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The exhibition centers on the
Austrian architect Joseph Maria
Olbrich’s two chief works: the
Vienna Secession and the Artists’
Colony Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt.
Architectural models, exemplary
sketches and drafts, as well as
historical photographs of the
buildings and interiors illustrate
Olbrich’s importance in European Art
nouveau. The presentation also
includes original furniture and
items of everyday use designed by
Olbrich in his brief creative period
between 1897 und 1908 from the
collections of the Darmstadt
Artists’ Colony Museum, the
University of Applied Arts Vienna,
and from private loaners.
Born 1867 in Troppau (Opava), Joseph
Maria Olbrich studied at the Academy
of Fine Arts Vienna under Carl
Freiherr von Hasenauer from 1890 to
1893. The decorative neo-baroque
quality of Hasenauer’s work was
going to have a lasting effect on
Olbrich’s general ideas about art.
Another important step in Olbrich’s
career was his affiliation with Otto
Wagner’s architectural bureau from
1893 on. With his extraordinary
graphic skills, Olbrich assisted
Wagner for five years. Having
received the “Rome Award,” he
traveled to Rome, Southern Italy,
and North Africa in 1893/4, where
the unadorned, “grand forms” of
Mediterranean residential
architecture aroused his interest,
as did the monumental nature of
archaic tombs and cult edifices.
Olbrich and the Vienna Secession: To every age its art and to art its freedom
On 3 April 1897, under the helm of Gustav Klimt, several artists, among
them Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, and Max Kurzweil resigned from the
Vienna Künstlerhaus. The establishment of the Vienna Secession and in
particular the construction of a new exhibition hall provided the art
scene with an alternative to the more conservative line of the
Künstlerhaus and offered the possibility to reach a larger public. In
1897, Joseph Maria Olbrich was commissioned to construct an exhibition
building with an imposing entrance and a glazed tent-like exhibition
space. The city of Vienna had provided a parcel on the Wienzeile near
Karlsplatz and Naschmarkt. At that time, neither the Secession artists
nor the young architect could have surmised that the Secession building
would go down in history as one of the major works of European Art
nouveau.
Smooth interlocking cubes, plastered
white, with floral and geometric
ornaments cut directly into the
mortar, are crowned by a genuine
gold-plated metal openwork cupola in
the shape of a laurel tree
comprising 3,000 leaves and 700
berries. This new design vocabulary,
with its symbolic references, was a
clear rejection of the architecture
of historicism, just as Hermann
Bahr’s quote “To every age its art
and to art its freedom,” which the
artists had placed under the gilt
cupola as a sign of their attitude.
The inauguration of this original
building on 12 November 1898
prompted a wave of outrage and
discussion: “The fact that Olbrich
had basically created a real jewelry
box, a pavilion-like, small-scale
construct monumentalized and
augmented with gold and novel
ornamentation blown up to a large
scale went largely unnoticed by
contemporary audiences.” (Peter
Haiko) One year after the opening of
the Secession in 1899, Olbrich
accepted an invitation of the Grand
Duke of Hessen Ernst Ludwig, who
offered him the opportunity to
realize his architectural and
artistic visions in Darmstadt. He
would never return to Vienna.
The artists’ colony Mathildenhöhe: the avant-garde as a monument
Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig had founded
an artists’ colony in 1899 to
vitalize the province of Hessen
economically and culturally through
a connection between the arts and
crafts and located it on the
Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt. Here,
Olbrich was able to find the “vacant
lot” he had always dreamed of,
providing him with the chance to see
his enormous wealth of ideas
materialize.
In 1901, under his leadership, the
artists’ colony organized a first
programmatic exhibition titled “Ein
Dokument Deutscher Kunst” (A
Document of German Art). The concept
was evidently Olbrich’s and unique
for the time, as it envisioned the
construction of a small model
housing development that included
permanent and temporary buildings.
For this occasion and following
Olbrich’s design, the Ernst Ludwig
House was built as a communal studio
and intellectual center of the
artists’ colony. The combination of
functional work and exhibition
spaces and the temple-like augmented
façade still made conceptional and
artistic references to the Vienna
Secession.
A series of completely furnished
residential buildings, all designed
by Olbrich with the exception of the
Behrens house, were built on the
grounds of this former example of
landscape architecture. The
gorgeous, individually designed
villas on Mathildenhöhe were the
main place of residence and work for
the artists. Above all, they were
exemplary showpieces of reformed
building and habitation.
For the “Hessische Landesausstellung
für freie und angewandte Kunst”
(Hessian Exhibition for Pure and
Applied Art) at Mathildenhöhe in
1908, Olbrich completed his
Darmstadt “chef d’œuvre,” the
striking “Stadtkrone” with the
Wedding Tower and an adjoining
municipal exhibition building.
Olbrich did not live to see the
further development of the artists’
colony Mathildenhöhe. By 1908, he
primarily resided in Düsseldorf,
where he worked with his bureau on
the realization of the Tietz
department store. It was there that
he prematurely passed away after a
short and serious illness (leukemia)
on 8 August 1908 at the age of 40.
After having created the Vienna
Secession and the Ernst Ludwig
House, icons of Art nouveau - a
style in love with ornamentation -
between 1897 and 1900, Olbrich
arrived at an almost austere
architecture, an approach intent on
the “grand form,” when designing the
Mathildenhöhe exhibition building.
This “present-day Acropolis“, a
synthesis of the archaic and the
modern emerging from the cityscape
of Darmstadt like a landmark,
emphasizes the still underestimated,
monumental side of avant-garde
architecture.
Exhibition folder as Download (PDF 369 KB)
TO EVERY AGE ITS ART
Joseph Maria Olbrich
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| Duration of the Exhibition |
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March 27 through May 12 2007 |
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| Opening Times |
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Mon, Tue, Wed and Fri
8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Thu 8 a.m. to 5.30 p.m
Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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| Information |
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www.ottowagner.com/museum
T +43 1 534 53 DW 33825
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| Entrance |
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Main Banking Hall:
Free Entrance to the Special Exhibition!
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| Museum WAGNER:WERK |
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Entrance Fee: Euro 5.00
Euro 3,50 reduced fee for
students, senior citizens and groups
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| Free entrance |
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Bank customers of BAWAG P.S.K. on exhibit of customer card
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| Curator |
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Renate Ulmer
Stv.Direktorin Institut Mathildenhöhe
Darmstadt |
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| Concept and Organisation |
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Monika Wenzl-Bachmayer |
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| Catalogue |
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Kataloge "Ideen von Olbrich",
Reprint nach dem Original der 2. Auflage 1904
Arnoldsche Art Publishers,
ISBN 3-925369-15-5, Euro 22,00
"Joseph Maria Olbrich"
Secession Wien, Mathildenhöhe
Darmstadt
Ausstellungsarchitektur um 1900
Deutscher Kunstverlag,
ISBN 3-422-06659-4, Euro 20,00
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| WAGNER:WERK - MUSEUM POSTSPARKASSE - Georg Coch-Platz 2, 1018 Vienna |
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