Josef Hoffmann

Josef Hoffmann (Brtnice, Moravia, 1870 – Vienna 1956) architect, attended the Staatsgewerbeschule in Brno. In 1892 he moved to Vienna to complete his training at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under Otto Wagner. In 1898 he became one of the founders of the Vienna Secession, and later, of the Wiener Werkstätte together with Joseph Maria Olbrich. The slightly anachronistic character of Hoffmann's work left him on the margins of the currents of new architecture, of critical debate, and of the crisis from which international rationalism emerged. In 1912 he founded the Österreichischer Werkbund, which in 1920 became the Austrian section of the Deutscher Werkbund.