Week 4 - Protomodernism

Protomodernism is a design style that occurred from 1897 until 1959 and spread through Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and the United States. Even though this movement competed with Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts for attention, it held its ground because of how unique it was. While Protomodernism was similar to Art Nouveau with the acceptance of modern technology and production methods, it completely differed when it came to ornamentation and materials used.

Protomodernism rejected ornamentation and historical styles and focused primarily on experimentation with forms and ideas. A main consideration of this movement was to ensure that the highest quality of design could be produced for the masses, and this was done through the use of plywood, aluminum, and beechwood. Another main consideration was functionality over physical beauty. With the other movements, beauty was found in the ornamentation, joinery, or hardware. Protomodernism teaches that the true beauty of a space is found in its functionality and overall form.

Through this movement, many wonderful architects and designers emerged, such as Otto Wagner and Gerrit Reitveld. Otto Wagner was a very prominent member of the Vienna Secession who believed that understanding different materials and choosing them wisely would lead to good design. He also believed that designers should choose materials that were available, workable, durable, and economical in order to produce worthwhile work. Gerrit Reitveld was an architect who contributed to De Stijl (the style) in the Netherlands. This style focused on elementary shapes, colors, flat surfaces, as well as horizontal and vertical lines and Reitveld embodied all of these details. His designs were very geometric, smooth, simple, affordable, functional, and clad in the three primary colors. Both of these architects/designers paved the way for a new method of designing and a new way of thinking.

Protomodernism was a design style unmatched by any other style of that time. It brought to attention the fact that furniture doesn’t have to be ornamented to be beautiful and that, sometimes, the function of a piece of furniture is more important than the beauty of it, anyway.

Design Examples

The Postal Savings Bank by Otto Wagner

The Steiner House by Adolf Loos

A dining chair by Frank Lloyd Wright

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One Step Further

Otto Wagner was born in Vienna, Austria on July 13, 1841. He studied art and architecture at the Technical University in Vienna, the Bauakademie in Berlin, and then the Academy of Fine Arts back in Vienna. Wagner designed Art Nouveau architecture up until 1894 when he became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts and started preaching functionalism. He stated that “modern art must yield for us modern ideas, forms created for us, which represent our abilities, our acts, and our preferences. Objects resulting from modern views […] harmonize perfectly with our surroundings, but copied and imitated objects never do.” Wagner believed that “necessity is the sole mistress of art,” and took that idea through his designs and material choices.

Wagner’s functionalism/modernism was shown primarily through Sankt Leopold in Penzing as well as the Postal Savings Bank in Vienna. The design of Sankt Leopold focused on squares, rectangles, and other linear forms, while the design of the Postal Savings Bank was characterized by linearity, smoothness, and crispness through the use of marble, aluminum, and glass. His design of the Vienna railroad also shows his more modernist approach. As a professor, his students included both Josef Hoffmann and Josef Olbrich, other modernist architects. These two helped Wagner develop his modernist style in other stations, such as the Hofpavillion and the Karlsplatz Station.

Otto Wagner joined the Vienna Secession in 1897 along with Gustav Klimt, Josef Olbrich, Josef Hoffman, and Koloman Moser. Through this group, he developed his modernist style and became even better known as an architect. Before his death, one of his students was quoted as saying “modern architecture began with Mackintosh in Scotland, Otto Wagner in Vienna, and Louis Sullivan in Chicago.”