Thursday 23rd September 2021 | 5pm BST | via Zoom Book Your Online Free Ticket

Josef Hoffmann, Dining Room in the Purkersdorf Sanatorium, 1904, Copyright MAK Inv.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Josef Hoffmann, Glasgow, Vienna and joint forces for Modernity.

The forthcoming exhibition, JOSEF HOFFMANN: Progress Through Beauty, (15.12.2021–19.06.2022 at the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna), marks the 150th birthday of Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) and comprehensively documents for the first time the entire oeuvre of the architect, designer, teacher, and exhibition organiser. He was one of the luminaries of Viennese Modernism and the international life reform movement. With his indefatigable design work and teaching, Hoffmann cultivated an exemplary model of modern lifestyles based on a construction and product culture that was both shaped by craft and artistically ambitious.

The exhibition offers the opportunity to highlight the close relationship between Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Josef Hoffmann, Glasgow and Vienna around 1900 once more.

Dr. Rainald Franz, MAK-curator of the exhibition with Christian Witt-Dörring and Matthias Boeckl, will give an overview of the life and work of Hoffmann, with a focus on the friendly relationship between the young Viennese Secessionist and the Glasgow Four. Charles Rennie Mackintosh´s first show on the continent within the 8th Secession exhibition 1900 in Vienna proved to be highly influential on the development of Austrian Design. The lecture will include rarely known objects, documents, letters and photographs by Hoffmann and Mackintosh from the time.

Rainald Franz, MA, PhD.
Curator, Glass and Ceramics Collection at MAK- Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. Curator of the Josef Hoffmann Museum, Brtnice/Pirnitz.

Various Exhibitions, e.g. „Adolf Loos. Private Houses“, “The Glass of the Architects. Vienna 1900-1937”, “300 Years of the Vienna Porcelain Manufacture”, „Otto Prutscher. Universal Designer of Viennese Modernism“and publications, symposia e.g. “Gottfried Semper and Vienna”, Vienna 2005 and “Leben mit Loos (Living with Loos)”, “300 Years of the Vienna Porcelain Manufacture.”
Assistant professor at the Vienna University and the at University of Applied Arts, Vienna.