Hoffmann, Josef Franz Maria (1870–1956). Austro-Hungarian designer and architect. Born in Moravia, he studied with
Hasenauer and
Wagner in Vienna. He became involved in the Vienna
Sezession (he greatly admired, and was friendly with, C. R.
Mackintosh) and, with Koloman Moser (1868–1918) and Fritz Wärndorfer (1868–1923), founded the
Wiener Werkstätte in 1903. He absorbed the
Beaux-Arts method of composition, the Classically inspired style of Wagner, the freer style of the British
Arts-and-Crafts movement, and early in the C20 began to simplify and purify his architecture, moving away from the
Art Nouveau of the early Sezession. His white cubic building at the Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1903–5) led to a blocky style, the most developed example of which was the Adolphe Stoclet House, Brussels (1904–11): for this Hoffmann and other artists of the Werkstätte designed virtually everything. The Stoclet House was sumptuously finished in panels of marble framed with bronze, while some of the interiors (notably the dining-room) were also finished in marble, with glittering mosaics designed by Gustav Klimt (1862–1918). His Ast (1909–11) and Skywa-Primavesi (1913–15) Houses, both in Vienna, showed a profound shift towards
Neo-Classicism that was a general tendency of the time. Later works were never again of such distinction: they included the Austrian Pavilion, Exposition Internationale des Arts-Décoratifs, Paris (1924–5), an asymmetrical composition with strong horizontal bandings on the walls; the Ast House, near Velden, Austria (1923), and the Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennale (1934–5). In 1953–4 he designed housing on the Heiligenstädterstrasse, Vienna.
Bibliography
Kleiner (1927);
Noever & and Oberhuber (1987);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Rochowanski (1950);
Sekler (1985);
Jane Turner (1996);
Veronesi (1956);
Weiser (1930)
