VIENNESE SILVER
Modern Design 1780 – 1918
November 16, 2004 until
February 20, 2005
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Special Exhibition Hall
1010 Wien, Maria Theresien-Platz
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The exhibition "Viennese Silver. Modern Design 1780-1918" illustrates that the roots of modern design extend further back into history and are more complex than is generally assumed. In the late eighteenth century, and especially during the Viennese Biedermeier, we already find the evolution of a formal language that is still valid today. These objects are characterised by a reduction to basic geometric forms and a disregard for ornamentation, which makes them timeless and modern. In fin-de-siècle Vienna, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser were inspired by the emphasis on functionalism as evidenced in home-decorating and every-day objects from this earlier period to create in their work for the Wiener Werkstätte the first radical design-objects of the twentieth century. Movements such as De Stijl and the Bauhaus helped to transmit this formal language to mass-produced objects and thus to contemporary design. Over two-hundred carefully chosen silver objects dating from Neo-Classicism to the Wiener Werkstätte document Vienna´s contribution to the development of a modern formal idiom.
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Press release
Information
Selected Objects