Home Is Where Hoffman's Art Lies

Visitors to Neue Galerie have always gushed that the building and decor transport them to the old world charm of fin-de-siecle Vienna. Now, the curatorial staff has gone one step further in synthesizing the museum's naturally elegant environment by recreating four interiors from Viennese Jugendstil's most celebrated architect and designer, Josef Hoffmann.

The rise of the fashionable upper-middle-class bourgeoisie in turn-of-the-century Vienna gave birth to a very different aesthetic from the overbearing Biedermeier style of the 19th century. The Vienna Secession, an artists' group founded in 1897 and headed by Gustav Klimt, was the first to define a high modernist aesthetic that encompassed principles of streamlined elegance, abstract patterns, and practical materials. Hoffmann started out as an integral part of this circle, yet eventually broke with the Secession to form his own fine applied arts and craftwork group, the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903. He quickly became the most sought-after architect and interior designer in Vienna and abroad and was commissioned to create important works for the city and wealthy private patrons.

Curator Christian Witt-Dörring wanted to recreate the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total art work, of the interiors in their natural context. Indeed, Hoffmann saw interior spaces as a place of organic unity wherein all the pieces worked together harmoniously to create a "machine for living," to borrow Le Corbusier's famous concept. His discerning eye for decorative patterns strikes just the right register between simplicity and sophistication. While the high quality of craftsmanship and artistry in every piece is unquestioned, they serve to underline, not smother, the vital presence of human production. In this exhibition, not a detail seems out of place- background music subtly animates the rooms, evoking the contemporaneous move to modernism across the arts. The selection is more Schönberg than Schubert.

As Scott Gutterman, deputy director of the Neue Galerie, noted, "Hoffmann thinks like a painter." The white, blue, and yellow bedroom of 17-year-old Katharina Biach evokes an overall feeling of purity and simplicity, but he added touches of whimsy in the wall pattern motif echoed in the lamp fixtures. Hoffmann deployed bold patterns to great effect in later designs such as the 1913 Hodler dining room, where the frenzied yellow and black "Schwalbenschwanz" pattern of the dining room chairs echoes the dynamic grain patterns of the dark oak panels behind.

The exhibit also includes choice pieces of Hoffmann's Wiener Werkstätte ornaments and furniture such as his silver lamps, vases, and coffee and tea services. A highlight is the sumptuous card table for Karl Wittgenstein he created together with Carl Otto Czeschka in 1907. It is a breathtaking combination of patterned mother-of-pearl and ebony inlaid in wood, and represents a perfect synthesis of 19th-century decorative flourish and 20th-century design mores. Many of the items in this exhibition are in fact still used by the heirs of the original owners in their Vienna apartments today, proof that Hoffmann's modern combination of utility and aesthetics are as relevant now as they were a hundred years ago.