund Abraham and Friedrich St. Florian were in contact with Kiesler in New York. The relevance of Kiesler for Hans Hollein has not yet been researched.

Four Approaches from Vienna

Hans Hollein

Interview with Hans Hollein by August Sarnitz, Vienna, 4 July 2008 August Sarnitz: The Rothschildschloss (Rothschild Castle) in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Lower Austria, has had a very eventful architectural history since the 13th century, with multiple owners. The last prominent owner was Albert Freiherr von Rothschild, succeeded by his son Louis Rothschild. He engaged Friedrich Schmidt, the famous Ringstrasse architect who also built Vienna City Hall on Rathausplatz. What was your approach to this architecturally significant structure?32 Hans Hollein: I was given a topic and a task – the remodeling of an old building and its conversion from one use to another. I had undertaken similar tasks before – museums, for instance, and the renovation and conversion of historical buildings. The approach would always vary depending on the context, and I chose approaches that seemed appropriate to historical building substance that was to be completely remodeled to a state that had a very specific date. Essentially, with Rothschild Castle, I was dealing with a medieval castle, a fortress, that had served several different purposes over the years. Originally built in the early Middle Ages, the main structure had been expanded multiple times and destroyed in parts. A castle keep was added that served different purposes, not only military, also symbolic. A tower is always an expression of a certain mindset, not necessarily an expression of power but certainly always a strong symbol. Rothschild Castle suffered damage as late as the 19th century, when entire sections of the building were destroyed and then rebuilt by Friedrich von Schmidt, as stated earlier, for use by Rothschild as a main residence and for the administration of his estate. For me, it was important to not refer to a specific restoration phase or to use a language reminiscent of Friedrich Schmidt’s Gothic style, the predominant style of his era. Every historical age, every point in time, left its mark on this building and for this reason I set myself the goal of restoring the existing structure to fulfill its intended use. This was not only about aspects of essential functionality, it had to do with a message: I used glass and steel to introduce materials that did not exist in the old stone and plaster architecture but corresponded to the architectural language of our time, the turn of the 21st century. I decided to create different objects with different functions and elements that are simply sculptural objects. I added them on or in the case of the Crystal Hall (Kristallsaal), for example, I integrated them into the building.

32 Interview on 4 July 2008, August Sarnitz with Hans Hollein in his office, recorded and approved by Hans Hollein.

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A.S.: What is striking about the many artistic and architectural interventions are the communicative elements that you chose for the building: the glass structure on the tower, the cantilevered terrace, the artistic light sculpture near the old entrance near the park, the glass cube complementing the Registrar’s Office that is part of the old building. What was the philosophy behind your choice of materials for these interventions? H.H.: In this regard, I already mentioned the many alterations the castle has undergone over time. It was these conversions that inspired me to introduce yet another transformation, that relates not only to specific functions, physical functions, but that would also send a clear signal: Here is a living building that has been used over time and is still being used today. Such transformations are particularly common in museum architecture: the Belvedere, for example, is a converted residential palace, and the Uffizi Gallery was converted from an office building into a museum. Architects must do justice to a variety of uses and demands, as well as cater to new needs. This is not just a matter of design, as with a spoon or a fork, it’s all about allowing for a more free and diverse use, a juxtaposition of different approaches. A.S.: The Crystal Hall is a central space of the artistic architectural intervention to the Rothschild Castle. The word crystal, derived from Greek krustallos (freeze) or kryos (frost), has been emotionally charged since the 19th century. Not only in the novel Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter but throughout the entire 19th century, glittering crystal was the epitome of the festive lifestyle, of celebration and the self-portrayal of a bourgeoisie made rich by industrialization. The crystal chandelier is an example pars pro toto. Something very special happens in the Crystal Hall. Here, the abstract idea of the crystalline is presented to the observer in an abstract, virtual way, as if the observer were located inside a crystal. It has a very appealing clarity, purity; a translucent abstract space combined with different light effects. A walk-in prism that transforms events into unique and special experiences?

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H.H.: The initial demands were very precise: to create a large lecture hall, which could also be used for musical or artistic performances, and as a venue for conferences, balls or weddings. On the genesis of the hall: in a draft plan which the municipality had commissioned long before I ever became involved, the events hall was located on the ground floor. There is a large room there that is divided by a central wall and is easily accessible. Then we learned from the Austrian Federal Monuments Authority (Bundesdenkmalamt) that this central wall was very unique and one of only a few preserved structures of its kind. I had run into a similar problem in Madrid at the Banco Santander where a central wall was likewise under heritage protection. Actually, I was quite happy to comply with the wishes of the heritage commission.

Four Approaches from Vienna

7.4  Hans Hollein Rothschild Castle transformation, Crystal Hall, Waidhofen/Ybbs, 2005, photo by August Sarnitz, 2008

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Because the low ceilings and arches of the Banco Santander were anyway quite obstructive to banking activities, I came up with a new idea: Why don’t we build one story up and include the loft, a space that had been remodeled multiple times and was now being used as a student dormitory? I was anyway of the opinion that the attic was too fragmented and would benefit from a rebuild. The client initially resisted, saying that it wasn’t what they had intended, but thank goodness they finally agreed, even if certain questions, difficulties and reservations remained. In various projects for auditoriums, concert halls and opera houses, my approach has always been that the end result didn’t necessarily need to be rectangular, like Vienna’s Musikvereinssaal (Vienna Philharmonic concert hall). In Waidhofen, we had the opportunity to build into an existing shell. The roof was completely removed and steel frames were inserted to create an open space inside that I was then able to adapt to different functions. This process created a non-rectangular space with a sense of spatial fluidity, with the gallery, for example. I did the initial rough draft without consulting an acoustician. The result was a plastic structure. It was a clear decision to create something different, something contrary to the opinion that a concert hall can only be made of wood. That is a legacy of Loos, who maintained that a room can be made to vibrate like a violin. I had had this discussion with an acoustician before: Can you make a concert hall out of stone or glass, as is the case here? Yes, of course, it could work. We just had to give the idea a little more thought, which ultimately led to the result you see today. The lighting was also important. The glass walls emanate light and there are additional spotlights of course. The experience of being in the space – psychologically as well – is very unique: you come into an old stone building and suddenly a door opens and you enter an extremely bright hall with a completely different architectural vocabulary. A.S.: In the process of redesigning a listed building, the question of materials and materiality is particularly relevant. This is a deeply Viennese tradition going all the way back to Gottfried Semper and Adolf Loos. How does today’s architecture relate to such – almost philosophical – questions of materiality?

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H.H.: On the one hand, I would never replace a stone doorframe with a different material when repairing it. But on the other hand, there have been times where it made perfect sense, because a structure was not really clearly defined or didn’t evoke a specific typology, to come to a decision to add on to the sculptural object of the building, in this case the castle. Sculptural architecture is certainly a theme that I pursue in different ways. Different spaces were created at different points, such as the entrance area that simply didn’t exist before. Raising the tower also made perfect sense, because Waidhofen is the “city of towers”. When Waidhofen was besieged but not conquered by the Turks, the inhabitants decided to build the city tower. It wasn’t there before,

Four Approaches from Vienna

but was instead added later, which is per se a strange fact. I added a prism on top of the Rothschild Castle tower, a symbol of the 20th and 21st centuries. The result is a space that can be used as a room – where even Christ and the Twelve Apostles can sit (laughs) – with a wonderful view across the landscape: the perfect place to celebrate New Year’s Eve, to watch the fireworks all around. Still, the end result did have some major acceptance issues and remains highly controversial among the local population. A.S.: The use of heterogeneous materials in artistic and architectural permutations and collages characterizes the high quality of your buildings. Let’s talk about the sensual quality of the materials: from the Haas Haus in Vienna to the Schullin II jewelry shop and the Museum der Moderne in Frankfurt. The materials of each of these buildings are contextualized to the location. How did your ideas on this evolve? H.H.: Of course, the glass structure was also a conscious signal, an object that raises the existing height of the tower. As far as the silhouette is concerned, this is also true of my high-rise projects, both designed and built. I am of the opinion that high-rises should not be truncated prisms, but should definitively reveal a specific quality of height: Highrise buildings that create a striking silhouette or are otherwise memorable in some way. Take, for instance, the pyramids of Gizeh: I can draw them several days later when I’m out dining with friends. Of course, there is a whole different set of symbolic aspects of towers, a lighthouse, for example, the Pharos of Alexandria. My work often reaches deep into the past, not to reuse a style the same way it was done in the 19th century, but simply to recognize the significant statements that came before. For me, the modern age begins with the cornice of Cronaca’s Palazzo Strozzi in Florence overhanging the street. It creates an urban space beneath it by acting as a semi-protective element. The tower is another example of an idealized object that meets a whole range of human needs and also has symbolic value, conveying very strong images that we remember for years to come. A.S.: Mies van der Rohe was famous for saying that you cannot invent new architecture every Monday morning. Mies had an incredible consistency in his own work, and at the same time each new design also had a specific genetic spark: special materials, an ingenious construction, or simply by an omitted element. During your time in the United States, you studied with Mies in Chicago at the Illinois Institute and actually got to know the cigar-smoking guru of modernity personally. When we look at your new beautifully cantilevered balcony above the Ybbs River today, does it also include a reference to Mies’s designs, or how would you describe this quality? 165

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7.5  Hans Hollein Haas House, Vienna, Stephansplatz, atrium (original state, now ­altered), 1985, photo by Georg Riha

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H.H.: You can interpret so much into this unique structure. You pass through the wedding hall to get to the cantilevered balcony, where you find yourself “floating” over the Ybbs River far below. This is where photos of the bride and bridegroom are taken. In fact, I put a lot of thought into this, because getting married is like jumping into cold water (smiles). But I think sometimes it’s good when things can be ­interpreted in many different ways. To be specific, the architectural concept of my aircraft carrier has been interpreted in numerous ways. And sometimes its right and sometimes the interpretation is simply wrong. As is the case with many things I work on, I wish for a result to be ­interpreted in many different ways, as long as it is done intelligently. A.S.: In his book Studies in Tectonic Culture, Kenneth Frampton, one of the most famous living architectural historians in the USA, placed the primacy of the tectonic above the spatial, as a result of ­technology, construction and progress. He mentions several architects who you hold in high esteem: Louis Kahn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Jørn Utzon and Carlo Scarpa, whose work you know ­particularly well. How do you see your own work in this historical context? H.H.: That’s quite a wide range of topics. It’s true that I greatly appreciate these architects and that I know them personally. Indeed, my work is often all about the sculptural, which also has a certain message, a somewhat different message than a figurine, which is also a sculptural object. On the other hand, it would be wrong to say that architecture is habitable sculpture. New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) only focused on that one aspect and disregarded everything else. For me, there have been distinct movements and the approach has always differed. I would agree that architecture must also be a protective dwelling, but in a sense, “Architecture is not the solution of a problem, but the making of a statement.” A.S.: The interaction of art and culture in your career – your own work as an artist and at the same time your work as an architect also involved in museum design – has led to a very complex work environment. H.H.: I am convinced that there simply are no limitations in certain areas. “Trespassing into other territories” has always been important to me. There are these preconceived notions. If you’re an architect, you can’t be a poet or a designer. These limitations don’t exist in English language usage, everything is design: urban design, architectural design, product design, stage design. The term has no clear limitations and I fully agree with that. There is no need for clear limitations. Of course, as an architect I can be more

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active in one area than another. An architect produces an end result that is a much more complex combination of results. It’s much more affordable for a painter to buy an A4 sheet to make a watercolor. Here, the costs for the production of an object are much smaller in comparison. I have always included this continuity and permeability, I have defended it and sometimes worked with borderline cases. And I also believe that, in today’s globalized world, a fashion designer may one day design a house, for example. Personally, I didn’t have a problem with Hundertwasser (Austrian painter) building social housing for the City of Vienna. It was highly controversial among Austrian architects, but I liked the fact that the mayor, the head of the City of Vienna, would dare to do it. A.S.: Your work makes very faithful attempts to produce “architectural images”, images that tell a story, materials that refer to locality on the one hand and have to do with exoticism on the other. What prompted you to think in pictorial images, a feature of modernism and postmodernism? Le Corbusier’s ocean liners and your aircraft carrier are perfect examples of this. H.H.: That’s a long story. Aircraft carriers have been interpreted in many different ways, for example, as incorporating all the functions of a city. Everything a city really needs is inside an aircraft carrier. I also started thinking about microstructures, like telephone booths, a very early means of communication that enabled individuals to connect with the whole world. If you take this thought a step further, the “perfect building” is a spacecraft and spacesuit. Together, they provide all the functions needed for survival. These interpretations go in the direction of architecture being related to survival – survival during life and after life. The pyramids are a great example of this because they have survived to this day. These are aspects that continue to be relevant. A.S.: Historicity plays an important role in your work. There are very few architects who have dealt with contextual building in the historical substance as intensively as you. The authenticity of factual ­ historicity is increasingly appreciated in the world of media ­information. Even architects such as Rem Koolhaas, who are quite radically avant-garde, are increasingly mindful of the protection of monuments, of national heritage and the aura of history. Did you have a cultural and intellectual advantage here over the years, or how can you explain the fact that both fields, the avantgarde and the aura of monuments, have always been so important to you?

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H.H.: I certainly don’t think that I can a priori pick from the structures architectural history offers. My approach is to learn from history, which is not the same thing as historicism: Gothic for town halls and

Four Approaches from Vienna

churches versus Greek for parliaments. No, I don’t think that’s what learning from history means. A.S.: This was not the kind of historicism I was referring to. H.H.: I like to look at historical buildings. I like to compare and see what things I prefer about different authors. Where does someone do better than others, where less so. From these historical situations – not only the history of architecture – you can learn that you don’t ­necessarily have to repeat things but that you can look at them over and over again. Achieving excellence has always been an endeavor of mine, ­definitively not retrospectively but as a perspective for the future. A.S.: And that is independent of building size, independent of the scale. H.H.: Excellence is independent of scale, that’s a fact. That is how I started out. (Note: the Retti candle shop, just 150 sq. ft, on Kohlmarkt, 1010 Vienna) A.S.: The aura of Rothschild Castle requires special sensitivity in its structural transformation – also in connection with its new presentation as a museum. H.H.: The interior design of the museum and the presentation of the museum’s content for the Lower Austria exhibition, and then later the Five Elements exhibition – I was not involved with any of that. I used my experience to create a space, an existing historical space, that would allow exhibitions to be held at the location. If I had been the curator, I would have taken advantage of the fact that it once belonged to the Rothschild family. There are rooms that are very well preserved in their original state, something which would have been a great attraction in itself, without dedicating the entire museum to the theme. The ­Rothschild Castle was restituted quite soon after the Second World War. However, the family handed it over to the Austrian government, and it was very important to them that all former employees, including the forestry workers, were given a pension. A.S.: Professor Hollein, you are known not only for creating sensations with your work as an architect of new buildings but also as an architect who creates sensational architecture using existing structural substance. 169

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H.H.: In Perchtoldsdorf, Lower Austria, the architect Eugen Wörle recommended me and was then invited by the mayor at the time and later governor Michael Ludwig to create a new council chamber for the historic town hall. The old Gothic structure had burnt down in the course of the Turkish Wars but the structure was still intact and had been restored and frescoed in the Baroque. New building codes in Lower Austria deemed the chamber too small and it was decided to erect a new building in the courtyard. I was quite torn. At that time, I had little experience with new architecture, and the idea of a new building was very appealing to me. On the other hand, I thought it was very problematic to simply remove this function from the old building, just because a new regulation required more seats. Every city with history has a cultural responsibility. So I decided to adapt the old council hall to meet the new requirements. And I managed it by using an oval table. The air conditioning is incorporated into the table. The chairs were designed to be slightly narrower to accommodate the required number of council members. The solution was very satisfying for me, and a good resolution to the conflict. A.S.: The frescoes in Rothschild Castle are a particularly striking historical reference. How did you address this challenge? H.H.: The castle was certainly in a very neglected condition when ­Rothschild acquired it. He had the frescoes transferred and repainted. On the side where the apse collapsed into the Ybbs River, the site was not rebuilt but bricked shut; however, the remains of the frescoes and the Gothic struts were still intact. This situation posed a similar challenge to ones found in urban spaces. The question is whether 20th-century buildings should be protected in the same way as those from earlier centuries? A.S.: Walking through your buildings, one notices an intensive use of artificial and natural light in your architecture, a new kind of light staging – almost a lighting philosophy.

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H.H.: For me, the distinction lies in the zero line, building above or below ground. Actually, both are equal, but underground construction is a much greater challenge due to the lack of daylight. When you see a poorly-designed detached house with a blossoming apple tree and the sunlight coming in through the windows, that alone makes up for many defects. I was always fascinated by Moscow’s metro stations, but for a different reason – because they were always regarded as kitsch. The aim of the pompous Rococo was to dedicate great architecture to a working population who used the metro twice a day. Workers in a coal mine are never exposed to light, whether day or night. During the day they work underground and at night, when they are above ground, it’s dark. And this is reflected in architecture. In Iran, I restructured a palace

Four Approaches from Vienna

7.6  Hans Hollein Retti Shop, Vienna, Kohlmarkt, 1964, photo by Georg Riha

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where what is essentially a basement was decorated with beautiful tiles and tinkling water basins. It was really interesting, because lowering the temperature to 3–4 degrees without air conditioning is quite an art. I find desert architecture on the whole to be quite exciting. As far as the importance of light for museums is concerned, I believe that it is almost more important for modern art than for Rubens’s heavy golden picture frames. In the bathrooms of even the most expensive hotels, the lights are shielded in a way that makes it hard to see yourself in the mirror very well. Light, as Corbusier said, is not only about volumes moving in the glow of the sun. The night and the lights at night are part of the image of a big city. It seems that today, more and more architects are interested in this topic. A.S.: Speaking of pars pro toto, a great deal of your design ideas can be seen in one single great design object for Rothschild Castle. I am referring to the large mirrored glass chandelier, on the one hand in the tradition of large lighting fixtures, and on the other something completely new in terms of the use of materials? H.H.: Yes, part of the architectural intervention was about connecting elements in a very contemporary language and with very modern materials. They emit light and create a certain additional accentuation of the castle and the surrounding area in the evening and at night. The Crystal Hall is a continuation, an instrument to play with, not just a musical instrument, but also a light instrument. A.S.: Today there is much talk about the archaeology of knowledge; archaeology is becoming increasingly important as a phenomenal approach. You started out with this idea more than thirty years ago, with the “Ausgrabung – Tod” (Excavation–Death) art event at the Mönchengladbach Museum showing interesting aspects in this respect. H.H.: Absolutely, thanks to this exhibition I was commissioned to design the museum in Mönchengladbach. Until then, I had built virtually nothing, only a candle shop, a boutique in Vienna and an art gallery in New York. But by chance, there was a German mayor who wanted to visit the Strudlhofstiege (a famous staircase in Vienna). I was impressed that a mayor of a small town in northern Germany with a population of 170,000 would even know about the Strudlhofstiege and want to see it. That is something that would be important for other politicians, too, reaching out to different areas.

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A.S.: The cooperation with the clients in Waidhofen can be described as very good. You also have other, international, examples of excellent collaboration with your clients. H.H.: There is more than one way to achieve a result. The Frankfurt museum and the Vulcania museum were both the result of competitions. In the case of the Banco Santander, it all started with the architect Rafael Moneo, who had already built across the street, suggesting suggested entrusting me with the project: Give it to Hollein, he can do it better. There was a small group of dissenting architects who all supported each other, which is rather unusual. In the case of the Banco Santander, this led to an excellent result. I had been intensely researching the typology of the central room (Zentralraum), which is an absolute architectural archetype, one that is always au courant. There are others, of course. I was also studying the buildings of the Pueblo Indians. They have a very simple basic pattern: Residential buildings are rectangular, sacred buildings are cylindrical. Round objects are for the sacred, angular ones for everyday use. There are archetypes in architecture, whether the ­Pantheon in Rome or an urban unit such as the pueblo. A.S.: Many developers and clients carry on complex, discursive relationships with architects, where a common language often has to be found first. You are known for meticulously scrutinizing the challenges, functions and requirements, critically reflecting on the client’s wishes, then implementing them in an excellent creative way and, after the collaboration, very often becoming long-term friends with the client. What is the secret of this cooperation, of the complex reacting to wishes and sensitivities? H.H.: There are different approaches to public buildings. The problem with competitions can be seen with the Vienna Central Railway Station or Calatrava Bridge: A city councilor who has been putting in effort for years should be the one to decide on who to entrust with the design of a footbridge. Of course, there are many different design options, but there is only one that bears the Calatrava signature. Still, there are great mayors and city councilors in the public sector, both in America and in Europe. And this also happens in the private sector, of course. Commissions based on a competition can be tricky. You don’t know the client and they don’t know you. Initially, the project is just a number for the client. Behind it is a person the client doesn’t get to know. It is possible for very good relationships to develop, but there are sometimes ­difficulties due to completely different procedures. I have experienced both.

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A.S.: If we continue to consider the question of function, one always arrives at the important consideration of how functions should be implemented and where room remains for architectural freedom? H.H.: In the 1976 MANtransFORMS design exhibition in New York, we wanted to disprove the notion of form follows function. The star is a very good example. When we ask someone to draw a star, they will not draw a sphere but something with multiple points. This is an image that doesn’t match reality.

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Wolf D. Prix

Interview with Wolf D. Prix by August Sarnitz, Vienna, 20 October 2016 August Sarnitz: In September 1988, 28 years ago, the Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition opened at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, curated by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley. In terms of direction and relevance to the architectural discourse, this exhibition has often been compared with the 1932 exhibition The International Style: Architecture since 1922 – which also took place at the MoMA and exerted a tremendous influence. In 1988, Coop Himmelb(l)au was the only Austrian firm to be invited, together with architects including Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Frank Gehry and Bernard Tschumi. At the 1932 exhibition, Lois Welzenbacher was the only architect to represent Austria. The text on the back cover of the catalogue read: “This book presents a radical architecture, exemplified by the recent work of seven architects. Illustrated are projects from Santa Monica, ­Berlin, Rotterdam, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Paris, Hamburg, and Vienna, by Frank O. Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Bernard Tschumi, and the firm of Coop Himmelb(l)au.” This catapulted Coop Himmelb(l)au into the global architectural limelight. How do you reflect on this positioning, meanwhile considered a part of history?33 Wolf D. Prix: The International Style was certainly the exhibition with the more long-term influence. The 1988 exhibition was wildly controversial but, in our fast-paced world, it did not have a lasting impact. The deconstructivist element was totally misunderstood. The meaning of the word deconstructivist, borrowed from the philosopher Jacques Derrida, has nothing to do with form or destruction, but with a philosophical thought process. Ultimately, we were right about our theory that Deconstructivist Architecture is an arbitrary manifestation of the unconscious mind. ­Derrida was a student of Freud and was convinced that – to put it very simply – a written text, a painted picture or a music composition is always a product of the unconscious mind, the so-called “white spot”. Applied to architecture, this means that unconscious, irrational actions in the design will influence the building as a whole. It has become clear to me that we are deconstructivists in the sense of Derrida – and thus Freud – meaning that our architecture is freed from all constraints at the moment of design, because this is the only way free space can ­actually be created.

33 Interview on 20 October 2016, August Sarnitz with Wolf D. Prix in his office, recorded and approved by Wolf D. Prix.

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Back in 1968, we wanted to radically change architecture, right then and there. But back then, investors and clients were reluctant to carry out experiments of this kind (even less so today). We thought of ways to change architecture in order to, at least in theory, have new, previously unknown spaces emerge in the process. We suspected that this required changing the most sensitive part of architecture, namely the actual design process, shifting from a physical to a psychological ground plan. Many ideas and methods of the art world, such as drawing not only with a pencil, but also with a lighter, were options we considered. This is how the Open House was conceived, a design I created with my eyes closed. We used our hands as a seismograph to capture the sensation of entering a building. The drawing was then very strictly converted into a model, following the lines, some of which represented lines of force. We built a small model, without any constraints. On the contrary, we completely excluded the spatial program, technical construction and financing in order to find a different approach. The result was then developed further into a construction model and some parts were built. One part of the tensile column was produced in Vienna, exhibited in London and scheduled to go on to Los Angeles. But before that happened, the client passed away and his children were not interested in continuing the project. The plan was for him to move into this house where each room was a different landscape, and it would be up to him to decide where he wanted to have the living room, where he wanted the library to be and where he wanted to sleep. He would first “camp out” in this landscape before we laid the foundations. This was also the time when we realized the rooftop conversion on Falkestraße in Vienna (1987), using the same approach: we explored the fundamental idea of designing the corner of a Viennese building using emotional drawing. The model was exhibited at MoMA. “You’ll never build this, it’s far too complicated”, said the visitors. Not complicated, but complex! We just laughed, because parts of it were already glazed in. A.S.: For ten years, from 1985 to 1995, you taught as an Adjunct Professor at the SCI-Arc in Los Angeles – at the time certainly one of the schools with a great reputation as a laboratory for contemporary architecture. You commuted between LA and Vienna, contributing essential inspiration to America’s west coast together with Michael Rotondi and Thom Mayne – not unlike Rudolf M. Schindler and Richard Neutra from Vienna, sixty years earlier. Is there a continuity in architectural history or is this a coincidence?

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W.P.: When we completed our first project in the US, the Akron Art ­ useum, I remembered that my father had once received a commisM sion for a project in Chicago back in 1938. He had already bought his ticket for the ocean passage, but after Hitler’s invasion of Austria he was forced to travel eastwards instead of westwards. I think he always dreamed of building this house in Chicago. There are implicit assign-

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ments that our parents give us. I had always wanted to go to America, not to fulfill my father’s dream but simply to realize projects in the US. Vienna or Austria is not really what you would call a launching pad to an international career. And I knew that in Los Angeles there were young architects like Thom Mayne, Eric Moss and Michael ­Rotondi, who were developing new ideas in Frank Gehry’s shadow, and that he was encouraging them. This is how the “Los Angeles School” came about that was very close to our ideas; thinking about architecture three-dimensionally and depicting it in three-dimensional models, or – in today’s parlance – in physical models. For me, 3D thinking in architecture is most comprehensible, something that applies today as it did then. This was a way of thinking architecture that was celebrated in LA and was the reason that I set up a second office in Los Angeles. During my time at SCI-Arc, I learned about not correcting, but instead reviewing or discussing student projects, and I am proud of later bringing this method of teaching to Vienna. When I first asked for money at a faculty meeting to invite architects to do a review, there was general indignation. You are the professor, we don’t need to invite other architects to our “world-famous” University of Applied Arts. I ended up financing the invitations out of my own pocket, and our at the time still young architecture colleagues were very happy accept the invitation. Meanwhile, the “review method” has really caught on. A.S.: Doris Fercher made a short film in 1995 about Coop Himmel­b(l)au, where at the beginning you drive a car and rock music is being played. Music and architecture – what are your personal references? W.P.: I grew up in a cultural household: My father was an architect, my uncle was a violinist and the co-founder of the Alban Berg Quartett, and his father was a composer. So my enthusiasm for music isn’t coincidental. Also, I don’t think that any architect could have no talent for music. I am convinced that if you think only in terms of architecture, you will only get architecture as a result. When we were young and full of optimism, everything else interested us more than conventional architecture. Vitruvius and Palladio were not the focus of our attention, and neither were Loos and Otto Wagner. We were more interested in the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, in anti-authoritarian theories or Popper’s book The Open Society and Its Enemies and how to overcome gravity. We were enthusiastic about F1 racing cars, new films and the boxing strategy of Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali. We were interested more in this than in studying to become architects knowledgeable in art history. So it was outstanding individuals in philosophy, education, music, art and technology who encouraged us in our search for new design methods. There is a connection between music and architecture. You can’t press architecture or music into a specific mold. In both artistic fields there is one element that is missing, the element of time. You need the fourth dimension of time to really experience a building. Just as it takes

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time to hear the disharmonic sequences in Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, in which, by the way, atonal sequences can be heard. I don’t think, however, that architecture and frozen music can really be compared. But they do have that time factor in common. A.S.: There is approximately a five-year span between the first projects you realized in Vienna and LA. The Roter Engel restaurant caused quite a stir in Vienna’s architecture scene in 1981. Suddenly an architectural discussion emerged in Vienna that went beyond Rob Krier and Viennese postmodernism. How would you describe the situation at the time? W.P.: Professor Günther Feuerstein played a major role in this development. When we were studying at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), he showed us that there was architecture that went beyond concrete architecture. He showed us projects by Bruce Goff and by Corbusier. Paolo Soleri was a genuine insider tip and André Bloc was the inspiration for sculptural design. And there were Piranesi and Kiesler. Because I was a Bob Dylan fan, we designed the stage of the Rote Engel (note: a wine bar and chanson theater with the body of an angel molded from sculpted plaster and glass blocks) as if Bob Dylan were going to perform there. We translated the breath of the singer into angel’s wings. The silhouette of the bar is borrowed from my favorite bar in New York. Fantastic lines. A.S.: After many different guest professorships, including at the ­Architectural Association London (1984), at the Southern C ­ alifornia Institute of Architecture, SCI-Arc (1985–1995) and at Harvard ­University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1990), you were appointed Full Pro­fessor of Architectural Design at the University of Applied Arts ­Vienna in 1993, a position you held until your retirement in 2012. This is a span of more than two decades of intensive teaching, research and artistic science. Your colleagues at the University Applied Arts ­ Vienna (“Angewandte”) were first Hans Hollein, of ­ Pritzker Prize winner, and Wilhelm Holzbauer (both students of ­ ­Clemens Holzmeister, also both graduates of US schools of architecture) and later Zaha Hadid and Greg Lynn. Under your direction, the Angewandte developed into an international hotspot for architecture ­education with international exchanges to America and Asia. You put the Institute of Architecture at the Angewandte back on the world map of architecture. How were these developments perceived in ­Vienna?

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W.P.: 1993 was a decisive year: I was invited to apply to become dean of SCI-Arc. At the same time, Hans Hollein asked me to come teach at the Angewandte as Johannes Spalt’s successor. That was a life-changing decision and one of those no-win situations. I decided to come back

Four Approaches from Vienna

to Vienna for a number of reasons, one of them because my business partner Helmut Swiczinsky was located in Vienna and we were working on a project at the UFA cinema in Dresden. With all due respect to my colleagues – and I greatly appreciated ­Hollein and Holzbauer – the Angewandte was too boring after my time in the US. I wanted to bring the American system of teaching to Vienna. The method of review that I mentioned earlier was part of the school’s reputation in Austria. I remember the first year, when Enric Miralles, Lebbeus Woods, Raimund Abraham, Thom Mayne and Eric Moss, and even Hans Hollein were there. My international friends were the ones who carried the impetus of these student projects out into the world. That’s what made the Angewandte an international hotspot. A.S.: The book about the Prix School (Studio Prix. University of Applied Arts Vienna 1990–2011, 2016) documents the situation impressively.34 W.P.: The book was written by my colleagues and it depicts the atmosphere in my studio quite nicely: total chaos, but with an absolute ambition to redefine architecture. A.S.: You are famous for expressing yourself vigorously. You once gave a lecture at the University of Technology in Vienna titled “In zwei Tagen ist Morgen Heute” (In Two Days Tomorrow Will Be Today). Or, I quote: “Architektur muss brenen” (Architecture Must Burn). Your lectures are a “firework of formulations”. Can you elaborate on this. W.P.: That’s hard for me to judge, because in Vienna you don’t want admit to that sort of thing. To give you an example: In America, after a lecture students will come up and say things like, “That was great, very inspiring. Thank you very much.” An educated Austrian will tend to think a statement like that is not sincere. True or not true – it does create a friendly atmosphere. I remember a lecture at the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts) after being gone for some time where the audience – half of Vienna was there – left without saying a word. Only one single colleague came up and said: “You really weren’t that brilliant today.” I thought to myself: “Oh well, back in Vienna.” A.S.: Under the direction of former director Peter Noever, the MAK in Vienna has put on a great many wonderful architecture exhibitions.

34 Studio Prix. University of Applied Arts Vienna 1990–2011, edited by Institute of Architecture, Klaus Bollinger, Roswitha Janowski-Fritsch, Anja Jonkhans, Baerbel Mueller, Edition Angewandte, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2016.

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Exhibitions on Peter Eisenman, Carlo Scarpa and Walter Pichler, to name but a few. In the fall of 2007, an exhibition on Coop Himmelb(l)au was opened – an exhibition on forty years of your intensive activities. In the catalogue, Sylvia Lavin wrote a great essay titled “Feuererprobt” (Tested by Fire) in which she draws associations with Superstudio, Arata Isozaki, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Rem Koolhaas and Carlo Mollino. The article makes interfaces in Coop Himmelb(l)au’s work visible, between architecture and history, literature and film and the visual arts. How intense are these connections? W.P.: The exhibition gave us the opportunity to reassemble the parts of a complex jigsaw puzzle that have, over the course of history, been important for the development of our projects. We wanted to give the observer – whether attentive or not – an opportunity to get a wellrounded overview of what is behind our architecture. A.S.: Let’s move on to another important topic: Vienna is known for its Baroque splendor, perhaps the most baroque city in Europe north of the Alps – a result of the Counter-Reformation, a political decision. Viennese architecture is very often associated with this baroque tradition when it comes to concepts such as space, materials and movement. Also the theatrical and the stage-like is often mentioned when describing the qualities of Viennese architecture. Can you make a statement on baroque architecture in Vienna?

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W.P.: When we were young, baroque Vienna was always repugnant to us. The heavy and immobile building substance disturbed us. We wanted to build movable, changeable architectures against the background of the blue sky, i.e. clouds, which is where our name Coop Himmelb(l)au comes from. But when I communicate with friends around the world and look at their projects – I am in constant communication with Eric Moss, Thom Mayne and Steven Holl, Zaha and Rem are also part of this ­network – I notice that everyone is saying the same thing: architecture needs flowing spaces. But, I ask myself: Then why do the buildings look so different? Why does Rietveld build in one way in Holland and Kiesler like this here? Why does Coop Himmelb(l)au draw buildings in one way and Rem in another? Perhaps this has to do with the tradition of architecture and the cultural or religious backgrounds in the respective countries? Perhaps it has to do with the Catholic Baroque that ­Hollein, Abraham, Domenig and we draw spatial sequences, whereas the Dutch, as Calvinists, draw only diagrams? Perhaps it is the Kabbalistic of my Jewish architect friends Frank Gehry, Eric Moss or Daniel Libeskind that has to do with the tradition of their history? I would say so. Baroque is the greatest architectural madness: building vaulted ceilings weighing tons at dizzying heights and then painting a sky scene on it to do away with the weight. In a way, Baroque was the first media

Four Approaches from Vienna

architecture: you built a dome in order to paint a sky. But the journey – the way we are guided through these magnificent spaces and how these spaces are made tangible – those are spatial sequences. Further south, in Spain, the influence of the Jesuits can be felt in the restrained and compulsive features. I am not an art historian, but Zaha’s first sketches clearly resemble Arab calligraphy, and her choice of black and white has a definitive Arab flair. The women in black, the men in white. A.S.: There are also the festivals, music, the architectural orchestration in the baroque tradition. W.P.: That reminds me of an interesting quote: the media is society’s short-term memory, myths are for the long-term. The festive ceremonies of the baroque, later perverted by the artist Hans Makart, have to do with Vienna and with the way architecture is approached in this city. I can also interpret Hollein’s buildings as ceremonial passages. A.S.: Speaking of walkable architecture, I remember when you won the competition for the BMW World in Munich. I visited it after it opened in 2007 – I enthusiastically took pictures, trying to capture the building’s incredible dynamic, the world of forms, the symphony of space. The BMW World was the beginning of a series of ­signature buildings for the automobile world – where architecture was used as a metaphor for dynamics, mobility and individuality. Almost ten years have passed since then. Today, the BMW World stands like an icon in the urban landscape of Munich, next to the BMW tower ­designed by Viennese architect Karl Schwanzer. What are your personal reflections on the feasibility of these architectural objects? W.P.: I wasn’t thinking of moving cars during the design process, I don’t find such illustrative concepts interesting. I was interested in visualizing the dynamics of space. All of our major projects – in China, Korea and Lyon – have ramps or crossings that make the space accessible and viewable from above. That’s what interested us, unlike Zaha, Rem and our other architect friends. For us, sidewalks through the room, in all kinds of shapes, are a recurrent theme. We can’t fly through the room yet, but in MOCAPE (Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition), our newest project in China, we come close. Our room designs are well-liked because you can easily get an overview of our buildings. BMW, for example, anticipated 800,000 visitors per year, now they have 3 million. A.S.: Speaking of visitors and museums: In recent decades, museum buildings have imbued some cities with new identities. Inspired by

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7.7  Wolf D. Prix – Coop Himmelb(l)au BMW World, Munich, 2001–2007, photo by August Sarnitz, 2007

Four Approaches from Vienna

7.8  Wolf D. Prix – Coop Himmelb(l)au BMW World, Munich, 2001–2007, photo by August Sarnitz, 2007

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the “Bilbao effect” of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum, many cities have tried to improve their cultural position and attractiveness by building a museum. The famous Frankfurt museum landscape along the riverbank (Museumsufer) and the museum ensemble in Berlin (Museumsinsel) are just two examples of a large number of new and innovative projects that have emerged worldwide. Your Musée des Confluences (2001–2014) carved out a new cultural position in the city of Lyon. I quote: “The society of the future will be a society of knowledge. This knowledge, however, can hardly be divided into defined fields. Innovation arises from the in-between spaces, from blurring, overlapping and hybridizing. The questions of the future will be decided in the transitional areas between technology, biology and ethics – the central themes of the Musée des Confluences.” W.P.: Confluences means flowing together. Therefore, the name of the museum – Museé des Confluences – already describes its program. The museum is located on an artificial peninsula, on the point of confluence where the Rhône and Saône rivers meet. Beautiful, but a very difficult site to build on. The city insisted on this exact location, and we had to sink 500 pillars into the ground to stabilize the structure. The program concept on the confluence of the natural history exhibits is linked to philosophy, technology and art, and is quite unlike the bones and butterflies you would see in a traditional natural history museum. Every two months, new exhibitions on new topics are opened in the highly flexible exhibition spaces. It took us ten years to realize this project. Of course, there are many layers, including politics, that you have to be mindful of as an architect. To give just one example, three weeks before the opening, the mayor of Lyon was asked to comment on the museum, which ended up costing twice as much and taking ten years to complete. His answer was: “I was always against this project, and I voted against it on the jury.” On the day of the opening, attended by thousands of people, I asked myself what he would say now. He said: “I was always against this museum, but I did everything I could to have it built.” Today, after a year with a record of two million visitors, he said: “The Musée des Confluences was my idea from the very start.” You can see how the number of visitors influences politics. Especially now, after the Brexit vote, when cities like Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris are fighting to assume the number one position in European banking, the cultural offerings of a city play a very important role. Don’t forget that the costs of the museum, a humane undertaking, are only 1.5 times that of a single fighter jet, and the costs for a single use of the aircraft are as high as the museum’s operating costs for an entire year.

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A.S.: I am glad you mentioned the comparison with the fighter jets and also the media, which have described the building as too expensive. W.P.: Too expensive, everything is always too expensive. It is simply not true that the construction costs of the museum were twice as high as planned. A lot of things got mixed up. For example, the property costs and the preparation costs were wrongly included in the budget. That’s why architects and architecture are always blamed. Besides, a fighter plane is a piece of military equipment that has life expectance of five years maximum, before being shot down. A.S.: The cityscape is the result of public buildings that create identity. W.P.: Yes. If we don’t succeed in placing buildings that create identity in the anonymous grid of our megacities, our society will lose its three-­ dimensional memory. A.S.: You have often chaired architecture competitions for large buildings and important projects, including in Vienna in December 2008, when the plans for the new University of Economics and Business were announced. You have been quoted as follows: “‘The new University of Economics is a leap in scale for this city and for all of Austria’, says Wolf D. Prix, jury chairman of the international competition for the development of the 88,000-square-meter area between the Vienna exhibition grounds and Prater Park. The com­position of the winners of the second round could not have been more international. At the heart of the new campus is the Library & Learning Center (LLC) by Zaha Hadid, who won against the two competitors Hans Hollein and Thom Mayne. ‘“It wasn’t an easy decision’, said Prix, ‘but the University of Economics as the user clearly chose this dynamic project because it was the one that it best identified with.’” This jury’s decision marks the beginning of an international architectural discussion of a special kind in Vienna: Young students are now surrounded by contemporary architecture on a daily basis. How do you see the project today, what were the primary challenges? W.P.: I have rarely had such a committed user on in a jury as rector Christoph Badelt. He wanted an internationally renowned business university. This can be influenced through the educational program but also requires an international flair – and international architecture. The rector stood behind all the decisions we made in the jury. He agreed with the jury’s decision of Zaha Hadid versus Thom Mayne and Hans Hollein. To me, the Hollein project, which looked somewhat like his bank in Madrid, and the highly qualified project by Thom Mayne, both

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clearly met the demands. The members of the jury were impressed with Zaha’s elegant presentation of the “White with Blue Sky” building and not as excited about Tom Mayne’s small perspectives that failed to make the purpose of the building visible. It was quite a difficult decision for me, but in terms of dynamics and signature effect it was an easy decision. A.S.: And this building has become a very important part of urban Vienna. W.P.: Yes, absolutely. And there’s another project right next to it, for Bednar Park and the Remise, that’s on the other side of the spectrum. This urban approach, designed by Heinz Tesar and Boris Podrecca, envisions a strong perimeter block development reinforced by a street configuration that is similar to the Diagonal in Barcelona. The design project was radically simplified by city planners. The rigid division into squares and streets that seem to come from nowhere and lead to nowhere, is counterintuitive. Despite attempts to improve the situation, the area remains lifeless. The Vorgartenstraße, a beautiful urban concept, has thus been corrupted and destroyed. It’s a disgrace. The loose design of the University of Economics campus by BUSarchitektur – a combination of building plots and the arrangement of the green spaces – stimulates liveliness. There are bars, restaurants and pizza places, and I wish that Bednar Park’s residential complexes could have been planned in much the same way. There is nothing like it in the Bednar Park quarter, where everything is very straightforward and closed and some buildings even remind me of Bucharest.

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A.S.: Now I would like to address a leap in scale: You have realized architectural projects in very different typologies and on all scales, even including designs for furniture and kitchens. I particularly remember the design for Vitra, the Vodöl (drafted 1989, production 1989–1993), an intelligent commentary on an icon of classical modernist furniture by Le Corbusier. I quote: “Vitra’s comment: With Vodöl, Coop Himmelb(l)au has, for the first time, dealt with the ­classic forms of modernism on the level of furniture design. The starting point for their design was the ‘grand confort’ armchair, designed by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand in 1928. While the armchair is a symmetrical tubular steel frame that precisely encloses rectangular upholstered cushions stacked on top of each other, with the Vodöl the entire volume of the chair is lifted from its hinges by a steel double-T beam – a reference to Mies van der Rohe’s architecture – and is placed at an angle. The upholstery appears to be tilted and the surrounding steel tube folded up like a paper clip. This makes it difficult to tell if it possible to sit upright and comfortably in the chair. Steel springs mounted under the seat, however, allow it to swing slightly and convey an unexpected com-

Four Approaches from Vienna

fort. The name Vodöl refers both to the model (the French fauteuil pronounced in the Viennese dialect) and the color of the leather covering, Coop Himmelb(l)au gives the armchair its own unmistakably subversive stamp © MSC Modern Steel Construction.” This leads me to a concrete question: What is the significance of design in your work? W.P.: Unlike Zaha Hadid, who produced everything from shoes to ­ashtrays and vases, I have very little interest in shoes, ashtrays and vases. The armchair is a bow to Le Corbusier, but also meant humorously, because it is actually useless as a piece of furniture. You can sit in it comfortably, but it’s so heavy that you can hardly move it around. It sits heavily in the room, like a lump of gold. It was also very expensive. On the leap in scale: The Chandigarh project is one of the biggest errors of scale made by a city planner in the past century. The layout of the city is visible on the map but in reality it takes days to cross a town square. It has been said that a chair is like a city, something I would not subscribe to: a city is not an armchair. In fact, the complexity of cities has often overtaxed city planners. But urban planning no longer exists, rather, it should be called urban space planning. This is something you can see in Vienna. The factual constraints are particularly noticeable in urban planning competitions, where juries only think in a single dimension, and factual constraints are used to prevent good development. It would be up to the jury’s chairperson to give the members of the jury the decision-making powers they really deserve. A.S.: On global, medial architecture: Almost every day the European Central Bank (ECB) building in Frankfurt (2003–2015) is featured in the news – a building that for many people stands for power and influence. How can architects react to these concepts and classifications? You have described your approach to this building as follows: “By promoting and emphasizing the ECB’s dynamic internal communication culture, this design sets an unprecedented signal in the urban context, expressing the ECB’s public dimension within Europe and the world.” W.P.: You are absolutely right. As I said, in the anonymous network of a city, identification points that can be described verbally are incredibly important for the mental appropriation of an environment. Reportedly, until the 20th century, Vienna’s inner city was the ideal image of a city in the mind of the Viennese. I am convinced that this mentality has prevented the development of truly modern architecture in Vienna. Only later was this view reversed. Until recently, social housing was the backbone of Vienna’s urban development. But here, too, mediocrity makes development more difficult, which would result in new future cities through new form finding.

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It is no coincidence that so-called green buildings, energy-saving buildings, with windows shaped like cannon holes, are reminiscent of medieval towers. Understandably, those who believe in the negative reporting and the predictions of a catastrophic future may want to retreat into the fortified towers for fear of the future. Fear is not a solution, and to me, the regressive architecture, which frightfully reminds me of fascist architecture, is a dangerous development. A desire for authoritarian leadership can also be seen in these prison-like buildings. Vienna is a city with a high quality of life, but mediocrity and hostility to innovation are its constant companions. And the reason that Vienna is so highly recognized as a livable city can only be explained by the fact that the two ways to get there are through the central railway station or the Vienna airport. These are the city’s two worst buildings. Once you’ve left them behind you, any city will look great.

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7.9  Wolf D. Prix – Coop Himmelb(l)au BMW World, Munich, 2001–2007, photo by August Sarnitz, 2007

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8.1  August Sarnitz Exhibition design for Museumsbauten, Secession, Vienna, 1992, photo by Margherita Spiluttini

Furniture and Installations

Opinion statement and selected example projects: Ever since the Enlightenment, norms and conventions have been viewed in Europe from a critical distance. Based on reason and intellect, individuals acquire the ability to make decisions and consciously choose things in a society that accepts the preferences of individuals. Consumer choices were a fundamental aspect of the great furniture discussions of the 19th century. Moral, aesthetic and social arguments became part of the discourse and resulted in an “individualization” of domestic architecture. Systems can be open or closed. This is true not only for different societal structures, theories in science and art, but also for the principles of furniture and furnishings. Architecture and furniture are linked in a complex relationship: there is autonomous furniture and contextual furniture with a defined relationship to a space. The quality of furniture is independent of its status and comfort. Its function is determined exclusively by the non-material value of representation. Furniture can generally be regarded as a form of prosthesis, a “body extension” with a specific meaning. Furniture is both equipment and object; furniture reflects status or comfort, and sometimes even status and comfort. Architects such as Josef Frank and Adolf Loos perceived furniture in a cultural context; its use was defined by its usability. Josef Hoffmann, on the other hand, saw furniture design as an artistic and aesthetic process. Rudolf Schindler, who was a student of Otto Wagner in Vienna and worked for Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago and Los Angeles, describes a very broad definition of furniture in his Theory of Interior Design.1 In April 1926, he published an article titled “About Furniture” in the Los Angeles Times: “The medieval street served not only as a passage, but also as a gutter, sewer and waste disposal facility […] The furniture had largely a mission of cleanliness, and everything was raised as high off the floor as possible […] A physical and mental tendency ‘back to earth’ is making itself felt strongly in this century. […] The furniture is growing lower and lower.”2 Schindler’s main argument is a reference to Loos and the liberation of the individual by means of a new kind of clothing. “The abandoning of the use of the corset, physically and mentally, forces a similar development of the furniture.”3 In his “Poor Little Rich Man” essay, written in 1900, Loos describes clients as the “victims” of a total design world that merely tolerates the users

1 August Sarnitz, R. M. Schindler, Architect, Rizzoli, New York 1988, pp. 46 and 52. Schindler published “About Furniture” in the Los Angeles Times Magazine Section on 18 April 1926. He published “Furniture and the Modern House: A Theory of Interior Design” in March 1936 in Architect and Engineer (San Francisco). 2 Ibid., p. 46. 3 Ibid.

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and owners of furniture and buildings. Loos responded to this closed system of design with the collage as an open design system. Different pieces of furniture with specific functions from different eras define how we exist together with things. Walter Benjamin saw leaving traces of oneself as an essential characteristic of living. Furniture, objects and pieces of art have a time reference: as objects and as companions of individuals. Things bring history and memory into a home. The owning of an armchair (the German word, besitzen, also reflects the aspect of sitting) expresses multiple relationships: ownership, time relationship, cultural use, function and materiality. Exhibitions furniture and installations share a reference to the ephemeral. Their temporality is limited. Installations form the framework for a specific content or partially represent the content. Installations are stagings and exhibitions that make the context newly visible. The action of exhibiting changes temporal and spatial references – and therefore requires a new distance to the viewer. Materiality has an asymmetrical relationship to furniture and installations. Furniture is closer to one’s body and therefore part of a direct haptic experience. This can be, but does not have to be, the case with an installation. Here, the primary experience is that of visual perception. The use of materials in furniture refers to a complex sensuality, supplemented by the special cultural connotations of precious materials: the reflective surfaces of gold leaf, silver paint, mirrored surfaces and polished natural stones refer to the auratic and the immaterial. And yet furniture is always also a functional object and expresses human scale.

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8.2  August Sarnitz Exhibition design for Die Architektur Wittgensteins, Architektur­ zentrum Wien, Vienna, 2011, photo by August Sarnitz

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8.3–8.4  August Sarnitz Large dining table, details, Vienna-Hietzing apartment, 1992, photo by August Sarnitz, 2016

Furniture and Installations

8.5  August Sarnitz Large cupboard, detail, Vienna-Hietzing apartment, 1990, photo by August Sarnitz, 2016

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8.6  August Sarnitz Media cabinet, open, Vienna-Hietzing apartment, 2000, photo by August Sarnitz, 2016

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8.7  August Sarnitz Media cabinet, closed, Vienna-Hietzing apartment, 2000, photo by August Sarnitz, 2016

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8.8–8.9  August Sarnitz Exhibition design for Eine Zeit zum Bauen, Jewish Museum Vienna, 2005, photo by Anna Blau, 2005

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8.10–8.11  August Sarnitz Beech and beech plywood chair, stackable, 2001, design for the Otto Wagner Hospital, Pavilion 16, photo by August Sarnitz, 2001

Furniture and Installations

8.12–8.13  August Sarnitz Shelving system, detail, Vienna-Landstraße apartment, 2006, photo by August Sarnitz, 2006

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9.1–9.2  Ernst Lichtblau Publication on Ernst Lichtblau, pages 97 and 96, Böhlau, ­written by August Sarnitz, 1994

Emigration – The Loss of Everyday Life: Ernst Lichtblau and Ernst A. Plischke

Historically, the crisis of modern architecture begins at almost the precise moment the renowned architecture exhibition The International Style: Architecture since 1922 was shown at the Museum of Modern Art New York in 1932. The exhibition was not the origin of the crisis, which was rooted instead in the – purely aesthetic – misinterpretation of ­European modernism as a new style. Detached from the socio-cultural background of the socialist movements, modernism lost its ideological precepts, which, for a large part of the population, were legitimized by the industrial and rational production of apartments and social educational institutions such as kindergartens, nurseries, schools, libraries and sports facilities. In Austria, the crisis must be seen in a broader context, as it began manifesting subliminally in 1933 and became full-fledged reality with Austria’s “annexation” by Germany in 1938. The year 1938 has become a symbol of changes in Austria’s state and cultural policy that affected all people and all areas of public and private life. On 13 March 1938, the New York Times reported on Hitler’s invasion of Austria. The front headline read: “Hitler enters Austria in triumphal parade; Vienna prepares for union, voids treaty ban, France mans border, Britain studies moves.” After the Anschluss, all borders to Austria were soon closed. By May 1939, the Jewish Community of Vienna had successfully helped around 100,000 Jews to escape from Vienna. On 7 August 1941, an emigration ban was imposed on Jewish men 18 to 45 years of age, making ­emigration almost impossible. The 1938 exodus of artists and architects to other countries, in particular to the United States, is a significant component of Austrian cultural history. In addition to the historical ­aspect of the annihilation of almost the entirety of artistic and ­intellectual potential after the Anschluss, the events are noteworthy from the point of view art history, as the emigration of Jewish artists from Austria caused the United States to become a second home for Austrian modernism. The emigrations of 1938 also drew attention to those Austrians who had already emigrated to America and now exerted considerable influence on the avant-garde there. The various artistic careers and the diverse interweavings of ideals and personal relationships convey a wealth of hitherto untapped information about modernism in Austria. The artists who emigrated before 1933 and 1938 formed a special bond that stretched between Europe, America, South America and

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Emigration – The Loss of Everyday Life: Ernst Lichtblau and Ernst A. Plischke

New ­Zealand. On the one hand, these architects were the primarily contributors to exporting Central European modernism to ­ ­ America and, at the same time, they also conveyed the image of the “new world” as the land of unlimited possibilities in Europe. Richard ­Neutra’s ­publication Wie baut Amerika (How America Builds, 1927) was a milestone in the bilateral image transfer of American architecture to Europe – notwithstanding Neutra’s uncritical attitude towards his new homeland. Rudolph Schindler and Joseph Urban migrated to America before the First World War, an involuntary emigration due to the economic situation in Austria after 1918. Richard Neutra followed in 1923, after having worked for Erich Mendelsohn in Berlin. From 1925 to 1926, he worked in Rudolph Schindler’s firm. During this time, the two architects’ first significant buildings were realized: the Lovell Beach House (1925–1926) in Newport Beach, California by Rudolf Schindler is an icon of American modernism and a major work of modern architecture, as is the Health House for the Lovell family (1929) in Los Angeles by Richard Neutra. Joseph Urban became famous in the United States with his stage designs and the construction of the New School for Social Research in New York (1929–1931). The school played a special role in the Austrian émigré scene. Richard Neutra gave the school’s opening lecture and Josef Frank later taught there. Paul Theodore Frankl came to New York at the age of 28. His shop designs established his career in New York. Like Joseph Urban, he also occasionally worked as a stage designer. In 1934, he moved from New York to Los Angeles, where he founded the Frankl Galleries in Beverly Hills. Having worked as an architect, artist, stage designer and theorist, Friedrich Kiesler occupies a special position among architects. He migrated to New York in 1926. His Endless House project from 1933 shows a strong connection with sculpture and organic architecture. If one were to interpret the effects of the rise of National Socialism from a cultural point of view, it would be fair to say that, in the field of architecture, almost all key figures were driven into emigration or death. “If one adds to this that Adolf Loos died in 1933, Oskar Strnad in 1935, Hugo George in 1938 and Otto Breuer committed suicide in 1938 for political reasons, it is a historical fact that Vienna lost practically its entire intellectual and progressive architectural potential within five years.”1 Vienna’s best-known architects to go into involuntary exile include Felix Augenfeld, Rudolf Baumfeld, Josef F. Dex, Ernst Egli, Herbert ­Eichholzer, Josef Frank, Jacques Groag, Fritz Gross, Otto Rudolf Hellwig, Heinrich Kulka, Ernst Lichtblau, Walter Loos, Ernst Anton

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1 Friedrich Achleitner, “Die geköpfte Architektur”, in Die Vertreibung des Geistigen aus Österreich, exhibition catalogue, Zentralsparkasse and Kommerzialbank Wien, in cooperation with the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna 1985, p. 197. Translated by the author.

Emigration – The Loss of Everyday Life: Ernst Lichtblau and Ernst A. Plischke

Plischke, Egon Riss, Otto Schönthal, Stephan Simony, Franz Singer, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Walter Sobotka, Hans Adolf Vetter, Oskar Wlach, Liane Zimbler, née Fischer, Wilhelm Baumgartner, Artur Berger, Walter Eichberger, Martin Eisler, Ernest Leslie Fooks (Fuchs until 1946), Fred Forbát (Alfred Füchsl until 1915), Paul Theodore Frankl, Ernst von Gotthilf, Victor Gruen (actually Grünbaum), Rudolf Hönigsfeld, Fritz Janeba, Leopold Kleiner, Fritz Michael Müller, Emanuel Neubrunn, Kurt Popper, Alfred Preis, Harry Seidler and Hans Vetter.2 Thus, after 1938, everything in Austria that seemed commonplace was out of the ordinary. The re-evaluation of everyday life corresponded with the ideas of a totalitarian regime, and everyday life in the Third Reich was degraded to an ostensible idyll. Things began to change increasingly in the late 1930s. The idyll followed the reification that paved the pathway to a reinterpretation of values. The apparent residential idyll of the Third Reich was built on an intolerance of modernity. The term “degenerate art” was used to drive out the avant-garde.

Ernst Lichtblau On 21 August 1939, Ernst Lichtblau emigrated to England, one and a half years after the Anschluss of Austria to Germany. Ernst Lichtblau was 56 when he arrived in London and 61 when he entered the United States.3 Unlike more famous architecture emigrants, such as Walter Gropius or Mies van der Rohe, Lichtblau’s early years were arduous and difficult. A newspaper interview in 1953 reports on his early days in the USA: “Professor Lichtblau wouldn’t elaborate on the period prior to his departure from Austria other than to say that life became uncomfortable for him. He closed the door on one way of life and began on a new one, taking only a few personal possessions and his drawing boards. ‘I could take nothing of value, not even my medals,’ he said. He went to England for a time and earned a skimpy living doing magazine and book cover illustrations, then departed for America, his drawing boards formed into a box to hold his belongings. ‘I arrived in New York with five pounds in my pocket. Fort the first 12 days I slept in a YMCA in Jamaica. Then I rented a garret, so low I had to stoop. I took apart my box, set up my drawing boards and went to work.’ He held several jobs

2 Compare in particular the publication Visionäre und Vertriebene (Visionaries in Exile), edited by M ­ atthias Boeckl, Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1995. For individual monographs see, inter alia, Eduard Sekler, Josef ­Hoffmann, Residenz, Salzburg 1980; Burkhardt Rukschcio and Roland Schachl, Adolf Loos, Residenz, Salzburg 1984; August Sarnitz, Lois Welzenbacher, Residenz, Salzburg 1987; August Sarnitz, Ernst ­ ­Lichtblau, Böhlau, Vienna 1994; Eva B. Ottillinger and August Sarnitz, Ernst Plischke, Prestel, Munich 2004. 3 For further information see: August Sarnitz, Ernst Lichtblau, Böhlau, Vienna 1994.

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during these first years in the United States, taught at Cooper Union for a time, became a design consultant for Macy’s department store and created exhibits for the store. Eight years ago he came to the School of Design and began a full-time teaching job. In the last eight years there have been some big moments at the School of Design. Perhaps not quite as wonderful as that first gold medal presented by Otto Wagner, but satisfying. There was the touring exhibit of 100 articles selected by the Museum of Modern Art which has been traveling in Europe for the last two years. Two platters designed by Professor Lichtblau are among the items.”4 Lichtblau’s work in the USA was characterized more by his achievements as professor of architecture at the Rhode Island School of ­Design in Providence and less by his work as a planning architect. His house conversion designs for the Fulkerson family (1947) and the Fish family (1948) are a sign of the design awareness of the 1950s in the United States, which can be associated with Good Design. His designs for household objects were shown at various exhibitions. Lichtblau’s exhibition design for the Sculpture exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum is remarkable: he creates a diverse sequence of rooms using minimal means such as wire mesh, grid structures and cloth. The Good Design movement means different things to different people. Good Design is characterized by heterogeneous interpretations of ­ useum culture, function and aesthetics. The collaboration between the M of Modern Art in New York and the Merchandise Mart of Chicago was an attempt to revolutionize post-World War II American design.5 The initiator of the program in 1950 was Edgar Kaufmann, who served as director of the Industrial Design Department at the M ­ useum of Modern Art in New York. The intention of both parties was to re-stimulate the design and production of everyday objects in order to develop a new world of goods for designers, producers and consumers: “The attention of all America will be focused on the good things being created by the home furnishing industry.”6 There is only a minimal number of archival records on Ernst ­Lichtblau during his time in the United States, and we thus find biographical information on Lichtblau in a newspaper interview. Titled “Profile of a Professor, R.I. School of Design’s Lichtblau”, this article was published by Stuart O. Hale in the Evening Bulletin, Providence, in 1953.7

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4 The Evening Bulletin, “R. I. School of Design’s Lichtblau”, Providence, 1953. 5 For an introduction to the topic, see Arthur J. Pulos, The American Design Adventure, 1940–1975, MIT Press, Cambridge (USA) / London 1988. 6 Interiors Magazine, February 1953, p. 85. 7 Stuart O. Hale, “Profile of a Professor, R. I. School of Design’s Lichtblau”, in The Evening Bulletin, Providence, newspaper clipping (est. 1953).

Emigration – The Loss of Everyday Life: Ernst Lichtblau and Ernst A. Plischke

The door at the bottom of the stairs leading to the third floor at 344 Benefit Street swung open. A small man wearing a dark gray pinstripe suit and striped tie extended his hand in greeting. “Won’t you come up please”, he said. He had the old world manners you seldom find these days, a subtle blend of deference, dignity and warm hospitality. His thick gray hair, and mustache and heavy horn rimmed glasses completed the picture of a European gentleman, a man who might surround himself with rich fabrics, shelves of leather-bound books, dark, ornately carved furniture. […] Prof. Ernest Lichtblau, 70-year-old architect and head of the interior design department at the Rhode Island School of Design, was receiving guests. He opened the door of an apartment as contemporary in furnishings as an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

As I Really Am “This is my home”, he said, moving his hands with their long, tapering fingers in a small but expressive gesture. The hands seemed to say, “Now you will know me as I really am.” The apartment was old, as was the house, and had once been a series of dull, high-ceilinged rooms, linked by a grimy, dark floor. Then Professor Lichtblau moved in. The walls and ceiling became stark white, the floor, scrubbed until it glowed, showed its natural grain once more. Ceiling-high draperies of cream-colored cloth were placed on metal tracks along two walls. A third wall, in sharp contrast, was covered with drapery material colored bright blue. Every piece of furniture in each room was of modern design, down to the smallest object on the coffee table. Many of the articles were of his own creation. He offered cigarettes from a little metal trough with small accessories on the coffee table, and talked about the old days in Vienna, before 1938, about his gold and silver medals for architecture and design, contemporary furniture in America, his students at the School of Design, his plans for the future.

Built His Career Twice It turned out that Professor Lichtblau is a man who had to build a career twice. He came to the United States in 1938 [sic!], well past 50, penniless and speaking only broken English. Behind him: a flourishing and lucrative career as a leading Viennese architect smashed by Nazi terrorism. But to go back to the beginning: “My father was the supervisor of the largest pipe factory in Austria-Hungary. We lived next door to the factory and I practically grew up in the factory where beautiful briars and meerschaums were made, largely for export. I finished my education in Vienna under Otto Wagner, the great architect, in 1912. Two years later I became a professor and could teach and practice architecture. I remember how proud I was when I received my first prize. It was presented by the Master (Wagner) in front of the entire class, by order of

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Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. It was for the design of a government building in Bosnia.” Ernst Lichtblau returned to Vienna in June 1957 and was commissioned to design the construction of the Hauptschule Grundsteingasse school together with architect Norbert Schlesinger. He died on 8 January 1963 during a hotel fire at the Parkhotel Hietzing, not as a direct result of the hotel fire, but from the excitement it caused.8

Ernst A. Plischke Ernst A. Plischke – who added the initial “A” (for Anton) following his emigration – shared the fate of many Austrian architects in that he became a pioneer of modern architecture in a foreign country without ever being granted commensurate recognition in Austria.9 Plischke, one of the best-known exiled architects of avant-garde Modernism, along with Rudolf M. Schindler and Richard Neutra, spent 24 years in exile in New Zealand. When Plischke left Vienna with his Jewish wife Anna at the age of 36, he had no idea that he would spend the most substantial and productive part of his life in the Southern Hemisphere. New Zealand was a destination for many Austrian emigrants. In addition to Plischke, there were the architects Heinrich (later Henry) Kulka and Friedrich Neumann (later Frederick Newman), as well as the philosopher Karl Popper. In all, about 500 emigrants came to ­Wellington from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.10 In a very pointed article by Friedrich Achleitner in “Die geköpfte ­Architektur” (Decapitated Architecture), published in 1985 in connection with the exhibition Die Vertreibung des Geistigen aus Österreich (The Expulsion of Austria’s Intellect), Achleitner writes about the transfigured history and slanted historical writing of modernist actors – above all Sigfried Giedion – who created an image of the absolute dominance of New Building in the 1920s. The journalistic presence of modern architecture is put into perspective if one reviews professional magazines of the time. Achleitner describes the initial situation as follows: “Modernism was certainly bowled over by the economic and political developments of the 1930s. The global economic crisis had an impact on the change of direction similar to that of the oil crisis of the early 1970s, which helped postmodernism and alternative trends to break through.

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8 August Sarnitz, Ernst Lichtblau, Böhlau, Vienna 1994, p. 154. 9 For further information see: Eva B. Ottillinger and August Sarnitz, Ernst Plischke, Prestel, Munich 2004. 10 Ann Beaglehole, “Europe to Wellington. Refugees from Nazi Europe”, in Zeal and Crusade, edited by John Wilson, Te Waihora Press, Christchurch 1996.

Emigration – The Loss of Everyday Life: Ernst Lichtblau and Ernst A. Plischke

In the early 1930s, all the theoretical positions had been taken up, but the discussion was far from over. The doctrinaire vanguard entered the crossfire from two sides: not surprisingly, from the broad base of bourgeois conservatism as well as from internal criticism, such as that from Hugo Häring or Josef Frank. With a certain degree of daring, one could therefore claim that the subsequent emigration of European Modernism, above all to the United States, ensured its continued existence and accelerated its development. In America at the time there was a great willingness to accept these impulses and to give the ideas of the Bauhaus a fruitful ground for their realization.”11 The willingness of the United States to transplant the ideas of ­European Modernism –relativized by the new socio-economic framework and depoliticized cultural discussion – to established architectural institutions, such as the Harvard Graduate School of Design in ­Cambridge or the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, led ultimately to the globalization of modern architecture (with all of its various facets) as the predominant architectural style of the 20th century. Examples of this development this are the teaching activities of Walter Gropius as of 1937 at Harvard and Mies van der Rohe as of 1938 in Chicago. Similar situations emerged in South America, Canada and New ­Zealand, where the emigration of large parts of the European avantgarde caused the cultural climate to change. Ernst Plischke, conferred prizes in Austria and whose work was published in international journals, felt, at least subjectively, a similar responsibility for modern architecture in New Zealand as did Walter Gropius on the east coast of the United States. Although Plischke did not begin teaching at a school of architecture in New Zealand, and was therefore not directly involved in shaping opinions, his activities at the Department of Housing Construction in the newly created Ministry of Housing were nevertheless conducive to realizing modern architecture in an institutional environment. Plischke could reasonably assume that modern architecture was not very developed in New Zealand and that his position as an “international style architect” would therefore be particularly well received. However, these assumptions were only correct to a certain extent. Plischke’s architecture degree was not recognized as qualifying him for construction supervision and, as a result, it was always necessary that he work in partnership with a member of the New Zealand Institute of Architects.12 At the same time, Plischke had to acknowledge that the level of knowledge about international architecture in New Zealand was higher than he had expected. English and American journals and publications were widely distributed; as documented by articles in the

11 Friedrich Achleitner, “Die geköpfte Architektur”, in Die Vertreibung des Geistigen aus Österreich, as Note 1, p. 196. Translated by the author. 12 Plischke refused to take the New Zealand Institute of Architects examination required to practice as a registered architect. As a result, he had to enter into partnerships with local architects. (As kindly reported to the author by Linda Tyler, September 2001.)

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New Zealand Institute of Architects Journal from that period, published under the title Home and Building.13 The restrictive immigration policies that characterized New Zealand during Labor Party rule (1935–1949) was based on fears that it would be difficult to assimilate immigrants of non-British extraction.14 Over 80% of the population was of European, mostly British, descent. With the political system a parliamentary monarchy in the Commonwealth, New Zealand had close ties to the United Kingdom; and the economic and cultural ties were very strong despite its great distance to the UK. New Zealand’s location in the South Pacific region led to economic and cultural ties with Australia, Japan and the USA, in addition to Great Britain.15 The most important effects of the modern movement from the 1930s to the 1960s in New Zealand had, almost inevitably, a strong affinity with developments in the United States – both in terms of architecture and design and in new ways of life. In the early 1990s, exhibitions and publications led to a greater awareness of New Zealand’s own history and cultural identity. In late 1992 and early 1993, the exhibition The 1950s Show was held in Auckland, a direct collaboration with the Associated Media Group, which also publishes the Home and Building architecture magazine. In this context, the architecture historian Peter Shaw writes about the great importance of immigrants for Modernism in New Zealand architecture: “Among the forward-looking architects was Ernst Plischke, an Austrian modernist who arrived in New Zealand in 1939 and who attempted to introduce modern notions into the design and planning of the New Zealand State House. The story of his disappointment in the Department of Housing Construction is well known. Another was Henry Kulka, a refugee whose impeccable modernist pedigree derived from a long and close association with the great Adolf Loos in Vienna. Both Plischke and Kulka had to adapt their high European modernism to the local conditions of their adopted country; both suffered frustration in the process. Their considerable achievements here still await adequate reassessment. During the early 1940s they were largely ignored by a conservative and even xenophobic New Zealand profession though Plischke achieved recognition as a teacher at the Architectural Centre, Wellington, and as the result of his influential book Design and Living published in 1947.”16

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13 As kindly reported by Prof. Bill Toomath, Wellington, 13 February 2002. 14 Supplementary information: In 1840 there were about 2,000 “white immigrants” from Great Britain in New Zealand. In 1908 the total population of New Zealand was around 950,000. In 1991 the population grew to approx. 3.4 million inhabitants. Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition 1914, and Brockhaus, 1994. 15 Together with Canada, South Africa and Australia, New Zealand was one of the four most important ­dominions of the British Commonwealth. At about 104,000 square miles, New Zealand was slightly larger than Great Britain with 93,000 square miles, but had only slightly more than two million inhabitants. The historical buildings in Wellington, Auckland and Dunedin show the strong cultural and socio-historical connections with the English homelands. 16 Peter Shaw, The 1950s Show, exhibition catalogue, Auckland City 1992/93, p. 24. The intensive reception of modern architecture and Ernst Plischke’s buildings in New Zealand began with Linda Tyler’s diploma thesis (1986) and a piece by Antony James Matthews (also 1986). L­ inda

Emigration – The Loss of Everyday Life: Ernst Lichtblau and Ernst A. Plischke

In the mid-1930s, when the first emigrants of the German Reich fled persecution by the Nazi regime, New Zealand pursued restrictive ­immigration policies. Despite this, about 1,000 refugees reached New Zealand before the Second World War officially started (for New ­Zealand from 1942), stopping all further immigration.17 ­Approximately 500 refugees came from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, mostly middle-class immigrants with sound vocational training. Most of them came from the cities of Berlin, Vienna and Prague, meaning that the small-town life in Wellington was a big change for them. In 1941, ­Wellington had 160,000 inhabitants, no symphony orchestra, no professional theater, no classical music societies, only a few restaurants and not even a European coffee house.18 In comparison, Vienna had all the cultural institutions of a major city, including the opera, theater, music and museums among the best of Europe. Many of the immigrants ­experienced culture shock in New Zealand, which was exacerbated in Wellington by the delayed effects of the world economic crisis: no blatant poverty but neglected buildings and an urban life of tristesse.19 Although many emigrants initially missed the urbanity of their Euro­pean homeland, they were fully aware of the new reality. New acquaintances and friendships set a process of assimilation into motion, providing advantages to both sectors of the population and certainly resulting in a more cosmopolitan New Zealand. New Zealand was traditionally a country of imported dominant culture, first from Great Britain in the 19th century, and later from the rest of Europe. After the great wave of European immigrants in the 20th century, “cultural imports” from the United States became increasingly important. In the February 1924 issue of New Zealand Building, photographs of American architecture were published for the first time. The A ­ rchitectural Forum (USA), L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (Paris), Pencil Point (later ­Architectural Record, USA) and Architectural Review (London) magazines became available in libraries in 1939. The ties between New Zealand and the United States was marked by strong cultural exchange: American architecture journals and publications largely shaped the architecture scene after the Second World War. In New Zealand, the reception of European Modernism took place via the US. The reception via America was de facto a reception of the

­ yler’s extensive work in particular points to the initial difficulties Plischke had when he arrived in T New Zealand. Further publications on “New Zealand Architecture” and “The Modern Movement in ­Wellington” document Plischke’s new interest in critical historiography, where the aspects of the “refugees” and their contribution to New Zealand’s cultural modernization are explained and highlighted in a historical context. See Shaw/Morrison, 1991; Wilson (ed.), 1996. 17 Ann Beaglehole, A Small Price to Pay: Refugees from Hitler to New Zealand, 1936–1946, Wellington 1988. 18 Quote from: Introduction to New Zealand, Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington 1945, p. 26. 19 Beaglehole, as Note 17, p. 30: “Shabby, grim, even ugly, were some of the adjectives used to describe first impressions of Wellington. It seemed to the newcomers like a provincial town in Europe rather than a capital city.”

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reception – the “cultural import” of Bauhaus Modernism took place through America. As a European, Ernst Plischke was a proponent of the International Style iconography and, in principle, never abandoned this attitude. His books About Houses (1943) and Design and Living (1947), published in New Zealand, reinforce this significance. This was his great contribution to New Zealand, and the later basis for his historic significance for Austria, together with teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1963 to 1973. Ernst Plischke lived in New Zealand from 1939 to 1963, almost a quarter of a century. His return to Vienna was a personal affirmation of his architectural achievements. However, Plischke – like many returnees – was no longer able to find a place in the “new Austria”. He died in Vienna on 23 May 1992.

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9.3–9.4  Ernst A. Plischke Publication on Ernst A. Plischke, pages 184–185 and 162–163, Prestel, written by Eva B. Ottillinger and August Sarnitz, 2003

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Tokyo, CBD skyscrapers, 2017

Architectural Photography – And an Album of Photographs

Opinion statement and selected examples: Life experiences can be quite relevant. Since early childhood, I have been fascinated by photography. I have a vivid early memory of going into my parents’ darkroom and watching the black-and-white photographs be developed. A fascinating process: the negative is first hardly visible on the photo paper and then, within a short time, it becomes a visible photo image. Since then, a photograph has for me always been just one possible representation of reality – never an exact image of reality itself. The duration of development, for example, can change the image. Partial covering can change the structure of the photo. The negative is only the beginning of a series of possible realities. In the course of researching Rudolph M. Schindler and southern Californian modernism, I had the opportunity to meet Julius Shulman in January 1982 in Los Angeles, where he was living and working in a wonderful studio house designed by Raphael Soriano on Woodrow Wilson Drive. These discussions with Julius opened up a whole new world of architectural photography for me: the world of staged photography. His photos tell short stories about moments with a seemingly random placement of objects and people combining the visual with the narrative. His famous photograph of the Kaufmann house in Palm Springs, California shows a woman lying by the pool. Julius later explained that the woman’s position was chosen to cover an underwater spotlight. I was the first to invite Julius Shulman to Vienna, to lecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1986. His wife had emigrated from Vienna and did not want to want to come along. The lecture was full of surprises for the students. Julius repeatedly emphasized the importance of photography, in particular its documentary qualities. Architecture is changed, destroyed and torn down, but the photo remains the same. The photo captures a point in time that cannot be repeated. I visited Julius with my students on multiple occasions as part of our study trips to California. In Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys, Esther McCoy documents a wonderful story about Vienna and Los Angeles, about Rudolf Schindler, Richard Neutra and Louis Sullivan.1 Later, Wolf D. Prix re-activated this Vienna – Los Angeles connection. Indeed, the two cities are connected by a very special bond.

1 Esther McCoy, Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys, Arts + Architecture Press, Santa Monica 1978. Esther McCoy worked in Rudolph Schindler’s office and was kind enough to provide a treasure trove of information for my research.

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Architectural Photography – And an Album of Photographs

Numerous architectural photographers – including Margherita Spiluttini, Pez Hejduk, Anna Blau, Georg Riha, Thomas Freiler, Rupert Steiner and Gerald Zugmann – have accompanied while making books, curating exhibitions and designing my own architectural projects. An architectural photograph is a conditional representation of reality and a historical documentation. It is not an image of an absolute reality, but a possible and constructed rendition. Modern architecture and photography are inextricably linked in their historical development. The photographic image was instrumentalized by modern architecture as a projection. In the 20th and 21st centuries, print media and architecture exhibitions used photos to construct architectural history. Since the market launch of the iPhone in 2007, the global architectural discourse has increasingly expanded via the media, social platforms and image services. The pluralism of visual worlds has led to a new discussion about architecture: conventions, canonization, iconography and iconology are constantly being questioned and reinterpreted. The question of the pictorial arbitrariness of photos is highly relevant. However, one aspect remains: the situationist quality of the photo. This selection of my photography is taken from the past ten years of digital photography only. Many of my analogue photos date back to 1972, when I made my first trips alone to Rome and Pompeii, or to 1974 when I visited Le Corbusier’s church in Ronchamp, France for the first time privately. In 1976, my first architectural excursion with Rob Krier and Hans Puchhammer took me to Moscow and included visiting the architecture of Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov and Moisei Yakovlevich Ginzburg. The illustrations are arranged chronologically, according to the date of the journey – just like an album of architecture photographs.

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Paris, Maison La Roche, Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret, ­photos  2009

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Architectural Photography – And an Album of Photographs

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Vienna, Wittgenstein House, photos 2010

Architectural Photography – And an Album of Photographs

Florence, Chiesa dell’Autostrada del Sole, Giovanni Michelucci, photos 2011

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Viareggio, beach, photos 2012

Architectural Photography – And an Album of Photographs

London, video cameras, around Waterloo Station, photos 2013

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Venice, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Carlo Scarpa, photos 2014

Architectural Photography – And an Album of Photographs

Milan, Fondazione Prada, Rem Koolhaas, photos 2015

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Milan, Torre Velasca, BBPR, 1956–1958, photo 2017

Architectural Photography – And an Album of Photographs

Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (City Hall), ­Kenzo Tange and others, photo 2017

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Biography

August Sarnitz is a practicing architect and Professor of Architecture, Architectural History and Architectural Theory at the Institute for Art and Architecture, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. After studying in Prof. Gustav Peichl’s master class at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and doing post-graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Prof. Stanford Anderson (MIT, 1981– 1982), he earned a doctorate in Technical Sciences Architecture from the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) in 1983. He has since held various positions at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, including acting as chairman of the Senate (2003–2006), chairman of the Founding Convention (2002–2003), and sitting on various exhibition and hiring commissions. August was an active member of the professional organization of architects and engineers for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland from 2004 to 2017. He was a member of the Design Advisory Board of the City of Vienna for three years, and has been a member of the City of Vienna Old Town Conservation Fund since 1996. He lectures regularly and has participated in international symposia in Europe and the United States, South America and New Zealand. The focus of his research has been on contemporary and modern architecture, urban design and emigration architecture in the 20th century. He was a guest professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in1988 and at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1990. He has curated a variety of exhibitions on urbanism, architecture and art. August has received numerous prizes and awards, including: Visiting Fulbright Professor Prize (1990), Förderpreis (1989), Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung wissenschaftlicher Forschung), funding for scientific publications, Institute of International Education Scholar­ ship (1982), New York William Shepherd Fund, the Funding Award for ­Architecture, Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research, ­Vienna, (1981) and the Fügerpreis of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1980). In 1981–1982, August was a scholar of the Austrian-American ­Fulbright Society. 227

Biography

228

Berlin skyscraper, Spreebogen, axonometric drawing, 1988

Biography

Selected Publications Private Utopia, edited by August Sarnitz and Inge Scholz-Strasser, De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2015. Die Architektur Wittgensteins, Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2011. Architektur Wien: 700 Bauten / Architecture Vienna: 700 Buildings, Springer ­Verlag, Vienna 2008; German and English ­editions. Josef Hoffmann, Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2007; German, English, French ­editions. Otto Wagner, Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2005; German, English, French ­editions. Ernst Plischke, Prestel Verlag, Munich 2003 (German) and 2004 (­English), with Eva B. Ottillinger. Adolf Loos, Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2003; German, English, Spanish, ­Portuguese, Polish editions. Wien – Neue Architektur, 1975–2005, Springer Verlag, Vienna 2003. Architektur Wien: 500 Bauten / Architecture in Vienna, Springer Verlag, Vienna 1997 (German), 1998 (English). Bauen in Europa. Österreichische Architekten im Europa des 20. Jahr­hunderts, Springer Verlag, Vienna 1998. Lichtung – August Sarnitz, Michael Wagner – Bauten und Produkte, ­exhibition catalogue, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, ­Vienna 1997. Ernst Lichtblau. Architekt 1883–1963, Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1994. Lois Welzenbacher. Architekt 1889–1955, Residenz Verlag, Salzburg/­Vienna 1989. R.M. Schindler: Architect 1887–1953, Rizzoli, New York 1988 (revised English edition). Rudolf Schindler. Architekt, Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna 1986. Drei Wiener Architekten, Edition Tusch, Vienna 1983.

Selected Works 2015–18 Residential house, Lake Attersee, Steinbach, Austria Client: private 2014

Furniture design, table Client: private

2011–14 Traveling exhibition Wittgenstein’s Architecture, Udine, ­Venice, Milan, Budapest, Pécs, Charlottesville (USA), etc. Commissioned by: Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs 2010–13 Reconstruction and extension, general renovation of a ­private ­residential building, Vienna-Neustift Client: private 229

Biography

230

Leberberg residential building, axonometric drawing and standard floor plan, 1993

Biography

2008–09 Conversion, extension and garden design for St. Peter’s Monastery, Vienna-Dornbach Client: Monastery St. Peter 2007

Reconstruction and interior design apartment Vienna-Josefstadt Client: private

2006

Furniture designs, and shelves Client: private

2004–06 Residential building renovation and roof extension, ­Vienna-Landstraße Client: private 2004 Exhibition Ernst Plischke Architect Client: City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand 2003

Exhibition design and complete graphic concept for the ­architecture exhibition Ernst Plischke – Das Neue Bauen und die Neue Welt, das Gesamtwerk Client: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

2002

Exhibition design and catalogue design (complete graphics) for the exhibition Ernst Epstein (1881–1938). Der Baumeister des Looshauses als Architekt Commissioned by: Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna

2001–05 Residential building “Glanzing Park”, new buildings,1190 Vienna, Glanzinggasse Client: RBM Wohnbau (RBM construction company) 2001–05 Revitalization and adaptation of the former children’s clinic ­Glanzing, 1190 Vienna, Glanzinggasse Client: RBM Wohnbau 2000–04 Social housing construction, housing in Vienna-Favoriten, Laube­ platz, artwork: Eva Schlegel Client: Trade Union of Private Employees (GPA) 2001

Expert opinion on the structural concept for the media ­sector for the Vienna Technical Museum Client: Vienna Technical Museum

2000–02 Exhibition and exhibition design Wien Städtebau, exhibition ­commissioner, concept and editing, exhibition design and graphics with plans, models and videos, catalogue Client: City of Vienna (MA 18) 1999

Expert opinion, sectional view center, Baumgartner Höhe Client: City of Vienna Association of Hospitals (Wiener Kranken­ anstaltenverbund, KAV) 231

Biography

232

Book covers

Biography

1998–2003  Traveling exhibition Building in Europe, exhibition commissioner, conception and editing, exhibition design and graphics with plans, models and videos, catalogue. Exhibitions, among others: 1998 Lyon (opening exhibition), 1999 Tehran, 2001 Copenhagen, 2002 Oslo, 2002 Cracow Client: Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, represented by Dr. Georg Jankovic Traveling exhibition on the occasion of the Austrian EU Presidency, 1998 1997–2001  Revitalization and adaptation of the Baumgartner Höhe psychiatric ward, general planning contract for PAV 16 (architectural team Baumgartner Höhe: Sarnitz, Soyka-Silber-Soyka) Client: Association of Hospitals of the City of Vienna (Wiener Krankenanstaltenverbund, KAV) 1996

Study on roof extensions for the City of Vienna Client: City of Vienna (MA 19)

1996

Exhibition design, exhibition Tina Blau Commissioned by: Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna

1995

Urban planning expertise, Vienna, 22nd district (mixed ­development) Client: Neues Leben, Wohnbaugenossenschaft, Vienna

1995–97 Exhibition and exhibition design Wien, Architektur. Der Stand der Dinge, exhibition commissioner, conception and editing, exhibition design and graphics with plans, models and videos, catalogue. Exhibitions among others in: 1995 Rome, 1996 Naples, 1996 Sevilla, 1997 Berlin Client: City of Vienna (MA 18, MA 19) 1995

Vienna-Floridsdorf secondary school (preliminary design) Client: City of Vienna (MA 19)

1994

Study, analysis and stocktaking Rathauspark Wien, historical ­railings Client: City of Vienna (MA 19)

1994

Exhibition design, exhibition Marc Chagall Client: Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna

1994

Exhibition design, exhibition Natzler Keramik Commissioned by: Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna

1993–95 Residential building Wulzendorfstraße, Vienna–Aspern. Client: SEG Wien (Vienna property developer) 1993/94 Restoration of the facade of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, ­historic listed building by Theophil Hansen. Renovation carried out by BIG Client: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

233

Biography

1993

Residential building Leberberg, Vienna-Simmering Client: Neues Leben, Vienna

1993

Exhibition design, exhibition Das Lied der Erde Commissioned by: Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna

1992

Urban planning expertise and planning for residential ­development Brünner Straße, Vienna Client: SEG, Vienna

1991–93 Traveling exhibition Museum Positions, exhibition commissioner, conception and editing, exhibition design and graphics with plans, models, videos and catalogue. Exhibitions in: 1991 Vienna, ­Secession (opening exhibition), 1992 Sevilla, 1992 Madrid, 1993 Berlin, 1993 Dresden, 1994 Milan, 1994 Paris, 1994 Lindau Commissioned by: Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, represented by Dr. Georg Jankovic 1990

Church for St. Pölten (project) Commissioned by: Austrian Society for Christian Art, represented by Dr. Alfred Sammer

1990

Furniture designs, tables, shelves Client: private

1988

Urban planning idea proposal, Spreebogen, Berlin, exhibition Berlin – Denkmal oder Denkmodell, architectural design Client: Senate for Building and Housing, Berlin, organized by AEDES Gallery

1987–90 Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, extension west wing, as ­project manager for architect Gustav Peichl Client: City of Frankfurt am Main

234

1987

Traveling exhibition Master Drawings, exhibition commissioner, conception and design of an architectural exhibition about Otto Wagner with 100 original drawings. Exhibition venues: 1987 New York, 1987 Atlanta, 1988 Los Angeles, 1988 Minneapolis Commissioned by: The Drawing Center, New York

1986

Exhibition commissioner, conception and design of an architecture traveling exhibition about Rudolph Schindler with models, plans and photos, exhibition locations: Vienna, Zurich (ETH), Lausanne (EPL), Cambridge (Harvard GSD), Aarhus (Faculty of Architecture) Client: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

1985

Exhibition commissioner for the exhibition and catalogue about the architect Otto Wagner Client: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Index Abraham, Raimund  179, 180 Academy of Fine Arts Vienna  9, 16, 18, 27, 59, 106, 141, 155, 212, 215 Achleitner, Friedrich  208 Acon Art Museum  176 Alberti, Leon Battista  142, 147 Anderson, Stanford  15, 16 Aquinas, Thomas  98 Arendt, Hannah  149 ARTEC Architekten  140 Augenfeld, Felix  147, 204 Basel 146 Bauhaus  32, 64, 102, 119, 142, 144, 146, 147, 148, 152, 209, 212 Baumfeld, Rudolf  204 Baumgartner, Wilhelm  205 Baumschlager Eberle  140 Beduzzi, Antonio  139 Beer, Julius and Grete  147 BEHF Architects  140 Behrens, Peter  120, 141, 143 Benjamin, Walter  52, 119, 157, 192 Berger, Artur  205 Berlage, H. P.  108 Berlin  52, 55, 66, 97, 100, 114, 146, 152, 155, 175, 184, 204, 211 Beverly Hills  204 Big data  11, 12, 18, 19, 27, 28 Blade Runner  66 Blau, Anna  216 Bley, H.  26 Bloc, André  178 BKK-3 Architektur  140 Böckmann, Wilhelm  18 Bogner, Dieter  110 Boston 152 Bötticher, Karl  101 Brandt, Gerhard  72 Breuer, Marcel  152 Breuer, Otto  204 Brinckmann, Albert Erich  55, 61, 62 Brno 146 Brus, Günter  140 Buffalo 106 Buren, Daniel  116 Burnham, Daniel  55 BUSarchitektur  140, 186 BWM Architekten  140 Calatrava, Santiago  173  ˇ Capek, Karel  155 Chandigarh 187 Chicago  50, 52, 55, 100, 106, 157, 165, 176, 191, 206, 209 China  50, 181 Christ 165 Cité industrielle  56

Clay, Cassius / Muhammad Ali 177 Columbia University  55, 62 Contamin, Victor  93 Coop Himmelb(l)au  140, 175, 177, 180, 186, 187 Cordemoy, Abbe Jean-Louis de 12 Cufer, Margarethe  140 Culot, Maurice  49 Czech, Hermann  140 Dante, Alighieri  54 Delugan Meissl Associated ­Architects  140 Derrida, Jacques  175 Descartes, Rene  92, 139 Dessau  32, 64 De Stijl  152 Deutsche Bauzeitung  18, 19 Dex, Josef F.  204 Dientzenhofer, Johann  26 Diller Scofidio + Renfro  180 Disneyland 50 Domenig, Günther  180 Durand, Jean-Nicolas-Louis  113 Dutert, Ferdinand  93, 97 Dylan, Bob  177, 178 Eames, Charles and Ray  120 Egli, Ernst  204 Eichberger, Walter  205 Eichholzer, Herbert  204 Eiffel, Gustave  59 Eiffel Tower  93 Einstein, Albert  96, 109 Eisenman, Peter  175, 180 Eisler, Martin  205 Engelmann, Paul  147 England  31, 144, 205 Ericson, Estrid  146, 148 Fabiani, Max  140, 142 Farnsworth, Edith  97, 98 Fercher, Doris  177 Feuerstein, Günther  178 Flavin, Dan  116 Florence 165 Fontane, Theodor  63 Fooks, Ernest Leslie (Fuchs)  205 Forbát, Fred (Füchsl, Alfred)  205 Foster, Norman  27 Fourier, Charles  31 Frampton, Kenneth  96, 97, 100, 167 Frank, Josef  120, 139–150, 191, 204, 209 Frankfurt am Main  165, 173, 175, 184, 187 Frankl, Paul Theodore  204, 205 Freiler, Thomas  216 Freud, Sigmund  7, 8,11, 139, 156, 175

Friedländer, Georg  63 Fritsch, Karl Emil Otto  18 Fromm, Erich  149 Fuller, Richard Buckminster  97 Garnier, Tony  31, 56 Gastev, Aleksei  31 Gehry, Frank O.  175, 177, 180, 184 George, Hugo  204 Gheorghe, Andrei  72 Giedion, Sigfried  19, 27, 61, 96, 112, 208 Ginzburg, Moisei Yakovlevich  216 Gizeh 165 Göbbels, Hubert  18 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von  119 Goff, Bruce  178 Google Factor  9, 12, 27 Google Index  9, 12, 27 Gotthilf, Ernst von  205 Great Britain  147, 210, 211 Grill, Dagmar  149, 150 Groag, Jacques  204 Gropius, Walter  19, 26, 64, 144, 146, 148, 151, 152, 205, 209 Gross, Fritz  204 Gruen, Victor (Grünbaum, Viktor)  147, 205 Grünberger, Arthur  146 Guevrekian, Gabriel  146 Guggenheim, Peggy  158, 160 Guggenheim Museum, New York  157, 184 Hadid, Zaha  142, 175, 178, 180, 181, 185, 186, 187 Haerdtl, Oswald  140 Hagia Sophia  71 Hamburg  114, 175 Hamlin, A. D. (Homlin)  55 Häring, Hugo  146, 209 Harvard University  19, 152, 178, 209 Harvey, David  50 Haus-Rucker-Co 140 Haussmann, Baron Georges-­ Eugène 60 Hays, K. Michael  67 Heidegger, Martin  92, 101, 109, 110, 120, 150 Hejduk, Pez  216 Hellwig, Otto Rudolf  204 Henrici, Karl  55, 59, 61 Herron, Ron  66 Hilberseimer, Ludwig  64, 65, 67, 144, 152 Hildebrandt, Adolf von  96 Hille, H. (Helmuth)  26

235

Index Hitchcock, Henry-Russel  64, 108, 146 Hitler, Adolf  146, 176, 203 Hoffmann, Josef  15, 140, 141, 142, 143, 148, 191 Holl, Steven  180 Hollein, Hans  27, 50, 71, 139, 140, 154, 155, 161–174, 178, 179, 180, 181, 185 Holzbauer, Wilhelm  140, 178, 179 Holzmeister, Clemens  140, 178 Hönigsfeld, Rudolf  205 Howard, Ebenezer  31 Huxley, Aldous  31 International Style  64, 102, 105, 106, 108, 142, 146, 159, 175, 203, 209, 212 Iran 170 Isozaki, Arata  180 Israel 147 Istanbul 71 Jabornegg & Pálffy  140 Janeba, Fritz  205 Jäger, E.  26 Jakarta 52 Jeanneret, Pierre  112, 186 Jeddah Tower  50 Johnson, Philip  64, 108, 146, 175 Judd, Donald  116 Jünger, Ernst  100, 101 Kahn, Louis  167 Kant, Immanuel  92 Kaufmann, Edgar  206 Kiesler, Friedrich  105, 110, 112, 116, 139, 140, 151–160, 178, 180, 204 Kleiner, Leopold  205 Klotz, Heinrich  16 Knips, Sonja  148 Koetter, Fred  49 Kogler, Peter  116, 117 Kohlbauer, Martin  140 Kokoschka, Oskar  116 König, Karl  142 Koolhaas, Rem  68, 168, 175, 180, 181 Kramer, Ferdinand  144 Kraus, Karl  14, 18 Krier, Leon  49 Krier, Rob  49, 178, 216 Krischanitz, Adolf  140 Kühn, C.  26 Kulka, Heinrich (Henry)  105, 204, 208, 210 Kurz, O.  26 Kuwait 50 Lainer, Rüdiger  140 Lang, Fritz  31, 65 Laugier, Abbé Marc-Antoine  12 Lavin, Sylvia  180

236

Le Corbusier  26, 65, 66, 93, 106, 110, 112, 113, 144, 146, 151, 154, 168, 178, 186, 187, 216 Lederer, Emil  149 Lefebvre, Henri  91, 92 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm  92 Letchworth 56 LeWitt, Sol  116 Libeskind, Daniel  175, 180 Lichtblau, Ernst  147, 203, 204–208 Lobachevsky, Nikolai Ivanovich  96 London  8, 52, 93, 106, 176, 178, 205, 211 London School of Economics  52 Loos, Adolf  13, 14, 15, 18, 93, 96, 101, 103, 106, 112, 113, 116, 120, 140, 142, 143, 148, 151, 155, 164, 177, 191, 192, 204, 210 Loos, Walter  204 Los Angeles  66, 120, 157, 158, 176, 177, 191, 204, 215 Louvre 152 Lueger, Karl  63 Lurçat, André  146 Lynn, Greg  178 Lyon  181, 184 Lyotard, Jean-François  27, 50 Mackintosh, Charles Rennie  106 Makart, Hans  181 Malaysia 50 Manila 52 Mayne, Thom  176, 177, 179, 180, 185, 186 McCoy, Esther  215 McKim, Mead and White  62 Melnikov, Konstantin  120, 155, 216 Mendelsohn, Erich  154, 204 Metropolis  31, 64, 65, 66 Meyer, Hannes  67 Minkowski, Hermann  109 Miralles, Enric  179 Moholy-Nagy, László  151 Mollino, Carlo  180 Mönchengladbach 172 Moneo, Rafael  173 Montani, Gabriele  139 Morris, William  31, 105 Moscow  120, 154, 170, 216 Moss, Eric  177, 179, 180 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus  178 Muche, Georg  119 Müller, Fritz Michael  205 Munich 181 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York  64, 108, 120, 146, 159, 175, 203, 206, 207 Musil, Robert  63, 68 Muthesius, Hermann  26, 94, 105, 106, 139

Neubrunn, Emanuel  205 Neumann, Friedrich (Newman, Frederick) 208 Neutra, Richard  108, 146, 176, 204, 208, 215 New Mexico  105 Newton, Isaac  92 New York  52, 55, 64, 71, 97, 108, 110, 120, 146, 149, 152, 154, 157, 159, 172, 174, 175, 178, 203, 204, 205, 206 New Zealand  147, 204, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212 Noever, Peter  179 Oak Park  106 Oechslin, Werner  113 Olbrich, Joseph  140 Ortner & Ortner  140 Oud, J. J. Pieter  144, 154 Owen, Robert  31 Palazzo Strozzi  165 Paris  52, 59, 60, 93, 112, 113, 149, 152, 155, 157, 159, 175, 185, 211 Parker, Barry  56 Paul, Jean  54, 55, 63 Paxton, Joseph  93 Peche, Dagobert  141 Peichl, Gustav  140 Perret, Auguste  96, 154 Perriand, Charlotte  186 Pichler, Walter  140, 180 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista  178 Plano, Illinois  97 Pliscke, Ernst A.  140, 141, 147, 203, 205, 208–212 Podrecca, Boris  140, 186 Poelzig, Hans  144 Pompeii 216 pool Architektur  140 Pöppelmann, Carl Friedrich  26 Popper, Karl  177, 208 Popper, Kurt  205 PPAG architects  140 Prado 152 Prague  146, 211 Preis, Alfred  205 Prix, Wolf D.  139, 142, 175–188, 215 Pruitt-Igoe 64 Puchhammer, Hans  216 Pugin, Augustus W. N.  101, 105 Rainer, Arnulf  140 Rainer, Roland  140 Riegl, Alois  15 Riemann, Georg  96 Rietveld, Gerrit  146, 180 Riha, Georg  216 Riley, Terence  120 Riss, Egon  205 Risse, Otto  26 Rohe, Ludwig Mies van der  18, 96, 97, 98, 100, 139, 144, 146, 152, 154, 165, 167, 186, 205, 209 Rolling Stones  177

Index Rome  173, 216 Roth, Alfred  112 Rothschild, Albert Freiherr von  161, 169, 170 Rothschild, Louis  161 Rotondi, Michael  176, 177 Rowe, Colin  49 Ruskin, John  105 Russia 50 Rykwert, Joseph  50 Salvisberg, Otto Rudolf  26 San Francisco  98 Sant’Elia, Antonio  64 Santiago de Cuba  100 Saudi Arabia  50 Scarpa, Carlo  71, 167, 180 Scharoun, Hans  144 Schindler, Rudolph M.  105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 113, 120, 157, 158, 159, 176, 191, 204, 208, 215 Schinkel, Friedrich  26 Schlesinger, Norbert  208 Schmarsow, August  14, 96 Schmidt, Friedrich von  161 Schönthal, Otto  205 Schumacher, A.  26 Schumacher, Fritz  26 Schuster, Franz  26, 143 Schütte-Lihotzky, Margarete  140, 205 Schwanzer, Karl  181 Schwarz, Rudolf  101 Schwarzkogler, Rudolf  140 Scott, Baillie  142 Scott, Ridley  66 Scott Brown, Denise  93, 101 Seidler, Harry  205 Semper, Gottfried  12, 14, 94, 96, 164 Sennett, Richard  14 Seoul 52 Shaw, Peter  210 Shulman, Julius  215 Sicily 71 Simmel, Georg  65, 67 Simony, Stephan  205 Singer, Franz  147, 205

Sitte, Camillo  49, 55, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63 Sobotka, Walter  143, 205 Soleri, Paolo  178 Soriano, Raphael  215 Spalt, Johannes  178 Spiluttini, Margherita  216 Spinoza, Baruch de  92 Stam, Mart  144 Steiner, Rupert  216 Stifter, Adalbert  162 St. Louis  64, 154 Stockholm  142, 146, 148, 150 Stonborough-Wittgenstein, Margaret  16, 148 St. Petersburg  52 St. Peter’s Monastery, Vienna  72 Strnad, Oskar  142, 143, 204 Stübben, Josef  55 Stuttgart  55, 113, 144, 146, 147 Sullivan, Louis  67, 108, 110, 215 Superstudio 180 Svenskt Tenn  146, 148, 149 Sweden  146, 147, 149 Swiczinsky, Helmut  179 Syracuse 71 Szyszkowitz Kowalski  140 Tafuri, Manfredo  11, 32, 49 Taiwan 50 Taut, Bruno and Max  144 Tesar, Heinz  140, 186 Tillner & Willinger  140 Tokyo 52 Trehet, Jean  139 Tschumi, Bernhard  7, 49, 175 United Arab Emirates  50 United States of America (USA)  18, 31, 50, 55, 105, 114, 120, 146, 147, 149, 151, 152, 154, 159, 165, 173, 176, 177, 178, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 209, 210, 211 Unwin, Raymond  56

Urban, Joseph  149, 204 Utzon, Jørn  167 Venturi, Robert  93, 101 Vesnin, Alexander  154 Vetter, Hans Adolf  205 Vienna  8, 9, 12, 32, 52, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 72, 94, 101, 105, 112, 120, 139, 140, 141–149, 151, 152, 155, 158, 161, 164, 165, 168, 172, 173, 175–181, 185–188, 191, 203, 204, 207, 208, 211, 212, 215 Vietnam 50 Ville-Issey, Jean Nicolas Jadot de  139 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène  96 Wagner, Otto  8, 12, 13, 15, 52–64, 66, 67, 68, 94, 96, 106, 120, 139, 140, 155, 177, 191, 206, 207 Walking Cities  66 Webb, Philip  105 Weber, Max  100 Weinbrenner, Friedrich  26 Wellington  208, 211 Welzenbacher, Lois  140, 175 Wigley, Mark  175 Wimmer, Albert  140 Wittgenstein, Ludwig  2, 18, 148 Wlach, Oskar  142, 143, 147, 205 Wölfflin, Heinrich  61 Woods, Lebbeus  179 Wörle, Eugen  170 Wren, Christopher  26 Wright, Frank Lloyd  26, 27, 106, 108, 110, 151, 154, 157, 191 Wroclaw 146 Zimbler, Liane  205 Zugman, Gerald  216 Zurich 146

237

List of Illustrations

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture, drawings by architectural students in the courses of August Sarnitz: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3–1.9 University Library of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna: 3.3, 5.4–5.5 Anna Blau: 8.8–8.9 Daniel Hawelka: 6.14–6.23 Pez Hejduk / archives of August Sarnitz: 4.10–4.15, 6.3–6.13 Archives of Hans Hollein: 3.2 Peter Kogler Studio, Vincent Everarts: 5.1, 5.8 Georg Riha: 7.2, 7.5–7.6 August Sarnitz: 0.1, 0.2, 2.19, 3.1, 5.7, 6.1–6.2, 7.1, 7.3–7.4, 7.7–7.8, 8.2, 8.3–8.7, 8.10–8.13, p. 214, pp. 217–225 Archives of August Sarnitz: 2.1, 4.1, 4.6, 4.9, 4.16–4.21, 5.2–5.3, 5.6, 9.1–9.2, 9.3–9.4, p. 228, p. 230, p. 232 Margherita Spiluttini: 2.2–2.18, 4.2–4.5, 4.7–4.8, 8.1 Nóra Varga: p. 226

Imprint

August Sarnitz www.sarnitz.at Printed with the financial support of Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Private sponsors

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