Protomodernism

 Chapter 20: Protomodernism (pt.1)

A lot of the pieces of this time period aesthetically straddle the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They are known as transitional pieces that contain the seeds of modernism, some of which are predictive and achieve a new sensibility. Artists during this time period shared the belief that decorative motifs are carriers of meaning and not necessarily antithetical to artistic expression. Decoration was more enhanced at this time, as opposed to masking it. Some of these artists were part of the avant-garde which refers to any group of artists who are experimental or unorthodox. This meant those who experimented with forms and ideas prior to them being widely accepted. 

Vienna Succession

The Vienna Succession building with Klimt's frieze.

The design revolution - the Vienna Succession - appeared during a period that incorporated significant achievements in multiple fields of art. The artists during this time were known to withdraw from an academic institution or artistic movement and grew in various parts of Europe such as Berlin, Munich, and Vienna. The group based in Vienna included artists like Klimt, Hoffmann, Olbrich, and Kolomon Moser. These artists are understood to have favored developing new forms that related to modern life and had no ties to traditional design or historic styles. 

Gustav Klimt

Example of his dramatic use of gold.

Klimt was the first president of the Vienna Succession and designed interior
decorations for several buildings. He was an artist who felt that architectural decorations constituted a highly valued art form; this was further seen in his paintings. Klimt focused on using gold for dramatic effect and enabled his paintings to reveal his experience as a designer of jewelry and textiles. They tend to have more to do with one's subconscious as opposed to questions of how to make twentieth century buildings.

 Otto Wagner

The Post Office Savings Bank

Wagner was a well-known architect, urban planner, designer, writer, and teacher whose career lasted over half a century. His exploration of integration of decoration with underlying forms allows the viewer to consider relationships to programmatic function. One of his more famous projects was the Post Office Savings Bank in Vienna.
The bank resembles a church with its double height central nave, complete clerestory, and side aisles. Wagner took a form that most people were familiar with - train sheds - and used it on another equally important public institution. His use of glass on the exterior and as the flooring points to financial transparency.

Wagner, although not a formal member of the Secession, believed design should display an understanding of purpose and good choices. This, typically, consisted of simple details, but to Wagner, it focused on forms that arise from following certain principles in order to be viewed as pleasing and understandable. No matter what material he used, especially wood on his chairs, his works were understood as having an industrial aesthetic.