Otto Wagner

Otto Wagner (Penzing, Vienna, 1841 – Vienna 1918), Austrian architect and urban planner, was one of the greatest masters of modern architecture, and exerted a decisive influence, as a teacher and theorist, on architectural evolution between the late 19th and early 20th century. After studying at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna (1857-60) and, briefly, at the Baukademie in Berlin, he attended (1860-63) the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, where he became a professor in 1894. Alongside his teaching activities, in 1894, he embarked on his architectural works.

At odds with traditional academic approaches and in defence of the Vienna Secession, Wagner championed the simplification of architectural composition, underscored by a consistent use of structural solutions and building materials, where even ornamentation becomes functional to the definition of volumes.