Josef Hoffmann - Otto Wagner

The exhibition was realized thanks to financial support provided by the European Regional Development Fund and  by the state budget of the Czech Republic, within the Bilateral Networks of Design project. 

This year's special exhibition JOSEF HOFFMANN-OTTO WAGNER: On the Use and Effect of Architecture is dedicated to the relationship of Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) with his teacher Otto Wagner (1841-1918), the centenary of whose death is approaching in 2018. His training under Otto Wagner at the Specialschule für Architektur at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, their joint work in his studio and in the Secession, as well as Wagner's facilitation of his appointment as professor at the Imperial Royal School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna were decisive for Hoffmann's career. Already as early as 1909, Josef Hoffmann paid tribute to the impact of his teacher Wagner for the first time in a published lecture. In the text, Hoffmann characterized his teacher very accurately when he wrote: "Wagner forsakes the purely formalistic, meaning that he doesn't view his structures as compositions of conventional forms, but instead primarily as attempts to explain or to crystallize the design and the purpose of the structure with the usual means of expression. […] In place of style, which in itself does not make the structure recognizable, comes character."

The exhibition juxtaposes the work of Josef Hoffmann with that of his teacher Otto Wagner on the basis of designs and objects.