THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE

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VIENNA MODERN

PROF. DR. SYED TAUSEEF AHMAD SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE UNIVERSITY OF

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political map of Europe in 1850

POLITICAL MAP EUROPE 1850
AUSTRO- HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 1850
 I
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Map of Vienna
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Map of Vienna 1883
Schnbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria, 1400-room residence of the Habsburgs from the 18
until 1918
interior, ballroom
interior, bedchamber of Emperor Franz Josef
interior, bedchamber of Empress Elisabeth
Empress Elisabeth's bedchamber with her exercise equipment in the right foreground
map of Vienna showing
the conversion of the city
walls into a ring of parks
and municipal buildings
 RINGSTRASSE
December 1857 Emperor Franz Josef decrees the removal
of old fortifications ringing the city of Vienna.

Jan 1858 competition is announced to create a broad

new street where the ramparts were.

Ludwig Foresters plan went further, envisioning the

planting of trees and creation of parks and squares.
Buildings surrounding the Ringsrtasse was in every
historic style.
RINGSTRASSE
Neues Rathaus
Votivkirche, on the Ringstrasse
Parliament Building, on the Ringstrasse
ELABORATE SCULPTURAL DECORATION IN FRONT OF THE
PARLIAMENT BUILDING
Vienna State Opera House, a grab-bag of styles including French Renaissance,
Florentine and Venetian
 Opera HOUSE

Defense of eclecticism:

"Ours does not appear to be an age given to the creation of

new styles in architecture. The more attempts are made to
invent a new style of building, the clearer it is that the
vocation for such creative activity is lacking. On the other
hand, the more imaginatively, the more ingeniously one
endeavors to unit given styles, the basic elements of already
existing types of architecture, with the advances of modern
technology, the more successful are the results."
Rudolf Von Eitelberger
Hanging Attitudes towards Ringstrasse

- first generation regarded it with pride

- later it was seen as an abomination
- One critic described it as a time understood
by architecture nothing more than an
accumulation of orders, profiles and ornaments
from two millennia, from which each individual
selected what was thought best.
- Contemporary art must express the ability, the
mode of existence, of modern men, by means of
forms created by us (Otto Wagner)
Hanging Attitudes towards Ringstrasse

"If you walk across the Ring, you have the

impression of being in the midst of a carnival.
Everything masked, everything disguised...Life
has become too serious for that sort of thing.
This is what we mean when we talk of realist
architecture; that is, that the building must not
only serve its intended purpose but must also
express, not conceal, that purpose. To
disguise it behind borrowed forms is both silly
and ugly.

Hermann Bahr
Hanging Attitudes towards Ringstrasse

Early, people require that building should look like something,

we demand that it should be something. we, the working people
of today, should be ashamed to live in the style of the princes and
patricians of yesterday. That of think as swindle. From the
appearance of a house, we should be able to judge what is its
purpose, who lives in it, and how. We are not of the age of
Baroque, we do not live in Renaissance, why should we act as we
did?
Life has changed, costume has changed, our thoughts and
feelings, our whole manner of living has changed, architecture
must change too.These demands have now become audible,
and no longer be stifled.

Hermann Bahr
OTTO WAGNER 1841-1918

Austrian architect

Designer

Art theorist
 Timeline
Shift towards
modernism Pre
Started designing Joined Modern
Otto Wagner was his first buildings in the Vienna building: Postal
born the historicist style Secession savings bank

1857-1862 1895 1898 1918

1864
1841 1897 1900s

Studied in the Designed Built his first Art Wagner dies

polytechnic institute Karlplatz station Nouveau building, the
of structural design Majolica House in Vienna
and in the academy
of visual arts
Wiener Stadtbahn: Karlsplaz Station

Location: Vienna, Austria

Time Period: 1892-1901

Building type : urban railway

station

Construction: steel and marble

Style: Art Nouveau

Wiener Stadtbahn: Karlsplaz Station

Plan
A

Simple Rectangular plan

 Wiener Stadtbahn: Karlsplaz Station
Elevation

http://media.justvienna.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/karlsplatz_u4_01.jpg
Majolica House 1898-18099
House located at Linke Wienzeile Vienna, Austria.

Residential apartments

Retail shops
Exterior view Elevation
 House was built during the Secessionist Movement
Secessionist Movement- separation from past to future

Pure geometrical
forms used in the
overall plan as
well as the
division of
apartments inside

Plan
Exterior Facade

Linear Facade

Linearity in
window pattern
Exterior wall section
6*6 Stone Tiles in a
grid on the facade
Brick wall

Mortar
6*6 Stone Tiles

Aluminium bolts

Source:
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Majolic
a_House.html
Postal Savings Bank

Location: Vienna, Austria

Time 1904-1912
Period

Building : Bank
Type

Construction: Glass
System and Concrete

Style: Early modern

 Postal Savings Bank

Trapezium shaped
plan

Symmetrical
construction

Banking hall

Entrance
Plan
Postal Savings Bank

Phase 2: 1910- 1912

Phase 1: 1904- 1906

Courtyards

Plan
Postal Savings Bank

Section
 Interiors: Banking hall

Cast iron pillars that

support the upper
glass roof

Floor markings to give

direction of movement

Glass roof for transparency and

natural lighting

Aluminium radiators
Postal Savings Bank
''
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radiator design

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Postal Savings Bank

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Postal Savings Bank

Iron left on view

Marble
Linoleum (new
material)

Staircase
 Aluminium plates to avoid
wear and tear

Wood

The chairs of the bank differ in size and

comfort according to hierarchy., from arm
chairs with cushions for bosses to mere
stools for lowly employee and customers.

Furniture
INFLUENCES OF OTTO WAGNER
 Vienna Secession 1897

Artists, designers and architects included Gusta Kilmt,

Kolomon Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Josef Maria Olbrich, Max
Kurzweil, Bernatzi and many other

Otto Wagner was not a member though he is often

associated with the group as he taught all of them.
 DO'- '
0 . "

Monograms of the
founding members
of the Vienna

Secession ...... ,.,._ LOU ._,._ ._,. LIO
Vienna Secession: Posters
Joseph Maria OLBRICH
(1867-1908)
JOSEF MARIA OLBRITH 1867- 1907
 The Secessionist Building, Vienna, 1897

J.M. Olbrich, Secession Building, 1898

The Secessionist Building, Vienna, 1897

Exterior Details
The Secessionist Building, Vienna, 1897
The Motto ofThe Secessionist Building, Vienna,
1897
The motto of the Secessionist movement is
written above the entrance of the pavilion: "To
every age its art, to every art its freedom"
(German: Der Zeit ihre Kunst. Der Kunst ihre
Freiheit). Below this is a sculpture of
three gorgons representing painting, sculpture,
and architecture.
JOSEPH HOFFMANN

One of Wagner's pupils

Buildings characterized by a cube-like

style
Stoclet Palace

Location: Brussels, Belgium

Time Period: 1905-1911

Building type : private house

Construction: Brick and Stone

Style: Modern
 Entrance
Plans
Use of simple geometrical forms
i.e rectangles

Asymmetrical

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 Elevation

http://sketchuniverse.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/by-hoffmann-stoclet-palace-in-brussels.jpg?w=300&h=147

Resembles a giant metal box, similar to Post Office Savings bank

Faade Treatment

Use of Metal profile

Stone cladded on brick

Sanatorium Purkersdorf
Sanatorium Purkersdorf

PLAN
Sanatorium Purkersdorf

INTERIOR VIEWS
ADOLF LOOSE
 Adolf Loose: Background

Adolf Loos (born December 10, 1870) was an architect who became
more famous for his ideas and writings than for his buildings. He
believed that reason should determine the way we build, and he
opposed the decorative Art Nouvaeu movement. His notions about
design influenced 20th century modern architecture and its variations.
Loos began studies at the Royal and Imperial State Technical College in
Rechenberg, Bohemia and then spent a year in the military. He
attended the College of Technology in Dresden for three years, later
traveling to the United States, where he became impressed by the
efficiency of American architecture, and he admired the work of Louis
Sullivan.
In 1896, Loos returned to Vienna and worked for architect Carl
Mayreder, By 1898, Loos had opened his own practice in Vienna and
became friends with free-thinkers such as philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein, expressionist composer Arnold Schnberg, and satirist
Karl Kraus.
 Adolf Loose: Philosophy

Adolf Loos is best-known for his 1908 essay Ornament and

Verbrechen, translated as Ornament & Crime. This and other essays by Loos
describe the suppression of decoration as necessary for modern culture to
exist and evolve beyond past cultures. Ornamentation, even "body art" like
tattoos, is best left for primitive people, like the natives of Papua.

Loose beliefs extended to all areas of life, including architecture. He argued

that the buildings we design reflect our morality as a society. The new steel
frame techniques of the Chicago School demanded a new aestheticwere cast
iron faade cheap imitations of past architectural ornamentation? Loos
believed that what hung on that framework should be as modern as the
framework itself.

Loos started his own school of architecture. His students included Richard
Neutra and R. M. Shindler, both becoming famous in the United States after
emigrating to the West Coast. Adolf Loos died in Kalksburg near Vienna,
Austria on August 23, 1933. His self-designed gravestone in Central Cemetery
(Zentralfriedhof) in Vienna is a simple block of stone with only his name
engravedno ornamentation.
 Adolf Loose: Philosophy
SELECTED QUOTES FROM ORNAMENT AND CRIME:

" The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament

from utilitarian objects."
" The urge to ornament one's face and everything within
reach is the start of plastic art."

" Ornament does not heighten my joy in life or the joy in

life of any cultivated person. If I want to eat a piece of
gingerbread I choose one that is quite smooth and not a
piece representing a heart or a baby or a rider, which is
covered all over with ornaments. The man of the
fifteenth century won't understand me. But all modern
people will."
" Freedom from ornament is a sign of spiritual strength."

This ideathat anything beyond the functional should be

omittedwas a modern idea worldwide.
 Adolf Loose: Philosophy

Though Loos has been dead for decades, his theories about architectural
complexity are often studied today, especially to begin a discussion about
ornamentation. In a high-tech, computerized world where anything is possible, the
modern student of architecture must be reminded that just because you are able
do something, should you?

Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays by

Adolf Loos

Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, and the Road to

Modern Architecture by Werner Oechslin,
Cambridge University Press, 2002

Creating Your Home With Style by Adolf
Loos
 Adolf Loose: Architecture
Loos-designed homes that featured straight lines, clear planar walls and windows, and clean curves. His
architecture became physical manifestations of his theories, especially raumplan ("plan of volumes"), a
system of contiguous, merging spaces.

Exteriors should be without ornamentation, but interiors should be rich in functionality and volume.
Each room might be on a different level, with floors and ceilings set at different heights.

STEINER HOUSE 1910-1914

STEINER HOUSE 1910-1914
STEINER HOUSE 1910-1914

Back Elevation
GOLDEN & SALATSCH BUILDING 1910
GOLDEN & SALATSCH BUILDING 1910
GOLDEN & SALATSCH BUILDING 1910
GOLDEN & SALATSCH BUILDING 1910
GOLDEN & SALATSCH BUILDING 1910
VILLA MULLER PRAGUE 1928
MULLER HOUSE 1928
MULLER HOUSE 1928
MULLER HOUSE 1928
MULLER HOUSE 1928
MULLER HOUSE 1928
MULLER HOUSE 1928
MULLER HOUSE 1928
MULLER HOUSE 1928