Fiorito Interior Design: History of Furniture: Vienna Secession

Furniture movements and styles in history have never been clear cut, starting precisely on a day or month of a certain year...or for that matter ending when another style came long. No, movements and styles bleed into each other and overlap. Many influence each other, and we can find traces of elements and details from one style in the elements and details of another.

This is the case with a rather murky period of artistic influences from around the mid to the late 1800s. Swirling around this period is the Aesthetic Movement (~1860 - 1880), Art Nouveau (~1890 - 1910), and Arts and Crafts and Mission Style (~1880 - 1920). And mixed in there is a glorious moment known as the Vienna Secessionist Movement which took place, naturally, in Vienna. All these styles have elements that overlap but for now we are going to examine the Secessionists.

I realize I started this post by saying that movements and styles don't have precise starting or ending dates, but the Vienna Secessionists prove this idea wrong: the Vienna Secession started quite precisely on April 3, 1897. A group of Austrian painters, graphic artists, sculptors and architects, including Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists in protest at what they saw as a staid and stale traditionalism that resulted in a rigid approach to what art could be. They envisioned an art movement that would combine all the disciplines into one unified artistic expression, called "Gesamtkunstwerk" or a "total art work". In Gabriel Fahr-Becker's book L'ART NOUVEAU, Secessionist member and literary critic Hermann Bahr wrote in the first issue of the new journal begun by the group, called Ver Sacrum ("Sacred Spring"),"Our art is not a combat of modern artists against those of the past, but the promotion of the arts against the peddlers who pose as artists and who have a commercial interest in not letting art bloom. The choice between commerce and art is the issue at stake in our Secession. It is not a debate over aesthetics, but a confrontation between two different spiritual states."

The Vienna Secession (specified as Vienna to differentiate it from other Secessionist art movements like the one a few years earlier in Munich) members built themselves a spectacular building that served as a sort of headquarters as well as the physical embodiment of their manifesto. Designed by architect Joseph Maria Olbrich to look like a temple, the stunning façade is mostly smooth and devoid of detail. The Latin words "VER SACRUM" appear to the left of the entrance, referencing the "Sacred Spring" idea. Above the doors are three gorgons representing painting, sculpture, and architecture. But certainly the most striking feature is the incredible dome made of wrought iron in the shape of laurel leaves and berries, in gold leaf. It is truly breathtaking.

Vienna Secession by Jorit Aust

The first acting president of the Secessionists was the painter Gustav Klimt who created for the 14th Secessionist exhibition a room-sized mural inspired by Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Simply called The Beethoven Frieze, it was removed from the original exhibition space, shuttled around from location to location but is finally on permanent display in a dedicated space at the Secession building which is still open as a gallery space, run by the Secessionists since 1897!

In terms of interiors, Secessionist furniture feels like a bridge between the organic, flowing, tendril-like lines of Art Nouveau and the sleeker, more sober silhouettes of Art Deco, and even foreshadowed Streamline Moderne a bit. Original Secession member Josef Hoffmann was an architect and designer, and created some of the most important furniture pieces and objects to come out of this period. His Sitzmaschine or "Machine For Sitting" is a classic of Secessionist design and exemplifies the development of more geometric shapes and forms. The chair was made for his Hoffmann's Purkersdorf Sanatorium in Vienna. The sanatorium was one of the first important commissions given to the Wiener Werkstätte, a collaborative workshop founded in 1903 by Hoffmann and Koloman Moser. The Werkstätte was aligned with much of what the English Arts and Crafts movement was creating and indeed, it seems like a cousin of something Charles Rennie Mackintosh, previously here, would have made.

Hoffmann also created a café set for the Fledermaus Cabaret: simple lines with sphere details...along with the Sitting Machine, it is still in production from Austrian furniture manufacturer Wittmann.