Page 28 - Studio International - January 1971

invented by Francois Hennebique, is clearly
to be seen in the flat-beamed ceiling of the
dining-room. This was at the time when Otto
Wagner, in the cashiers' room of his ex-
tremely important Postsparkasse (savings
bank) building in Vienna, employed a glass
ceiling, hanging on ropes, which conceals a
triple jointed arch construction. The first-
floor plan of the sanatorium shows, however,
how its design squanders space. This genero-
sity is matched by the décor; our illustration
shows the writing-room.
The Wiener Werkstatte soon opened branches
in many other cities in Europe, and after the
departure of the Klimt group from the Seces-
sion in June 1905 it became the focus of all
those progressive forces which, in 1908 and
1909, mounted their own exhibitions under
the title of `Kunstschau'. These breakaway
exhibitions were largely organized by Hoff-
mann; and even the building in which they
were held (since demolished) was designed by
him. It would far exceed the scope of this
article to attempt even a sketchy outline of
the work of this remarkable man; but one
building, the most important commission that
Hoffmann carried out with the workmen of
the Wiener Werkstatte, must be mentioned.
This was the Villa Stoclet in Brussels. The
commission was given to Hoffmann in 1905;
the building was due for completion in 1907,
but was not actually finished until 1911. As
the frieze by Klimt was and is the finest fea-
ture of the house, it is of some interest to
discover that his participation in the enter-
prise can be detected only at a time when the
building was already falling behind schedule.
None of the critics mentioned his name in
1905 when they were discussing the model of
the project.
The Stoclet house is built up of pure
Tafel-flächen, 'panel planes', as Josef Wagner called
them. Each individual surface has its own
delimiting line. On the garden front it can
be seen how over the loggia (on the right in
the illustration) there is not a distinct section
of the building as such, but rather a division
of the façade manifested through the use of
panels fixed in a frame. The tower can only be
rightly understood if it is considered in con-
junction with the various tower projects of
the period, such as Bruno Taut's Stadtkrone
and Olbrich's Hochzeitsturm in Darmstadt.
As was customary with all the work of the
Wiener Werkstätte, the materials and tech-
niques used were the best that could be
found; this brought the Werkstätte to the required by Leopold Forstner for the execu- to Brussels in two railway wagons; in Novem-
brink of their first financial collapse. An tion of the mosaic. All the repoussé metal ber 1911 it was placed in position, and the
example of this lavishness is the famous Klimt parts were first hammered out at the Werk- palace was complete.
frieze in the dining-room. This, for which stätte and then enamelled at the Kunstge- The interior of the Villa Stoclet displays
Klimt delivered his first full-size drawing on werbeschule. The ceramic workshop of the Hoffmann's characteristic tendency to treat
August 24 1910, consisted of fifteen slabs of Werkstatte made the butterflies and birds; each room as a self-contained world in itself.
marble, each two metres high, and each rein- the real jewellery worn by the figure of the Nearly all his rooms have an exhibition-like
forced by a second slab behind it. Klimt's Dancer was made by the Werkstätte gold- quality, with forms calculated for display and
drawing was first traced, then transferred to smiths and set into the mosaic. The glass por- large, prominent surfaces. The layout of the
the marble, and then cut away, by the best tions of the mosaic were cut out of coloured wall surfaces is always carefully related to the
stoneworkers that could be found, to the depth glass. Finally the completed work was shipped objects; which accounts for the notorious