For all that everyone is familiar with the new furniture of the first third of the 20th century in its tubular steel and with its breaks with the conventions and traditions of the past... is and was that the full (hi)story?
With Josef Frank and the others. New furniture 1920–1940 the Möbelmuseum, Wien, argue... no.......
Staged by way of marking both the 140th anniversary of Josef Frank's birth and the centenary of Frank's co-founding, with Oskar Wlach and Walter Sobotka, of the Viennese furniture and interior design studio and label Haus & Garten, Josef Frank and the others. New furniture 1920–1940 opens, if one so will, pre-Frank in a late 19th/early 20th century Vienna in the midst of the so-called Wiener Moderne, that moment in the (hi)story of creativity that, as discussed by and from Wagner, Hoffmann, Loos and Viennese Modernist Furniture Design. Artists, Patrons, Producers at The Hofmobiliendepot Vienna, was an important stimulus in and for the development of what is today popularly termed Modernism in Europe, not least through institutions such as the Wiener Secession or the Wiener Werkstätte and, and specifically in context of architecture and design, via protagonists such as the (Otto) Wagner, (Josef) Hoffmann, (Adolf) Loos of the, then, Hofmobiliendepot, now, Möbelmuseum Wien's, exhibition title.
A Wiener Moderne that, as the prequel to Josef Frank and the others elucidates, saw architecture and design dragged, screaming and kicking, from the confusions of historicism and kitsch to more rational and technically functional formal expressions. A process illustrated in the Möbelmuseum Wien by three interiors including, as an illustration of the novel of the earliest years of the 20th century, Adolf Loos' ca. 1901 Herrenzimmer for the Viennese industrialist Georg Roy, a composition that despite the superficial of its dark wood panelling, and its dark, brooding humour, represents a definite distancing from that which came before.
And a space by Loos for Roy populated by, and amongst other works, one of Loos' exaggerated leather slipper chairs where he appears to have flipped over an 19th century English leather lounge chair by way of attempting to create a chaise longue; very much an object within which to curl up with a favourite pet and book, more than one to sit on. And also by a wooden stool and a wooden chair: the latter a work we'll return to, the former a work that links into, leads one into, Josef Frank and the others' main narrative.
And also leads to Josef Frank.
A Josef Frank, as previously discussed in these dispatches, born in Baden, on the southern edges of Vienna, on July 15th 1885, who studied architecture at Vienna's Technischen Hochschule between 1903 and 1908 under Karl König, an architect who although still essentially a historicist at heart was aware of the waning of those confusions and the imminent arrival of novel positions, and a Frank who completed his PhD in 1910 with a thesis on the 15th century Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti, a thesis that not only underscores a historical perspective in Frank's positions but making him one of only very few furniture designers to hold a PhD.
Following the completion of his PhD Frank practised as an architect, both solo and in joint practice with his former Technischen Hochschule student colleagues Oskar Strnad and Oskar Wlach, developing projects that for all they included the villas that were (still) a feature of that period, also had a strong social focus, not least in context of the Siedlung, the planned estate, primarily planned estates for mass, socially responsible and responsive housing, if one so will the suburb of Suburbia. Living the American Dream at the Architekturzentrum Wien, in a European Modernist Dream context not an American Capitalist Dream context. An important conceptual difference.
An exhibitor at the inaugural Grassimesse, Leipzig, in 1920, a contributor to the 1927 Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, a founding member of the, from Le Corbusier dominated, Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, CIAM, in 1928, and co-responsible for the development of the 1932 Wiener Werkbundsiedlung, moments that place Frank very much at the heart of the avant-gardes and the novel positions of the 1920s and 30s, Josef Frank emigrated to Sweden in 1933 by way of escaping the advancing Fascism and Antisemitism of early 1930s Austria. A Sweden where in 1934 he took up a position with Stockholm based furniture and interiors retailer and manufacturer Svenskt Tenn, in which context he not only fundamentally contributed to the (ongoing) success of Svenskt Tenn, but to the development of furniture and interior design in Sweden in the decades after the 1939-45 War. And a Stockholm in which Josef Frank died in 1967, aged just 81.
Amongst the many informative and instructive moments in Frank's career one of the more important is and was the aforementioned establishing in June 1925 of Haus & Garten with Oskar Wlach and Walter Sobotka; a platform that undertook interior design commissions and designed furniture, both for those commissions and for sale to a wider public via a catalogue and showroom, the latter standing at Bösendorferstrasse 5 in the vicinity of Karlsplatz and Burggarten, thus just outwith the Wiener Ring on the highly civilised periphery of downtown Vienna.
Furniture primarily designed by Josef Frank. Including a ca. 1925 three-legged wooden stool for Haus & Garten that in Josef Frank and the others stands alongside a three-legged wooden stool by Adolf Loos and a three-legged wooden stool by Leonard Wyburd.
The latter an artist who in the late 19th century served as head of the Furnishing and Decoration Studio at Liberty's of London, that important, and highly influential, platform in the development, and retail, of the objects and positions of the English Arts and Crafts movement; a retailer in the luxury segment whose role in the rise and establishment of Arts and Crafts tends to reinforce that despite the democracy inherent in its name, as a movement Arts and Crafts only rarely focussed on serving the average earning late-19th century Englander. And a Liberty's whose designers were also regularly influenced by classical models and motifs, as elucidated by Wyburd's 1884 'Thebes' Stool: a work modelled, as the name implies, on ancient Egyptian typologies, or, and perhaps more accurately, on a late 19th century English reading of ancient Egyptian furniture as seen in the British Museum.
And a 'Thebes' Stool that, apparently, also stands in Adolf Loos' aforementioned Herrenzimmer for Georg Roy. Is however a ca. 1900 'Thebes' stool by Loos, a work openly informed by Wyburd's that tends to underscore an importance of the late 19th century England of the Arts of Crafters as an influence on Loos' development; tends to imply that Loos', apparent, flipping over an 19th century English leather lounge chair was more an act of homage and devotion than critical comment. And an English influence on Loos very much in the spirit of the English influence on Hermann Muthesius, that contemporary of Loos who played such a fundamental role in the developments in the Germany of the earliest 20th century. And also in the spirit of the English influence on the pair's Flemish contemporary Henry van de Velde, a creative who, as with Muthesius and Loos, is and was of central importance to developments in architecture and design in 20th century Europe.
Yet a 'Thebes' stool by Loos that on closer inspection, or as close an inspection as the presentation in the Möbelmuseum Wien allows, without setting the alarm of thrice, reveals differences, small but important differences: Loos' stool, for example, has no interest in appearing to be genuine antique Egyptian as Wyburd's does, knows its not Egyptian and that to pretend it is wrong; Loos' stool is formally tauter than Wyburd's, less playful, and thus possess a visual lightness and ease Wyburd's doesn't; the construction is simpler, efficienter and materially lighter. Thus a trio of differences, in addition to others, that allow one to approach an appreciation of elements of the move away from Arts and Crafts and England staunch admires of Arts and Crafts and England, such as Loos, advanced in an early 20th century that was different from the late 19th century. That important reminder that admiration and copying aren't synonyms. And thus also of the origins of the conceptual move in the course of the 20th century away from Wyburd's attempt at a 1:1 recreation of a perceived past in the now to a relocation of the past in context of the now, that conceptual move away from attempts at a perceived 'authentic' feel. In itself a reminder that the much vaunted 'authentic' only very rarely is. Is invariably tourist gaze.
And of the folly of trying to recreate what was. The times that brought that forth have changed. If the demands of the contemporary haven't necessarily.
And differences that become more pronounced, fundamental and noticeable in Josef Frank's ca. 1925 'Thebes' stool for Haus & Garten. A work that doesn't seek to deny its large debt of thanks to Loos' and Wyburd's but does challenge what they are and why they are: quite aside from presenting itself with a more open, free-flowing organic visual, and at a raised seating height that through the altered proportions bequeaths it a new accent which, augmented by its loosing of a rigidity found in the other two, makes it less dominant more welcoming, it features a seat reformed as a saddle rather than as the bowl of Loos' and Wyburd's works. A change, one assumes, by way of enhancing the seating comfort but that also alters the manner in which it communicates with the observer, the manner of the invitation it advances. A saddle seat that also features a small hole in the centre that may be intended as decorative, may be intended as practical, is both. But for all a stool that is no longer an Egyptian stool, but a reflection on how an Egyptian stool could, should, must look in 1925; a reflection on how an ancient Egyptian stool-maker would design a stool if exposed to the influences and positions of the early 1920s and was desirous to translate those into a stool. An argument that an ancient Egyptian stool maker would know they weren't in ancient Egypt, while still arguing for the validity of that which they had practised in ancient Egypt. A confirmation of the above noted conceptual move in how the past and present relate to one another in terms of furniture. Or should relate.
And a re-imagining of an historical model with degrees of temporal and conceptual separation which very much reminds of a Hans J Wegner's considerations on an ancient Chinese chair in Copenhagen's Kunstindustrimuseet a generation later. A Hans J Wegner to whom we in all probability will return before all too long.
Thus a trio of three-legged wooden stools that allow an effortless introduction to key components, aspects, of the relationships between the others of the title who came before Josef Frank and on how Josef Frank was informed by and distanced himself from those others, and thereby contributed to the development of new furniture in the years 1920–1940.
Aspects of the paths, relationships and contributions of the others who came alongside and after Josef Frank being explored in the subsequent chapters of Josef Frank and the others.
Starting with brief introductions to those others who studied alongside Frank at Vienna's Technischen Hochschule in the first decade of the 20th century, including, in addition to the aforementioned Strnad and Wlach, a Hugo Gorge who is represented in Josef Frank and the others by, amongst other works, a reclining armchair from 1920 that despite its overall visual reduction and clean, ornamentation free, silhouette, features a manual reclining mechanism that is, arguably, out of scale with the rest of the chair, more dominant in the composition than it arguably needs must be, and also overtly, obviously, ornamental without being decorative. And in being such tends to highlight that the chair is not only an interpretation by Gorge of a manual reclining armchair typology championed in the late 19th century by that Grand Doyen of, that driving force of, the English Arts and Crafts movement William Morris, thus a further link from 20th century Austria to 19th century England, but an interpretation that actively disputes the premise of Josef Hoffmann's 1905 Sitzmaschine Morris Chair re-interpretation. If one so will, actively reclaims the seat from the machine for the human, demands a more humane interior, a less dogmatic interior, than that represented by Hoffmann's hymn to the democracy of the machine. If demanding of an interior every bit as functional for the human occupant as Hoffmann. Is a chair that celebrates its functionality, rather than celebrating itself as a function that can be sat on.
The primary focus of Josef Frank and the others is however those others who studied under and/or worked with Frank, and also those Austrian contemporaries of Frank whose work and positions stand in discourse with Frank's.
The former group including a Rosa Weiser who studied under Frank and Oskar Strnad at Vienna's Kunstgewerbeschule between 1920 and 1924, and who, after graduating as an architect from Strnad's class, worked in Frank's architectural studio before establishing her own architectural practice in 1933. In addition Rosa Weiser worked for Haus & Garten between 1927 and 1930, thus in those key years in the Haus & Garten story; whereby exactly how Weiser contributed to those years is, as the curators note, sadly lost in the mists of time. As a trained architect she was, invariably, involved in the development of interiors for Haus & Garten, but if, and to what degree, she was involved in the furniture design of Haus & Garten is unknown. What is known, or should be known, is that any furniture design studio is always more than the single name on the door, it's always all the staff who work behind that door, the vast majority anonymously. As such one is allowed to assume that Weiser would have had some influence on the furniture of Haus & Garten, including, possibly, on one or the other work presented in Josef Frank and the others that previously stood in her Vienna apartment.
And a group also including an Ernst A Plischke, an expanded introduction to an Ernst A Plischke who is barely visible in the popular narrative of furniture design (hi)story, and whose absence from that narrative Josef Frank and the others argues is most unfair. Unjust. Foolhardy. An Ernst A Plischke who studied architecture under Frank and Strnad at the Kunstegwerbeschule Vienna before switching to Peter Behrens' class at the Akademie Bildenden Künste and subsequently working for Behrens before joining Frank's studio in 1927 and establishing his own practice in 1928.
An Ernst A Plischke represented in Josef Frank and the others by furniture designed in 1928 for the interior he realised for Lucie and Hans Rie, that project which enabled Plischke to establish his own practice; by furniture for Dr Gertrude and Viktor Böhm from 1930 that is and was part of a wider re-construction project of the Böhm home in which Hugo Gorge was also involved; and by furniture resulting from a trio of ca. 1928 commissions for various members of family Gamerith: the Vienna studio of artist Walter Gamerith, whom Plischke had become friends with when they were both students; an apartment for Walter's cousin Fritz and his wife Elli in Mödling to the south of Vienna; and an apartment in Eggenburg to the north of Vienna for Walter's brother Bruno, a, as one learns, blind organist, and for whom Plischke developed a built-in organ in the living room.
A presentation of works by Plischke that includes, amongst other highly communicative objects, a sofa for Fritz and Elli Gamerith that stands as a traditional divan rethought as a modular sofa concept from an age before modular sofas were a thing, a work with loose back and side cushions that, arguably as with Franks' 1925 'Thebes' stool, denies the formal rigidity often associated with furniture of the 1920s, and a work in colour that reminds that for all popular impression that 1920s interiors tended to be achromatic, reserved, unemotional, colour was very much present, was very much a component of interior and spatial design in the 1920s; but for all a work that has lost nothing in contemporaneous over the decades. Or a plant stand for Fritz and Elli that is a joyous, free, play with space, surface and volume made functional. And a work that reminds, as also discussed by and from Bauhaus Ecologies at the Bauhaus Museum, Dessau, that for all the greening the interior space is considered a contemporary 21st century act, the 1920s and 30s were a period when plants became active and decorative components of interiors, became cohabitees in the novel interior positions of the period. Except at the Bauhauses where plants were banned from the interiors. Apart from cacti. A most instructive ban. And plants as new cohabitees who also needed new furniture. One thinks also of a Marianne Brandt's ever delicious cactus stand for Ruppelwerk Gotha.
And also two reclining armchairs from ca. 1928: one for Bruno Gamerith, one for Walter Gamerith.
The former a work that, as with the aforementioned recliner by Hugo Gorge, directly quotes William Morris and whose reclining mechanism, as with Gorge's, is much larger than appears necessary, if also much less ornamental, is much more utilitarian; a form that may or may not be related to Bruno's blindness, would certainly appear a system conceived with Bruno's blindness in mind, of aiding and abetting use by blind person. The latter featuring a much more unobtrusive reclining mechanism, one integrated into the object, almost hidden, rather than accentuated as a component of the visual composition, that speaks of a focus on function that, in contrast to Morris, Gorge and Hoffmann, doesn't feel the need to boldly articulate its presence, it is assumed it is there, because contemporary furniture is technically functional, why would you highlight it? Much as with contemporary office chairs function is there, but you rarely see it. If fully expecting it. A functionality office chairs once trumpeted aloud because they had to.
And an object that physically reminds of Verner Panton's 270 F armchair for Thonet, just with phat upholstery. As in real phat. And that thus, and as such, allows it to stand as a fascinating moment in the late 1920s on a path of technical, material and formal transitions, of changes in how the past became the present, of transformations in relationships with furniture. A path of and towards new furniture.
An introduction to the others in context of Josef Frank continued on the upper floor of the Möbelmuseum Wien's temporary exhibition space in the company of Otto Prutscher, Herbert Eichholzer, Anna-Lülja Simidoff, later Anna-Lülja Praun, Heinrich Glaß who became Henry Peter Glass in America following his NSDAP enforced emigration, one of numerous NSDAP enforced emigrations, by both Josef Frank and the others, one meets in Josef Frank and the others, including a Robert Schläfrig who became Robert Sheldon in Australia, thus an important, apposite, reminder of that other context in which the developments of the period were taking place. In the company of a Felix Augenfeld whose clients included members of the Freud family, a reminder that the Wiener Moderne wasn't just art, architecture and design it was also the music of an Arnold Schönberg and the science of a Sigmund Freud, thus underscoring the relevance, ongoing relevance, of that late 19th/early 20th century Vienna. And ending with Loos.
Albeit Walter not Adolf, no relation. Although, as one learns, Walter did spend a period working in Adolf's' atelier in Paris in the mid-1920s. And a Walter Loos who studied under Josef Frank at Kunstgewerbeschule in the early 1920s thus an ending that creates a very nice circular movement through the exhibition from Loos to Frank to Loos that ends in a place different from, but related, to that where it began, that reminds of the helix of (hi)story; reminds that, and despite Abba's claim, means "the history book on the shelf" isn't "always repeating itself"1, but is always returning to similar realities in new contexts. Which is why one can learn from it. If one chooses to.
A septet who aren't household names, who, as with Hugo Gorge, Rosa Weiser or Ernst A Plischke, are barely visible in the popular narrative of furniture design (hi)story, are relatively unknown outwith the museum depots within which their works normally reside, silently, silenced in that way depots do; but a septet whose works, once known and explored, once allowed down from the depot shelves where AI doesn’t know they reside, help substantially expand the narrative of the (hi)story of furniture design, help one navigate the skews and inaccuracies arising from the conventionalised narrative of the (hi)story of furniture design with its handful of protagonists.
A septet who are, very nearly, all architects, as was Frank. A fact which tends reinforces the important, decisive role architects played in those early decades of furniture design as a profession. Tends to reinforce that furniture design was dominated over a long period by architects, was viewed as an extension of architecture, approached in context of architecture practice and theory, in context of the architectural space, with the inevitable consequences that had on appreciations of relationships between furniture and space, between furniture and users, and that not least because as an Annabella Hevesi opines furniture doesn't just relate to space but rather "objects have a very specific connection with people, we have very direct connections with objects" and as we now know, as previous centuries didn't know, but as began to be appreciated in the 1920-1940 under investigation by those protagonists under investigation, those connections need must be considered when designing furniture.
When Annabella talks of "furniture as a transition between humans and space", its hard not to disagree. Certainly very easy to reflect upon when viewing Josef Frank and the others, when engaging with the works of Josef Frank and the others.
And septet whose variety of positions results in a vibrant, at times loud, discourse within the Möbelmuseum Wien on not just the New furniture 1920–1940 of the exhibition's title, but the interiors demanded by the novel society and realities of the period.
Very real limitations of time and space preclude us from diving deep into that discourse, we wish it wasn't so, it is, if you get the chance to bathe in it yourself, please do. Alone here we have time and space to note that we spent a particularly long time in conversation with, and amongst a plethora of other works we yearn to name, a ca. 1935 sofa-table-cum-tray on castors by Walter Loos for the for the Vienna apartment of Lisl Pospisili, a work in wood and glass whose inherent mobility and transformability speaks of a necessity of economy echoed in its form while it steadfastly refuses to yield anything in terms of grace or elegance to that necessity; or with the ca. 1932 armchairs for family Melinzky's apartment in Graz, works whose moulded wood armrests-cum-legs imply a frame within which the seat shell's porous canvas weave is loosely hung thereby bequeathing an unquestionably sturdy object a visual lightness, while its curves and sweeps not only echo the contemporaneous humane Modernism of an Alvar and Aino Aalto, or the later humane Modernism of an Edward J Wormley, and that is also insinuated by Hugo-Gorge's 1920 reclining armchair, but in their abbreviation of the quadratic frame and their merciless reduction of the phat seat and backrest of Plischke's reclining armchair for Walter Gamerith imply a development of the positions inherent in Plischke's work in novel conceptual possibilities. And a work listed in the accompanying label as being by Herbert Eichholzer and Anna-Lülja Simidoff and in the wall text on the Melinzky apartment as being by Simidoff alone. The apartment was a joint project, but was the armchair? Or how much of a joint project was the armchair? And if Eichholzer wasn't really involved in the armchair's development as the wall text implies, why's he on the label? Question not just by way of historical nitpicking, but of underscoring how and why the visibility of female creatives can suffer when museums muddy the waters. And why one should, must, question museums. While always being grateful for them and their independence.
And we also spent a lot of time with pretty much everything on display by Heinrich Glaß for his younger sister Erika Theresa 'Resl' Glaß's Vienna apartment, works that are a highly singular take in the 1930s, would be a highly singular take in any decade, on staples of domestic furniture. Arguably are a take by Glaß on "le style 'camping'"2 an Eileen Gray identified in 1929 as a contemporary need for mobility, nomadicity, in furniture and interiors that, for Gray, was but temporary, that 'it must be anticipated that the current need for movement, for a restless life, will come to an end', and thus of the demand at that period for furniture adaptable to both a nomadic and a sedentary life, which was the basis of the furniture she created for her late 1920s Maison en bord de mer E.1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on France's Côte d’Azur. See also, for example, a Kaare Klint's 1933 Safari Chair or Marcel Breuer's 1927 B4 that foldable version of his 1926 'Wassily ' chair. Or Heinrich Glaß's 1932 furniture for Resl Glaß.
Works by Glaß that for all their initial unfamiliarity, the more one engages with them the more familiar they become, which may or may not be a metaphor, let's assume it is; works our conversation with is very much ongoing and from which we must mention what is listed as a 'fireside chair' that is the most delicious monolithic combination of boards, a work that is more a treatise on construction of nomadic flat-pack furniture, a prediction of Open Design in furniture, than the chair Resl Glaß would have used it as; and also with Glaß's high-backed armchair, a work caught, almost off-guard so, between a 19th century Shaker rocking chair and a 19th century English Wing-back lounge chair that in the way it carries itself very much reminds of Yrjö Kukkapuro's 1986 A-509 rocking chair, a work we were once very rude about and subsequently had to apologise profusely to after we'd engaged with it properly — a lesson from which we've very much learned. A high-backed armchair with a lot going on and where despite not being the rocking chair, Shaker or otherwise, it quotes, features a base that may or may not allow a resilient sitting that was very much a novel thing in 1932. And a chair that is simply an utter delight in every sense of the word. And from which you would sell exactly none would you dare to produce it. A very important perspective from which to view furniture design.
Josef Frank and the others ends with, if one so will, the other Josef Frank: not the Frank of pre 1939-45 War Vienna who is the primary focus of Josef Frank and the others, but the Frank of post 1939-45 War Stockholm, specifically with a brief introduction to Josef Frank and Svenskt Tenn, that relationship for which, arguably, Frank is most popularly known today, for which Frank owes the greater part of his contemporary visibility, not least through his fabric designs for Svenskt Tenn. If a contribution to Svenskt Tenn that, as Josef Frank and the others, elucidates has its origins in 1910s, 20s and 30s Vienna. Would have been impossible without 1910s, 20s and 30s Vienna.
A 1910s, 20s and 30s Vienna that as Josef Frank and the others admonishes, not only Josef Frank needs must be located in but, but that must be more central in discourses on the (hi)story of furniture design than it currently is, for all in context of the new furniture developed in Europe in the years 1920–1940.
That furniture everyone is familiar with.
Or, perhaps more accurately, believes they are.
A sprightly paced exhibition that packs a lot into the relatively compact space of the Möbelmuesum Wien's temporary exhibition spaces, Josef Frank and the others very neatly, and accessibly, sets the works of Frank in dialogue with that of his Austrian contemporaries, allows one to compare and contrast Frank with a dozen or so contemporaneous Austrian others in a bilingual German/English presentation that allows one access to differentiated aspects of not just the work, legacy and ongoing relevance of Josef Frank but also the discourses on furniture and interiors that were taking place in 1920-40 Austria.
And not only sets the work of Frank in dialogue with the Austria of 1920-40 but also with the Budapest of 1920-40. On several occasions, not least in context of, and amongst other works, Felix Augenfeld's ca. 1935 armchair for Karl and Margarete Painsipp's apartment, Eichholzer and Simidof's ca 1932 shelving and storage system for the aforementioned Melinzky apartment, Frank's 1920s fabrics, or his 1925, so-called, Colibri lingerie cabinet for Bettina and Isidore Cohen with its decoration in implied folkloric motifs that also confirm a novel imagining of the folkloric in contemporary realities, and even in Glaß's singular high backed armchair, there is and was a very distinct echo with the works of Kaesz Gyula and Lukáts Kató as seen in Kaesz Homes 1925-1960. The homes of designer couple Kaesz Gyula and Lukáts Kató at Walter Rózsi Villa, Budapest.
A connection between Kaesz/Lukáts and Frank we made then, an open dialogue between Kaesz/Lukáts and Frank we opined on then, that thus shouldn’t be a surprise now, but whose easy extension into and through the work of the others adds a further dimension to reflections on the creative discourse between the former first and second cities of the Habsburg Empire; a discourse that for all it was, arguably, more pronounced pre-1918, continued throughout the period 1920-40 until, again arguably, the Iron Curtain that was drawn between the two near neighbours inhibited such discourse. Thus not only a reminder that before Europe was divided it was united, not just physically but by a free flow of impulses and inspiration, see also the Hanse of the Middle Ages, nor only a reminder that Vienna in 1920-1940 didn't occur in isolation but was part of a wider discourse, but also an indicator of a component of 20th century creative (hi)story very much in need of a wider popular discussion.
And also sets the work of Frank in dialogue with Scandinavia, not least through the claim a great many of Frank's Haus & Garten works mediate that they were realised not in Vienna in 1920-1940 but in 1950s and 60s Scandinavia. A thought which brings us back to Kaesz Gyula's ca. 1940 dining bench that we initially read as 1950s Scandinavia. A thought, a miscalculation, echoed in Josef Frank and the others in the form of Ernst A Plischke's ca. 1928 settee for Bruno Gamerith.
A dialogue with Scandinavia that also brings you, certainly brought us while viewing Josef Frank and the others, and the extended grouping of the others you very naturally make in the company of the presented others, to Axel Kandell's 1948 Cattelin chair for Gemla as last see in these dispatches in context of Léonie Geisendorf at ArkDes, Stockholm, a work with an unmistakable, and sizeable, debt of gratitude to the works of Michael Thonet. A Gemla founded in Diö, southern Sweden, in 1861 as one of Sweden's first 'industrial' furniture manufacturers... and digressing slightly, thus founded but an hours bike ride away from the Agunnaryd, southern Sweden, where in the 1940s Ingvar Kamprad established IKEA, a geographic vicinity which always fascinates us... a Gemla founded in Diö in 1861 who relied in their earliest years on migrant Bohemians who had previously worked for Thonet and who brought their experiences of wood bending and 'industrial' furniture production to Sweden. A transfer of contemporary discourses and practice from 'Austria', as Bohemia then was, that finds an echo in Josef Frank. And a Thonet with whom Josef Frank cooperated with on a range of objects in the years 1920-1940, those years where the Thonet portfolio is so familiar to all. Although the works of Josef Frank for Thonet invariably aren't. Including the numerous chairs by Frank for Thonet with stick backs.
Stick backs that are omnipresent in Josef Frank and the others be that as a recurring motif in Frank's oeuvre, in the works of Otto Prutscher, albeit in a more quadratic Wiener Werkstätte take on the stick back, in the otherwise unconventional works of Heinrich Glaß or in the upholstered armchair by Loos (Walter) for Lisl Pospisili. And also in the aforementioned ca. 1900 wooden chair by Loos (Adolf) to be found in Georg Roy's Herrenzimmer, a work that allows one to trace the (hi)story of the stick back chair over the English Arts and Crafts movement to the 17th century England of the first Windsor Chair. A Windsor, and a stick back, that are also central features of the popular appreciation of perceived 'Scandinavian' furniture. Which brings us back, as promised, to the aforementioned Hans J Wegner, that near synonym for 'Danish' design and for 'Scandinavian' design: Wegner is and was without question Danish, but is his furniture 'Danish'? Is it 'Scandinavian'? 'Austrian'? 'English'? His interpretation of meaningful, future focussed, contemporary objects as a response to the realities of the period as influenced and informed by the positions of others both historic and contemporary? ¿Are Wegner's 1950s chairs ancient Egyptian stools in 1920s Austria?
Thoughts initiated by the profusion of stick backs in Josef Frank and the others that allow Josef Frank to not only serve as an interesting and instructive starting point for exploring developments in furniture design in Austria in the years 1920-1940, but to serve as a conduit that allows one to appreciate not only the oft ignored influence of Thonet on the development of furniture in contemporary Scandinavia, formally, materially, conceptually, processually, but the influence of the England of the Arts and Crafts movement and of the Windsor Chair on the development of furniture in contemporary Scandinavia: to better appreciate that without 17th, 18th and 19th century England, without 19th century Bohemia, without 20th century Austria, contemporary furniture from Scandinavia could look very, very different.
And thereby also allowing one to better place Josef Frank, and Haus & Garten, on the helix of furniture deign (hi)story and to better appreciate why reducing Josef Frank to Svenskt Tenn fabrics is utter folly.
A Josef Frank who comes to word himself in Josef Frank and the others primarily through his furniture for Bettina and Isidore Cohen, a restriction that in its variety means it is no sense a limitation, if a restriction that also underscores that in terms of Frank, and in terms of the others, Josef Frank and the others is and can be but an introduction. Which isn't a complaint, far from it. The manner of the introduction is such that it admonishes you delve deeper yourself afterwards, that you chase up those individuals, projects or paths that particularly caught your attention. That thing that any good exhibition stimulates within you. A good exhibition is never an answer but a series of questions you were unaware needed posing, but don't leave you alone once you are aware of them.
A presentation that admonishes one, forces one to, consider the works on show in other contexts, to sets them in conversation not just with selected others but with with a Thonet, a Kaesz, a Lukáts, a Panton, a Gray, a Klint, a Wormley, a Hevesi, a Wegner, both Aaltos, et al.
And a presentation that doesn't feature a single piece of steel tubing. All the presented furniture is in wood.
And that despite the fact that in the second half of the 1920-1940 of the exhibition's investigation there was, at least nominally if not necessarily technically formally, a relatively major steel tube furniture manufacturer based in Vienna: Thonet. Or more accurately Thonet-Mundus.
Thus a presentation that argues that although steel tube is popularly considered the new furniture of 1920-1940, there was an other new furniture of 1920-1940; that amidst the experimentations with steel tubing a young generation of Austrians were working in the wood a Charlotte Perriand famously denounced in 1929 as "a vegetable substance, in its very nature bound to decay" while proclaiming "metal is superior to wood".3
Not all agreed with Perriand. A great many thought wood was superior. And Perriand herself changed her mind a few short years later. Embraced that "vegetable substance".
Thus a presentation of new furniture from 1920-1940 that reminds that there are invariably a number of paths forward from any given point, that none is correct, none is necessarily wrong, and thus the necessity of open dialogue between all differing opinions. The works in wood presented in Josef Frank and the others are and were, as one can appreciate through the opportunity to engage with them offered by the Möbelmuseum Wien, every bit as valid responses to the realities of the period as the responses in steel tube. Just different. Based on different premises and positions. On different formulations of the questions of the day. See also Hugo Gorge's 1920 Morris informed reclining chair and (the not presented, but you know it) Hoffmann's 1905 Sitzmaschine. Who was correct?
Thoughts which echo those stimulated by the exhibition Sitzen 69 Revisited at MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, with its reflections on, revisiting of, the exhibition Sitzen 69 at the, then, Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, the latter which presented the future of seating as wooden chairs, a great many of which were from the years 1920-1940 of Josef Frank and the others, indeed the greater majority of the works on show, some 8, were by Frank for Haus & Garten, an indication of not just the works' abiding relevance but of the importance of a Haus & Garten who stand hidden in, overpowered by, Thonet's shadow when one considers the years 1920-1940. Works in wood by Frank in Sitzen 69 set alongside, in discourse with, works in wood by others from 1950s and 60s Austria; that represented, if one so will New furniture 1950–1960.
And which presented the future of seating as wooden chairs in a 1969 where synthetic plastics were offering novel alternatives every bit as previously dreamt but previously unimaginable as steel tube had done 40 years earlier when Josef Frank and the others were proposing wood as an alternative. A promise of plastics and steel tubing echoed today in 3D printing.
A contemporary promise, Josef Frank and the others, tends to argue, Josef Frank and the others still offer an alternative to.
Thus reminding that we have alternatives.
Important is that we discuss them openly, honestly and without prejudice. That thing social media is making increasingly impossible. Imagine where a Perriand's "a vegetable substance" would lead today.
And also reminds of the importance of being in presence of as much information on the past as possible in order to find our way forward.
What if the new furniture of 1920-1940 wasn't just that which we assume it to be?
What if (hi)story isn't just that which we believe it to be?
What if there is more?
Does that affect the now?
Does it affect the future?
Does it affect our funiture and interiors?
Josef Frank and the others doesn't have those answers. But is not only an engaging and entertaining space in which to approach them, to approach contemporary realities from differentiated perspectives, but for all is a space in which to become better acquainted with not only with Josef Frank and a host of others, and with the new furniture they were developing in the years 1920–1940, but to appreciate why is important that you do.
Josef Frank and the others. New furniture 1920–1940 is scheduled to run at the Möbelmuseum Wien, Andreasgasse 7, 1070 Vienna until Sunday January 11th.
Further details can be found at www.moebelmuseumwien.at
1Abba, Waterloo, 1974 Various catalogue numbers.
2Description [of E.1027], L'Architecture vivante, Automne & Hiver 1929, page 25 The text is uncredited, might have been a joint effort by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, but more likely is Eileen Gray alone. Let's assume it was Eileen Gray alone.....
3Charlotte Perriand, Wood or Metal? The Studio Vol 97 No. 433 1929
