Schindler's Instructors

Schindler's Viennese background allowed him to study among great Austrian architects. He was fascinated by his instructors: Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos. 

Adolf Loos (1870 - 1933)

Birthplace: Brno, Moravia 

Adolf Loos   

Villa Muller interior
Spacial planning (Raumplan)

Fellow Viennese architect Adolf Loos believed that ornament was a crime. He even went as far as stating, "It would be greatly for own aesthetic good if we would refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years in order that our thought might concentrate acutely upon the production of buildings well formed and comely in the nude." Loos had a very radical approach to architecture and was highly opinionated. His personal charisma drew students to his lectures. During these lectures, Schindler took away an appreciation for Loos's Raumplan complexity of interior spaces. Loos had an overwhelming passion for the people, culture and architecture of the USA. Loos's faith in the promise of US life propelled Schindler to practice in the USA, especially after the mutual discovery of Frank Lloyd Wright after seeing  the 1910 publication of the Wasmuth Portfolio.

Source: Architecture of the Sun By: Thomas S Hines

Photographic sources noted in bibliography.

Postal Savings Bank interior

Otto Wagner (1841 - 1918)

Birthplace: Penzing, Austria

Wagner studied at the Imperial School of Technology and the Academy of Fine Arts between 1857 and 1863. He was later appointed professor of the Academy of Art in 1894. Eventually he established the Wagnerschule, a studio based education system that only accepted 12 incoming students a year. The schools ideas managed to reach far beyond its' participants, though the actual alumni were some of the most influential architects of the first half of the twentieth century. 

Wagner believed that other architecture of his time considered form, style and beauty as mere by products of the building program when they should be the primary concern in developing a design for modern life. With that in mind, Schindler marveled at Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1905). It was the first modern building placed in the historicist Ringstrasse. The structure was remarkably different in not only in style, but in its use of materials: concrete, steel, aluminum and glass. Wagner even designed the furniture and fixtures because he believed in the Germanic concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (all embracing art). The model inspired Schindler's future mentor Frank Lloyd Wright. 

Source: Architecture of the Sun By: Thomas S Hines

Photographic sources noted in bibliography.

On the Wagner School

The Wagner School was an important studio based architecture program, in the heart of Vienna. It was taught by Otto Wagner and produced some of the twentieth century's greatest architects. Schindler was lucky enough to study as one of the twelve incoming students a year, in one of the most rigorous architectural programs of the time. 

What Schindler was taught by Wagner:

"Whenever you give a task to complete, ask yourself whether the solution put forward is suitable for the time in which we live, the client, the local spirit, the climate, (and) the materials... Our buildings must express fully the conditions of life of our time if we do not want architecture to sink to the level of caricature." - Wagner

Assignments at the Wagner School for the three year course:

             

                 1st year: A simple Viennese apartment house, to give a taste for what it is like to work in the field and understand the principles involved. Also, work on a single family home adapting to the changing housing patterns at the time.

                2nd year: Public building - both inner and outer design. A model was used as a reference was the chamber of commerce building.

                3rd year: A project that the students may never encounter in their working career. The intended purpose of these projects is to keep the imagination alive. An architect must always have a "a luminous" flame within. This assignment is based on the exotic assignment given every year at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Significant Principles in Wagner's Teachings:

                

• Strong relationship between master and student

Wagner didn't make it a mystery at all that he controlled admissions to his school though rigorous screening. "Other art schools may boast when they have seventy or more students in a year, while Wagner sifts continually until there remain only five or ten students a year. But with five such students he feels that he has an army at his disposal." - Vienna 1900

In total only 190 students were admitted to study at the Wagner school in the 20 years that he taught there; and a third of them did not complete the three year program.

The screening process was remarkably similar to the one at Waterloo Architecture.

"Descisions about admissions were made ultimately by the master himself, who judged candidates on the basis of drawings submitted by them and an interview designed to assess their cultural background and the reasons for their interest in architecture." -Vienna 1900

• Wagner wished for a school to have great competition

His school stimulated competition by incorporating academic awards. Between 1895 and 1914, the school won 24 Romreisestipendium (the equivalent to the Prix de Rome of the Academie de Beaux- Arts) while the other special Vienna school only got nine. The school achieved cultural prominence within the Viennese community.

• Sense of Style

The school was known for its neo-baroque and neo-renaissance leaning.

By 1897 the students of the Wagner school are already creating models that incorporated the secessionist and Art Nouveau styles. The dependence on Wagner himself was greatly reduced.

By 1900 the school dabbled in the abandonment of classical orders in favour of simplicity.

The role of the Wagner school in European Architecture:

The Wagner School stood as an experimental laboratory for the European avant-garde. Even Wagner himself made triumphant declarations that the school made fundamental contributions to architecture.

Source: Vienna 1900 By: Franco Borsi Ezio Godoli