The Interiors of Josef Hoffman

The dapper, self-confident gent at right is the early-20^th-century Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann, who is the subject of an interesting exhibition at the Neue Galerie in New York (through Feb. 26, 2007). Hoffmann (1870-1956) was born in Moravia and went to Vienna to further his studies; there, he worked for the great Otto Wagner and became one of the founders of the Secession, a reformist design movement. Greatly in demand as one of Vienna's fashionable architects, Hoffmann designed not only buildings but also furniture, lamps, wallpapers, fabrics, tea sets, cutlery, even women's fashions—everything.
Josef Hoffmann in the studio of Koloman Moser, Vienna c. 1898. Image courtesy Neue Galerie New York.
Hoffmann often remodeled existing domestic interiors, and rooms from four of these commissions are on view at the Neue Galerie. The room settings are re-creations that combine furnishings from the original rooms, additional designs by Hoffmann, and new wall coverings, carpets, and fabrics based on surviving swatches. These interiors, which no longer exist, were made available to most people through black-and-white photography, but it is now possible to appreciate Hoffmann's masterful—if restrained—use of color. This bedroom of a six-room Viennese apartment was designed for a young pediatric surgeon and his new bride. The apartment was rented, so Hoffmann could not make structural changes; instead he cannily used the dark-stained maple furniture to create a feeling of architectural space. The characteristic square motif of the headboard is picked up in the cotton curtains and the wall-to-wall carpet, creating what Hoffmann called Gesamtkunstwerk—a total work of art.
Re-creation of Salzer bedroom, 1902, from "Josef Hoffmann: Interiors, 1902-1913." Photograph by John Gilliland. Image courtesy Neue Galerie New York.
Hoffmann's versatility is evident in this delicate bedroom designed in 1902, the same year as the doctor's apartment, for his client's 15-year-old daughter. The three-story residence included a living room, drawing room, dining room, and card room, as well as bedrooms for the parents and their two children. The narrow vertical panels in the cupboard doors are a reminder that Hoffmann's work was part of a larger, international movement that included such designers as Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland, Henri van de Velde in Germany, and Frank Lloyd Wright in the United States.
Re-creation of Biach bedroom, 1904, from "Josef Hoffmann: Interiors, 1902-1913." Photograph by John Gilliland. Image courtesy Neue Galerie New York.
Hoffmann was engaged in production as well as design. In 1903, with the painter Koloman Moser, he founded the influential Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops), an artists' and craftsmen's collaborative that turned out a variety of luxury goods: jewelry, fabrics, ceramics, pottery, furniture. Werkstätte products are visible in the dining room of this Berlin apartment, decorated by Hoffmann in 1904. The decor is both simpler and heavier than in the previous interiors, with the somber black-stained oak furniture and plain carpet adding to the effect. The room would be almost funereal were it not for the green-and-black-stenciled frieze under the ceiling and the staccato squares that make a continuous line around the baseboard and door frames. The wife of the owner of the apartment, Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein, appears in one of Gustav Klimt's luminous portraits of that period. Klimt, who was a member of the Werkstätte, also commissioned Hoffmann to design his studio.
Re-creation of Stonborough dining room, 1905, from "Josef Hoffmann: Interiors, 1902-1913." Photograph by John Gilliland. Image courtesy Neue Galerie New York.
The best-known of Hoffmann's architectural works are the Sanatorium Purkersdorf (1906), an upscale spa in the Vienna woods, and the Palais Stoclet (1905-07), a Brussels millionaire's mansion. A few years later, he designed the Geneva apartment of Ferdinand Hodler, a successful Swiss painter. A Hodler self-portrait, and his painting of his wife, are in their original locations in the dining room (right). A series of knobs for hanging pictures make a sort of frieze below the ceiling (as it did throughout the apartment). The walls, covered with gray rep (a ribbed fabric) and framed with black-stained wood fillets, contrast with the vividly printed linen upholstery.
Like all creative artists, Hoffmann evolved. Some art historians have called this interior an example of his Neoclassical phase, referring to the columnlike fluting of the chair and table legs. As Christian Witt-Dörring, curator of the Neue Galerie exhibition, points out in the excellent catalog, such motifs were not just a step in the direction of Modernism, but a larger movement in the direction of Postmodernism.
Re-creation of Hodler dining room, 1913, from "Josef Hoffmann: Interiors, 1902-1913." Photograph by John Gilliland. Image courtesy Neue Galerie New York.
Polka-dot wall stenciling, shown here in the vestibule of the Neue Galerie, was a favorite Hoffmann device. The two chairs are reproductions of small, black-velvet tub chairs that he designed for the Villa Gallia in Vienna in 1913. There are a number of these in the galleries for the benefit of tired visitors. It's a thoughtful gesture, or maybe just good marketing, since the chairs are for sale—$3,200 to $4,800. Expensive, but they look good. And they're very comfortable.
Gallery entrance to Hoffmann exhibition, from "Josef Hoffmann: Interiors, 1902-1913." Photograph by John Gilliland. Image courtesy Neue Galerie New York.