Otto Wagner
Otto Koloman Wagner (13 July 1841–11 April 1918) was an Austrian architect.
Wagner was born in Penzing, a suburb of Vienna. He studied in Berlin and Vienna. In 1864, he started designing his first buildings in the historicist style. In 1884, he became a teacher in the school of architecture of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
In the 1890s, he designed several building in the Art Nouveau style. He was very interested in urban planning - in 1890 he designed a new city plan for Vienna, but only his urban rail network, the Stadtbahn, was built. In 1895 he published a textbook entitled Modern Architecture in which he expressed his ideas about the role of the architect. His style incorporated the use of new materials and new forms to reflect the fact that society itself was changing. In his textbook, he stated that "new human tasks and views called for a change or reconstitution of existing forms". In pursuit of this ideal, he designed and built structures that reflected their intended function, such as the austere Wohnhaus (apartment building).
In 1897, Otto Wagner, Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser founded the "Vienna Secession" artistic group. From the ideas of this group he developed a style that included quasi-symbolic references to the new forms of modernity.
Wagner died in Vienna in 1918.
Major works
- Floodgate, Nussdorf near Vienna, built in 1894
- Viennese Stadtbahn, metropolitan railway system (1894-1902), e.g. Karlsplatz Metropolitan Railway Station
- Majolikahouse, Vienna (1898-1899)
- Post Office Savings Bank Building, Vienna (1894-1902) (Video of Model)
- Kirche am Steinhof, Vienna (1903-1907).
- Rumbach Synagogue, Budapest
External links
- Otto Wagner Museum in Vienna
- Great Buildings Online
- Images of several Wagner buildings
- Otto Wagner at WOKA (de/en)
References
- Otto Antonia Graf (1985): Otto Wagner - Das Werk des Architekten, ISBN 3-205-98224-X
- Günter Kolb (1989): Otto Wagner und die Wiener Stadtbahn, ISBN 3-89235-029-9
- Carl E. Schorske "The Ringstrasse and the Birth of Urban Modernism" in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. Vintage Books, 1981. ISBN 0394744780
