Wiener Werkstätte

Wiener WerkstätteWiener Werkstätte exhibition poster, designed by Josef Hoffmann, c. 1905, promoting “Modernes Kunstgewerbe, Staendige Austellung Neustiftgasse 32” (an ongoing exhibition of modern arts and crafts at Neustiftgasse 32 in Vienna).

Wiener Werkstätte, cooperative enterprise for crafts and design founded in Vienna in 1903. Inspired by William Morris and the English Arts and Crafts Movement, it was founded by Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann with the goal of restoring the values of handcraftsmanship to an industrial society in which such crafts were dying. Its members had close ties to the artists of the Vienna Sezession and the Art Nouveau movement. The Wiener Werkstätte’s work in jewelry, furnishings, interior design, fashion, and other areas, which often celebrated the beauty of geometry, became widely known for elegance and innovation, and this “square style” influenced the work of the Bauhaus craftsmen in the 1920s as well as the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Alicja Zelazko.