HOFFMAN
1870 – 1956
Josef Hoffmann was born in Brtnice, Moravia in 1870. He learned classical architecture as part of the technical courses offered at the Brno College, going on to study architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1892 under Wagner’s teacher, whose theories on modern architecture and concepts of functionalism have made
a profound mark on his artistic production.
In 1897 he was one of the founders of the “Vienna Secession” and in 1903 the “Wiener Werkstaette,” a group of designers and workers which featured some of the greatest successes throughout practically the entire decade of the 1930s.
After a year-long stay in Italy, in 1825 Hoffmann returned to his work, combining the rationalism of Wagner with a new style of decorations that featured geometric shapes and straight lines, influenced by the work of Mackintosh.
In 1920 Hoffmann was named the “Architect of the City of Vienna”, and continued to work until after the Second World War. He designed housing projects in Vienna and pavilions for the Cologne Werkbund Exposition in 1914, the Paris Exposition in 1925 and the Venice Biennale in 1934.
From 1899 to 1937 he taught at the School of Arts and Trades. Hoffmann was the creator of some of the best proportioned chairs with cubic shapes and a palette of colors defined by the Wiener
Werksteatte. The Werkstaette had a clientele that was rich, sophisticated, and worked on the principle that quality could be obtained only with a personal design, and whose creation is supervised at each step by a designer. Hoffman’s designs brought together an extreme individuality with great professionalism and interest in simplicity through the materials and functionalism that characterized all of his work.
His parameters were simplicity, honesty and accuracy. His designs are marked by his preference for straight lines and cubes decorated with geometric shapes. Hoffman continued to work to the end in the sphere of international
architecture, working in the urban planning to rebuild the cities destroyed by war.
He died in Vienna in 1956.
