Fledermaus Archive Journal

Page 1

INTRODUCTION

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JOSEF HOFFMANN

1870

Born in printz Moravia

1892

Moved to Vienna at age 22 - To study Architecture under Karl Von Hasenauer

At Akademei Der Bilden Kunste Academy (Academy of fine arts)

1894

the class was being taught by Otto Wagner, who became Hoffmanns mentor and idol.

1895 - 1896

Club of seven (Joseph Maria Olbrich, Koolman Moser, Max Kurzweil, ect)

Hoffmann travels to italy and is infatuated with the vernacular, writes (A contribution of picturesque architecture)

1897

Hoffmann works on projects in Otto Wagners studio.

1897

Vienna succession founded Vienna Succession, An art movement succeeding the association of austrian artists, in protest against supporting traditional styles

Key Members: Josef Hoffmann, Otto Wagner, Gustav Klimpt, Koloman Moser, Joseph Maria Olbrich

1898

Succession building in vienna built, Hoffmann designs the Ver Sacrum Room

Along with exhibitions, Viribus Unitis room for the succession at the Kaiser Jubilee Exhibition

And studio designs for koloman moser and painter Ernst Stohr

Interiors / Furniture / Exhibition Design

1899

Appointed professor at Vienna school of applied arts

1900

Study Tours to England: Workshop practices of Guild of Handicrafts London

Takes interest in furniture of C.B Ashbee

Charles Rennie and Margeret mackintosh, exhibit a tearoom at the 8th succession exhibition

His son wolfgang was born ( Who became architect and photographer - who moved to the us and influence the modernist movement in the united states)

1903

The Wiener Workshop Founded 1903 - 1932

Joseph Hoffman (Architect) , Koloman Moser (Artist), and Fritz Waendorfer (Finance)

In a factory building Neustiftgasse Outlook to develop products of a superior quality, and develop a formal language of the time / Produce complete interiors that express the creative vision of its founders. Hoffman designs the factory / studio : metal, leather, carpentry, lacquering, bookbinding

1905

Purkersdorf Sanatorium in Vienna

First building with interiors designed entirely by the Vienna workshop, the spatial and interior elements began to define the output and direction of the workshop. Clarity of formal arrangement and radical simplicity Interiors by hoffman and Koloman Moser

TheSitzmaschine, or “machine for sitting, - Designed for this building

Later design the Floge Fashion salon

1905

Hoffman and gustav klimt leave the Vienna Succession

4
01REFERENCE TITLE, Author, curtecuy of --Archive

1905-1911

Paris Stocklet in Brussels

Hoffman, building and interior Gustav Klimt: designs frieze in dining room

1906 - 1917

In parallel designs 2 other villas in Vienna, One for engineer Alexander Brauner and the other for Ritchard Boor Hoffman, Stylistically the owe a debt to the british arts and crafts movement and neoclassicism, deviating from the successionist style.

1907 - 1913

Bar at Cabaret Fledermaus

A nightclub founded by the vienna workshop “cultural entertainment”

At the same time Hoffmann meets Le Corbusier, who is sceptical of the viennese style, yet contributes to drawing the floor plans of the Cabaret Fledermause

Josef Hoffman is often attributed as one of the pioneers of early modernism in Vienna, along with many of his contemporaries the likes of Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos and Josef Frank. Like many of his time, in both Vienna and around the world, the traces and tracks of modernism’s development can lead back to the overlaps between these key figures and their influence in art, architecture, design and philosophy. Which at the time was being facilitated by a radical shift against romantic historisism, in an effort to embrace a new energy and vitality.

One of the major philosophical shifts at the time was that of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ which translates to total work of art. A term coined by composer Richard Wagner. A synthesis of all art forms in design, where every element of life was crafted authentically to exercise a hidden dream state. The term is an optimistic upheaval against the impeding homogenisation of industrialisation.

5 TOTAL WORK OF ART

Hoffman’s influence is traced back to his teacher Otto Wagner at the Akademei Der Bilden Kunste Academy (Academy of Fine Arts). Wagner is described as a forerunner of modernism and the pioneer of the Viennese secession.

The expression of influence can be analysed in Wagner’s unbuilt proposal for a monument titled ‘Culture’ in 1909. The monument represents the taming of the beast in humanity, signalling a desire for ideological reform in design, a precondition for the development of culture. An allegorical structure on the necessity to reflect upon origins. His ideology takes from that of German philosopher Gottfried Semper, “Art and artists should and must represent their times. Our future salvation cannot consist in mimicking all the stylistic tendencies that occurred in the last decade - Art and its nascence must be imbued by the realism of our times.”

Under his teachings, this notion permeates to Hoffman’s ideology within the forming of the Vienna Secession. His devotion to Wagner is in turn, reflected in a monument for his memory, designed by Hoffmann and erected in 1930.

6 OTTO WAGNER
01Culture Monument in front of the Kaiser, 1909

On 3 April 1897, the Vienna Secession was founded by Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, and Josef Hoffmann, respective artist, designer and architect. Wagner soon joined the group after its founding. Additional members include Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil, Wilhelm Bernatzik and others.

In 1898 the succession building in Vienna was constructed as a vessel for bringing Viennese life closer in proximity to European avant-garde, through over 23 exhibitions. The building and its rooms for exhibition embody an ideology of total design.

While design’s presence is innate in all objects, everything is designed, the succession and subsequent Vienna Workshops ethos is a rejection of industrial mass manufacturing of objects, for an intimate connection with craftsmanship. Hoffman describes this in a lecture given in 1911 titled “My Work” on the Vienna workshop:

“We want to establish an intimate contract between the public, designers and craftsmen - Our craftsmen are an elite of the first rank, not slaves of a machine, but creators and shapers, makers of form and masters. - Their labours are not loveless patchwork by various hands, but the work of one man. - We do not work for individual profit but for the cause, and that makes us free. We know no differences in rank, we recognise only an order of work and higher quality of performance”

“We hope for a dream again of garden rich, beautiful bright cities, without oppressive ugliness”

“Our time should at last recall that art alone, preserves the value of its colossal epoch-making works as an inspiration for the future, and that we will vanish from the earth with all the things of our civilization if a vigorous art will not transmit them by its inner value.

02 - Monument in memory of Otto Wagner, 1930 - MAK Archive

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ACADEMY OF FINE ART - VIENNA SECESSION

CABARET FLEDERMAUS

Date: October 1907 - 1912

Location: on the corner of Kärntner Straße 33 and Johannesgasse 1 in Vienna

Designers: Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop)

Architect: Josef Hoffmann,

Artist: Koloman Moser

Finance: Fritz Waerndorfer.

Design elements and designers for the bar.

Architecture / Furniture / Cutlery: Joseph Hoffmann

(floorplan and elevation sketches by Le Corbusier)

Tiles: Bernard Löffler and Michael Powolny

Bar sign: Bertold Löffler

Adverts / Posters: Josef von Divéky, Bertold Löffler

Live performances: Grete Wiesenthal and Marya Delvard

Set and costume designer: Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill

Following the Vienna Succession and running almost in parallel, the Vienna Workshop was birthed in 1903, through the collaboration of Josef Hoffman the architect, artist Koloman Moser and Financer Fritz Waendorfer. Embodying the totality of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk.’

In 1907 the Cabaret Fledermaus emerged as a new and expreriencial club/ theatre. Situated in an unused basement on the corner of Kärntner Straße 33 and Johannesgasse 1 in Vienna. This flagship space was where the totality of the Workshops’s radical philosophy of art and culture could be experienced by the general public. With a focus on performance in the setting of nightlife. From satirical plays to avant-garde dance. Each element of design from the cutlery, signage, and posters to costumes, backdrops and interior furnishings were carefully fashioned by members of the workshop, each with distinct meaning and messaging intended for the public for cultural transmission.

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PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE AUDITORIUM OF THE CABARET FLEDERMAUS, Unknown, from MAK Archive
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The argument for the explosive nature of the early modern movement in Vienna, occurs across varying geographies and time scales.

Looking back at the secession exhibition building, which became a hyper interior of the Vienna Succession to concentrate these ideas of radical modern expressionism, in an explosive factory, permeating cultural transmission through the medium of architecture, objects, furniture and art.

The hyper interior is the Intensification of culture and design, to be erupted and expanded upon into the outside world. The Cabaret, like many spaces of the Vienna workshop, is an explosive factory. Where the “Boredom of contemporary life” is blocked out and escaped from. The “ease of culture” is intensified and concentrated in the theatre, the expressionist display of culture and worldview, inherent in all of its elements (Wigley 1997). The Cabaret becomes a factory for building worlds. The hyper interior also becomes a place of crossover and influence, forming the continuation of the slowly progressing modernist zeitgeist.

This notion of plurality can be seen in the often disputed line of influence between Hoffmann and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a parallel Architect and interior and furniture designer from Glasgow. It is Historically debated on if Charles was a major influence on Hoffman’s Viennese Workshop, as undetermined as this is, there is a clear dialogue between both Glasgow and Vienna Incepting at the Glasgow Four’s tea room in the 8th Vienna secession exhibit in 1900.

10 HYPER INTERIORS
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Fig 03 Hoffman - Silverware Designed for the Waerndorfer Family. Fig 02 Glasgow Four’s tea room in the Vienna Succession exhibit in 1900 Fig 02 Mackintosh - Argyle Chair

VIENNA THE ENDLESS INTERIOR

Furthering this discussion is the similarity in the Cabaret to the Loos America Bar, designed by Hoffman’s contemporary Adolf Loos only a year later in 1908. Located a short walk away this interior exercises much of the similarities in succesionist theory shared by both Hoffman and Loos.

While the two designers studied together at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, their splitting ideological pathways and rivalry is well known. What escapes critique between to two interiors is that of the chechered floor.

12
01REFERENCE TITLE, Author, curtecuy of --Archive

CABARET FLEDERMAUS - JOSEF HOFFMAN

AMERICA BAR - ADOLF LOOS

Here the checkerboard, like the spoon becomes another motif of overlap. Which is where the framing of this research forms its grounding, how does the Cabaret Fledermaus develop a transmission of the emerging modernist worldview in Vienna, through its motifs and modalities?

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MOTIFS AND MODALITIES - POSTCARDS

The Vienna Workshop produced many postcards during its time as a primary form of graphic communication. These postcards are heavily provocative and depict theatrical vignettes of varying scales. Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Dagobert Peche. Other noteworthy artists who were active in this area whose names may be less familiar include Moriz Jung, Rudolf Kalvach, Mela Koehler, and Maria Likarz, who among others, contributed to over 1000 postcards to the

Sadler, MAK Archive, Vienna Business envelope Cabaret Fledermaus, Bertold Löffler, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna Postcard No. 68, Gertrude Barrison in the Fledermaus cabaret, Fritz Zeymer, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna
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1907, MAK Archive, Vienna Fan for the Cabaret Fledermaus, Bertold Löffler, 1907,

Postkarte no. 18 Til Eulenspiegel, Urban Janke, 1907,

16 POSTCARDS OF THE VIENNA WORKSJOPMAK Archives
POSTCARDS
Fledermaus, József mann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna
18 JOSEF HOFFMANNDETAILS FOR CABARET FLEADERMAUS 02 03 04 01

Josef Hoffman draws extensively and exhaustively on grid paper the details for furniture and light fittings that become integral design elements of the Cabaret. These early sketches reveal the architect’s strict adherence to equal geometry, defined by the grid paper, guiding his approach. He conceived of physical objects, textiles and graphics all within the same defining medium. Through the plethora of drawings, the continuum of patterns becomes more visible.

Hoffman Drawings for lighting, fixtures and interior objects of the Cabaret Fleadermaus.

01 - Hand mirror for the cabaret Fledermaus, Josef Hoffmann, 1908, MAK Archive, Vienna

02 - Lighter, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

03 - Lighting fixture, wall lamp, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

04 - ”Lighting body, wall lamp, bar room, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

05 - Typographical concept for poster and programs of the Cabaret Fledermaus, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

06 - Sketches of Cabaret Fledermaus tiles, Bertold Löffler, 1907, University of Applied Arts Vienna Archive

07 - Sketch for a poster for the Cabaret Fledermaus, Josef Hoffmann, 1910, MAK Archive, Vienna

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07 05 06
DRAWINGS - OBJECTS
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Print decoration for leather, Josef Hoffmann, 1922, MAK Archive, Vienna
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PLAN
FLOOR
- LE CORBUSIER
Cabaret Fleadermaus Floor Plan Sketch 1:100, 1907, Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier Fondation Archive.
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DRAWINGS - THEATRE AND PROGRAM BERTOLD LÖFFLER
Blue dance costume for the Cabaret Fledermaus, Fritz Zeymer, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna Illustration “Marya Delvard” in the first program of the Cabaret Fledermaus, 1907, Bertold Löffler, MAK Archive, Vienna Poster and postcard of the Cabaret Fledermaus, Bertold Löffler , 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Alongside Hoffman’s detailed drawings, the contrast of colours and patternation bleeds into the works of Bertold Loffler. Fritz Zeymer and Moriz Jung. Artists of the Vienna Workshop. Electric costume design and vignettes of theatre programs. Motiz Jung a prominent student of the Vienna Academy of fine arts, intimately drew the designs for the second program at the Cabaret, titled “The Directors Rehearsal” in stark black and white.

23 MORIZ JUNG
Final artworks for the second program of the Cabaret Fledermaus, 1907, Moriz Jung, MAK Archive, Vienna

EDUARD JOSEF WIMMER-WISGRILL - “THE THEATRE THAT NEVER WAS”

Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill was a Viennese artist who studied under Hoffman at the Kunstgewerbeschule from 1901 - 1907. His studies were completed in the same year as the inception of the Cabaret Fleadermas and he began working under the Vienna Workshop from 19071922, specifically in the fashion department, of which he became the director in 1910. His expertise was that of fashion, costume and stage design and his artistic influences from theatre and design carry through in his work.

Most notably his contributions to the Cabaret were costume and stage designs for an unfinished play in 1907 when the theatre opened. The play was titled “Maskenspiele,” translating to Masque or Mask Play. A traditional form of theatre developed in the early Italian Renaissance. A small number of drawings from the design of this production remain, however, the event never was staged, for reasons unknown. This ‘play that never was’ hints deeply at a completely constructed worldview, created by Wisgrill, and Hoffman. The drawings that do survive to this day, display a visual richness and intensity of motif. Notably the black and white checkerboard.

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DRAWINGS FOR ‘MASKENSPIELE’ 1907

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Scene design for Cabaret Fledermaus, Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

EDUARD JOSEF WIMMER-WISGRILL - “THE THEATRE THAT NEVER WAS”

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Design for ‘Maskenspiele’, three figurines; Inscribed: “The three Masks,” Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna Design for ‘Maskenspiele’, two figurines, Eduard Josef grill, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

DRAWINGS FOR ‘MASKENSPIELE’ 1907

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Wimmer-Wis- Scene draft for the dance pantomime ‘Music Box,’ Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1908, MAK Archive, Vienna

EDUARD JOSEF WIMMER-WISGRILL - “THE THEATRE THAT NEVER WAS”

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Design of the stage background for ‘Maskenspiele,’ Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1908, MAK Archive, Vienna

OFF MODERN MOTIFS

Conceptually, black and white becomes a prominent way of seeing the development of modernism. On the surface, black and white impose effective communication and reflect a desire to return to the beginnings of architecture, the very first of something. To throw out the balase embellishments of the past and come back to the beginning through archaic forms, plasticity and primary colours. All documentation is captured through black and white photography, strengthening this effect, emphasising contrast and removing all elements betwixt.

Central to the argument is the origins of modernism and its expansion to influence the world as a whole. Critically these architects lie at a preconception and are conflated in history.

Le Corbusier has drawn the floor plans for Cabaret Fledermaus. He has coined the pioneer of modernism, these architects (Hoffman, Loos, Ect,) lie as shadow figures, and different schools teach different epochs and histories. North American schools teach modernism origins to the influence of the Bauhaus, often neglecting The Vien Modern Movement.

29

The Cabaret Fledermaus embodies the Vienna Workshops radical approach to theatre and to presenting a worldview, as reflective of a total work of art. A fracturing or rejection of tradition and a proposition for a radical new world, these theatre plays were the workshop’s way of transferring cultural ideals. Ideals that exist in plurality and overlap with other schools around the world, or against others. This transfer of ideas or idealism extends to the architecture and objects designed within now sprawled across the globe. Each contains the memory of a modernist future never realised. Each object and work overlaps with another to build into the modernist story. Where this idea of origin or influence becomes blurred. These interventions coexist alongside one another.

The Checkerboard is a prominent and recurring motif in the early pre modern works of the Vienna workshop. This motif strongly overlaps with many other geographies and practices over the course of history and is a common motif for the radical emergence of modernist thought. It is a starting point of this research, a commonality between many different works and designers in the milieu.

The checkerboard can be viewed in many ways. A contrast, a zig-zag, a weaving between parallel lines that do not ever meet. Framing the coexistence for different models of the universe to exist side by side. It essentially suggests that there is no linear pathway to tracing modernity, Where time, geography, movements and actors all exist in a complex counterpoint composition that is non-linear.

The checkerboard is traversable linearly or diagonally. This diagonal or non-linear traversal would reflect the line of enquiry of this research. We don’t suggest a continuous history from antiquity to modernity to postmodernity etc. Instead, the breaks in tradition and subsequent disorientations are seen as points for multiple stories to be told.

30 Black and White 01REFERENCE TITLE, Author, curtecuy of --Archive 01 - REFERENCE TITLE, Author, curtecuy of --- Archive
31

Theatre for much of the 19th century was pioneered by the likes of Fruedrick Gilly, Karl Friedrich Shinkel and Gottfried Semper. Characterised by an emphasis on scale and amphitheatres that delineate audience and performance through a separation of stage and seating, the key architectural element of this delineation is the proscenium arch. These philosophies followed the aristocratic notion of theatre, and generally followed a level of exclusion and hierarchy reflected in staged parterre seating. The positioning of these architectural elements would eventually move towards a more democratic arrangement,

32 THEATRE - GOTTFRIED SEMPER
01
- Wagner Theatre at Bayreuth. 1876, Author, curtecuy of --- Archive
33
TRADITIONAL DESIGN AND STAGING OF THEATRE
34
THEATRE - AS ENDLESS
Theatre as Endless - Frederick Kiesler

MOTIFS FROM THE LOOKING GLASS

35

Established in the garden city of Dresden in Hellerau Germany, Heinrich Tessanow was commissioned to design the theatre for the Institute of Rythmic Education. Aligning to the prospects of the German Reform Movement and the artistic desires of the client Jaques Dalcroze, who through his work as a composer, was beginning to translate music to dance in a new form of eurhythmy, ‘Music in Mo-

tion.’ Tessanow designed a new kind of theatre, where proportion and planes of the stage directly facilitate freedom of performance, stripping back from the proscenium arch and ornamentation of classism in a building described as having an ‘austere, monochromatic, temple-like exterior, displaying a refinement of outer dignity and inner harmonies’ (--).

36 HEINRICH TESSENOW FESTSPIELHAUS HELLERAU - DRESDEN

Motifs

The ideals of the Rythmic Institute were represented through a Ying and Yang symbol, and the proportions of the buildings follow the grid echoing that of Hoffman and Macintosh. An aesthetic symbol for progressive utopian design. Careful executions of planes and volumes for the central stage, a new democratic pedagogy. One of the first performance spaces to bring together performers and audiences spatially. And using the motifs of grid/squares, black/white, to do so.

This theatre inspired many of the designers who visited it over the years, transposing further influence and knowledge to overlap. Among its visitors were Le Corbusier. The movement towards flatness begins to emerge through this case study. Where the interiors of Hoffman and Wagner begin to approach flatness through motf, the theatre of Hellerau emphasises the same approach with cubic forms stripped back to reveal a continuum of surface, which we see emerging in the works of Loos and Corbusier. The building itself is an important precursor to modernism in the same way.

37 FRACTURING OF TRADITIONAL THEATRE

Loos’s own “daubing” on the white faqades of the Baker House becomes codified as the marks of a repressed and savage desire: the flagrant script of Josephine’s body, the horizontal trace’ as woman. As much as Loos believes that “the modern man who tattoos himself is a criminal or a degenerate,” he still inscribes the faqade (of a “Papuan’s” house) with the repetitive black horizontal stripe he had already coded as a reclining woman. By his own definition, this horizontal tattoo results from an untamed desire now confronted with a vertical line: the standing architect who seeks to penetrate, “touch,”

-

Overlaying this metaphorical synchronicity are apparently more personal allusions to Baker herself – her skin, her striped suits, her penetration of white society. Loos had deployed black-and-white geometric motifs before, notably in the Villa Karma and the American Bar, and his abstraction of historic elements combined with references to stylised Primitivism and machine-age precision suggests progress as well as nostalgia, epitomising the duality of Modernism and its transgressive intimacies between organic and plastic, atavism and refinement.

https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/ loos-and-baker-a-house-for-josephine

The Josephine Baker House: For Loos’s Pleasure

Farès el-Dahdah, Stephen Atkinson

Assemblage, No. 26 (Apr., 1995), pp. 72-87

(16 pages)

https://doi.org/10.2307/3171418

• https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171418

38 MOTIFS - THEATER
Adolf Loos - House for Josephine Baker

JOSEPHINE BAKER = THEATER CAPTIVATING MODERNIST AND REPRESENTED IN MOTIF

39

The checkerboard can be viewed in many ways. A contrast, a zig-zag, a weaving between parallel lines that do not ever meet. Framing the coexistence for different models of the universe to exist side by side. It essentially suggests that there is no linear pathway to tracing modernity, Where time, geography, movements and actors all exist in a complex counterpoint composition that is non-linear.

40

The checkerboard is traversable linearly or diagonally. This diagonal or non-linear traversal would reflect the line of enquiry of this research. We don’t suggest a continuous history from antiquity to modernity to postmodernity etc. Instead, the breaks in tradition and subsequent disorientations are seen as points for multiple stories to be told.

41

THE BEGINNINGS OF ABSTRACTION - AND ANALYTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF SPACE - GEOMETRIC PRIMITIVISM

42 POSTCARDS OF THE VIENNA WORKSJOPMAK Archives OFF MODERN - FRACTURING - MEMORY LOSS - A RETURN VISIT

EDUARD JOSEF WIMMER-WISGRILL - “THE THEATRE THAT NEVER WAS”

43

Central to the argument is the origins of modernism and its expanse to influence the world as a whole. Critically these architects lie at a preconception, and are conflated in history. Le Corbusier has drawn the floor plans for bar cabaret fledermaus. He is coined the pioneer of modernism, these architects lie as shadow figures, different schools teach different epochs and histories. North american schools teach modernisms origins to influence of the bauhaus, neglect vienesse succsession - Fracturing. Off modern - Off-modern” has a quality of improvisation, of a conjecture that does not distort the facts but explores their echoes, residues, implications, shadows. Internal pluralities within cultures tracing elective affinities and diasporic intimacies across national borders.Inception / conception? Blurred boundaries and fuzzy overlap Off moderd can be the theoretical framework for analisign the modality overlap of these artists in contemporary

an understanding of these concepts. accepts the transfer of knowledge and subsequent fracturing blurring loss and inception/conception of memories and modalities, Presureved designs, motifs and writings artifacts carry traces and their overlap can reveal/conceal.

Viktor Shklovsky: “Shklovsky’s favourite figure for such aesthetic and political practice was the knight in the game of chess. The knight moves forward sideways and traces “the tortured road of the brave,” not the master–slave dialectics of “dutiful pawns and kings.” 1 Oblique, diagonal, and zigzag moves reveal the play of human freedom vis-à- vis political teleologies and ideologies that follow the march of revolutionary progress, development, or the invisible hand of the market.” - Boym, Svetlana. The Off-Modern.

Checke board - Zig zag - a weaving between lines, parallel lines that do not ever meet, the coexistence for different models of the universe to exist side by side. It essentially suggests that there is no linear pathway to tracing modernity, Where time, geography, movements and actors all exist in a complex counterpointed composition, that is non-linear

“doesn’t suggest a continuous history from antiquity to modernity to postmodernity. Instead, it confronts the breaks in tradition, the loss of common yardsticks, and the disorientations that occur in almost every generation. “

“The CheckerBoard and theatre”

The Cabaret Fledermaus embodies the Vienna Workshops radical approach to theatre and to presenting a worldview, as reflective of a total work of art. A fracturing or rejection of tradition and a proposition for a radical new world, these theatre plays were the workshop’s way of transferring cultural ideals. Ideals that exist in plurality and overlap with other schools around the world, or against others. This transfer of ideas or idealism extends to the architecture and objects designed within now sprawled across the globe. Each contains the memory of a modernist future never realised. Each object and work overlap with another to build into the modernist story. Where this idea of origin or influence becomes blurred. These interventions coexist alongside another.

The Checkerboard is a prominent and recurring motif in the early pre modern works of the Vienna workshop. This motif strongly overlaps into many other geographies and practices over the course of history and is a common motif for the radical emergence of modernist thought.

It is a starting point of this research, a commonality between many different works and designers in the milieu.

The checkerboard can be viewed in many ways. A contrast, a zig zag, a weaving between parallel lines that do not ever meet. Framing the coexistence for different models of the universe to exist side by side. It essentially suggests that there is no linear pathway to tracing modernity, Where time, geography, movements and actors all exist in a complex counterpoint composition that is non-linear.

The checkerboard is traversable linearly or diagonally. This diagonal or non linear traversal would reflect the line of enquiry of this research. We don’t suggest a continuous history from antiquity to modernity to postmodernity ect. Instead, the breaks in tradition and subsequent disorientations are seen as points for multiple stories to be told.

44

EDUARD JOSEF WIMMER-WISGRILL - “THE THEATRE THAT NEVER WAS”

45 01REFERENCE TITLE, Author, curtecuy of --Archive

Postcard No. 68, Gertrude Barrison in the Fledermaus cabaret, Fritz Zeymer , 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Business envelope Cabaret Fledermaus, Bertold Löffler, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Theater and Cabaret Fledermaus Poster, 1913, Arthur Sadler, MAK Archive, Vienna

Final drawing of a fan for the Cabaret Fledermaus, Bertold Löffler, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Fan for the Cabaret Fledermaus, Bertold Löffler, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Lighting fixture, wall lamp, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Lighting body, wall lamp, bar room, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Hand mirror for the cabaret Fledermaus, Josef Hoffmann, 1908, MAK Archive, Vienna

Sketches of Cabaret Fledermaus tiles, Bertold Löffler, 1907, University of Applied Arts Vienna Archive

Sketch for a poster for the Cabaret Fledermaus, Josef Hoffmann, 1910, MAK Archive, Vienna

Design for ‘Maskenspiele’, three figurines; Inscribed: “The three Masks,” Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Design for ‘Maskenspiele’, two figurines, Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Scene draft for the dance pantomime ‘Music Box,’ Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1908, MAK Archive, Vienna

Design of the stage background for ‘Maskenspiele,’ Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1908, MAK Archive, Vienna -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Postkarte no. 18 Til Eulenspiegel, Urban Janke, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Krampus Card, Maria Likarz, 1912, MAK Archive, Vienna

Postcard or menu card for cabaret Fledermaus, József Divéky , 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Postcard no. 67, Cabaret Fledermaus Theater Hall, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Postcard no. 75, bar room for cabaret Fledermaus, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Print decoration for leather, Josef Hoffmann, 1922, MAK Archive, Vienna

Cabaret Fleadermaus Floor Plan Sketch 1:100, 1907, Le Corbusier, Fondation Le Corbusier Archive.

Blue dance costume for the Cabaret Fledermaus, Fritz Zeymer, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Illustration “Marya Delvard” in the first program of the Cabaret Fledermaus, 1907, Bertold Löffler, MAK Archive, Vienna

Lighter, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Typographical concept for poster and programs of the Cabaret Fledermaus, Josef Hoffmann, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Poster and postcard of the Cabaret Fledermaus, Bertold Löffler , 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

Final artworks for the second program of the Cabaret Fledermaus, 1907, Moriz Jung, MAK Archive, Vienna

Scene design for Cabaret Fledermaus, Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, 1907, MAK Archive, Vienna

46 Archival Material INDEX
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References

Bonyhady, Tim. 2011. Good Living Street: The Fortunes of My Viennese Family. Sydney, AUSTRALIA: Allen & Unwin. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unimelb/detail. action?docID=684338.

Sekler, Eduard F., and Josef Franz Maria Hoffmann. 1985. Josef Hoffmann: The Architectural Work: Monograph and Catalogue of Works. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.

Boym, Svetlana. “Off-modern homecoming in art and theory.” Rites of Return: Diaspora Poetics and the Politics of Memory (2011): 151-165.

Dahdah, Farès el-, and Stephen Atkinson. 1995. “The Josephine Baker House: For Loos’s Pleasure.” Assemblage, no. 26: 73–87. https://doi.org/10.2307/3171418.

Fair, Dr Alistair. 2015. Setting the Scene: Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Theatre Architecture. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Hoffmann, Josef Franz Maria, and Peter Noever. 1992. Josef Hoffmann Designs. Munich, Germany : New York: Prestel ; Distributed in the USA and Canada by te Neues Pub. Co.

Muir, Elizabeth. n.d. “The Two Gentleman of Design: Josef Hoffmann, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Their Contribution to the Decorative Arts in Fin-de-Siecle Glasgow and Vienna.”

Shapira, Elana. 2006. “Modernism and Jewish Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Vienna: Fritz Waerndorfer and His House for an Art Lover.” Studies in the Decorative Arts 13 (2): 52–92.

Wigley, Mark. n.d. “Whatever Happened to Total Design?” Harvard Design Magazine. Accessed August 4, 2023. https://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/articles/whatever-happened-to-total-design/.

Yorker, Alex Ross Alex Ross is the music critic of The New, the author of The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, Listen to This, Wagnerism: Art, and Politics in the Shadow of Music He is now at work on a history of the German-speaking emigration in Southern California View All Posts. n.d. “On the Origin of R. M. Schindler’s Architectural Program.” Accessed August 16, 2023. https://nonsite.org/on-the-origin-of-r-m-schindlers-architectural-program/.

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