Cooper Hewitt says...
The Werkstätte-Produktiv-Genossenschaft von Kunsthandwerkern in Wien (Workshop Cooperative of Artisans in Vienna), more popularly known as the Wiener Werkstätte, was founded in 1903 by Secession members Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser together with the financial support of the industrialist Fritz Wärndorfer. As much a movement as a financial enterprise, it had support from the artist Gustav Klimt and the architect Otto Wagner. The workshop was founded on the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement, notably the ideals of John Ruskin and William Morris, and Moser and Hoffmann also cited the significant influence of Japanese craft in their 1905 work-program for the firm. The firm modeled their approach after the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald in Glasgow, and C. R. Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft in London. The Wiener Werkstätte’s goals were to fulfill the ideals of the guild system and truth to materials: to establish a direct relationship between designers, craftspeople, and the public by producing well-designed domestic goods and reversing the decline in the quality of handmade objects. They rejected mass production and sought to embrace simple, functional objects of high quality; however, due to the cost of craft production, their model resulted in costly, luxury products, and ultimately thwarted the original intention of widespread public access. The textile and fashion divisions were founded in 1909 and 1910, respectively, at a time when there was a renewed interest in revivalism and stylized figurative representation rather than geometric design. Significant commissions completed by the firm include the Palais Stoclet in Brussels and Sanatorium Purkersdorf in the Vienna suburbs. Due to the worldwide financial crisis in 1929 and the rise of fascism in Europe, the wealthy patrons of the firm diminished in the 1930s. The workshop dissolved in 1932.
