Yearning for Beauty
The Wiener Werkst?tte and the Stoclet House Published by Hatje Cantz.
Edited by Peter Noever, Etienne Davignon, Paul Dujardin and Anne Mommens. Essays by Val»rie Dufour, Anette Freytag, Siegfried Mattl, Paulus Raine and Eduard F. Sekler, and conversations with Marc Hotermans and Heimo Zobernig. The Wiener Werkstâtte, founded in Vienna in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, became the international trademark for art as well as arts-and-crafts in the twentieth century. The fascinating history of the Wiener Werkstâtte is told in this beautifully designed volume, which features historic photographs (some of them published for the first time here), documents and original texts selected by experts from the MAK (where the Wiener Werkstâtte archives have been housed since 1955). Full-page illustrations feature outstanding examples of Wiener Werkstâtte objects, covering architecture, furniture, ceramics, glass, books, posters, postcards, carpets, jewelry, fashion and print design. The book also focuses on the innovative "total concept" used by this avant-garde association to establish an early "consumer culture," since the Werkstâtte was one of the first organizations to develop a corporate identity that followed a product through every stage from concept and development to marketing. This exceptionally well designed and executed book features a deeply embossed monochromatic silver cover and matching edge pages, as well as a richly illustrated special section on Josef Hoffmann's Stoclet House.
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