https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkGX1KBT7g Presented by the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust -- about which we must learn more.
This is an illustrated lecture whose opening premise is "What Wright might have seen on his 1910 visit to Vienna," by a specialist in furniture design
history, Christian Witt-Dörring. We get a wide-ranging discussion of Viennese design and architecture taking place around the turn of the last
century. Many interesting connections are drawn, and tidbits of design history are imparted.
20 minutes in we see architectural sculpture of Franz Metzner; Wrightians will recognize the forms. On the same building, from 1902, we see Wright's
treatment of the walls at the Winslow house.
Would Wright have seen these buildings and sculpture when they were new, in time to have an influence on his early work ?
We hear that the Secessionists promoted the Gesamtkunstwerk or "total work of art" -- and to bring a "new Austrian style" to the bourgeoisie -- both
of which might serve as models for Wright's practice ?
The latter half of the lecture compares and contrasts Hoffman (Secessionist) and Loos (not). The English Arts and Crafts is explored as an influence on
Viennese designers; the Guild of Craftsmen is compared to the Wiener Werkstätte (1903). Mackintosh is singled out as being apart from the Arts
and Crafts movement, wherein the artisan is also the designer; the Secessionists are characterized as separating the designer from the maker.
Wright's name appears again an hour into the lecture, when it is suggested that he might have visited the American Bar of Loos, the compact space with
coffered marble ceiling and mirroring above head height.
A 1902 house gallery by Koloman Moser is shown; it is related to Mackintosh's work, which was first seen in Vienna in the Secessionist exhibition
of 1900. The datum at window-head height, which Witt-Dörring says comes from Mackintosh, would have appealed to Mr Wright . . .
SDR
