Words 16 Villa in Austria

In 1957, USSR sends the first Sputnik into orbit. Adolf Schärf is elected president of Austria. Britain becomes the 3rd country to detonate a nuclear bomb. Ghana declares its independence from the UK. The South African government approves racial segregation in universities. Smoking is connected with lung cancer for the first time in the USA and Sukarno, the 1st president of Indonesia, expels the remaining 40,000 dutch citizens from the country.

In 1957, and unbeknownst to all the changes shaping the world, a small summer retreat is erected. Water and electricity are used only for vital commodities, and comfort is reduced to a minimal luxurious expression.

“-What did you pretend with all this asceticism? - asked his friend seated in the kitchen table, while lighting a new cigarette - We can’t even plug a record player.”

The two men gazed for a moment cigarette smoke spirals dance through the light that cut across the kitchen dimness.

The silence between them was interrupted by the soft rattling of boiling water.

“- Maybe this - he answered - A table like this, in a kitchen like this, in this very same dimness. Or maybe I did not pretend anything - he continued - and this house is the result.”

Of Houses, by Cristian Valenzuela Pinto

 

I revere Hermann Czech. In his “Haus M.“ he hides an impressive „Raumplan” behind the modest proportions and roofs of the houses in Schwechat (an existing settlement from the 1940s, a few kilometers outside of Vienna). Czech’s erudite and simple approach to architecture can be read antithetically to almost anything that uses the word „architecture“ respectively „architectural discourse“ nowadays. Czech indeed believed that not everything is architecture. In all of his works, he preached for a quiet architecture proud of its role as a mere background for life. Here is just one of his most famous aphorisms (a reply to Hollein’s “Alles ist Architektur” manifesto)

 

“This is the second built work by the husband and wife team Szyskowitz-Kowalski. The “House over Graz” feels almost restrained in comparison to their later works. The expressive gestures, formal ardor and excessive detailing will make them the central protagonists of what in the 1980s will become the considerably influential „Graz School“ – a decidedly a-historic style of postmodernism. I find “House over Graz“ very sympathetic in its almost laid back mimetic resemblance to the topography of the beautiful site. What Szyskowitz-Kowalski will be drawing and building in the next two decades – pre-digitally – is incredible. (Incredible not only from our crisis, scarcity and favela chic perspectives but also as the digital exuberances in architecture have so proven to be mostly serious crap).”

Of Houses, by Andreas Lechner

 

The tradition of summer villas has long been associated with a return to the pioneering spirit of artists. For architects, designing villas represents more than just creating residences; it provides an opportunity to test new ideas and solidify architectural concepts and theories. Austrian architects have played a significant role in the development of modernist architecture, particularly in the context of villas, experimental houses, and social housing.

One architect who left an indelible mark on the field is Adolf Loos (1870-1933), an influential Austrian architect and theorist. Loos not only made significant contributions to architecture himself but also served as a mentor and inspiration to a generation of aspiring architects. His office became a creative hub, attracting talented individuals who would later become renowned architects in their own right, including Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Josef Frank, Richard Neutra, and Frederick John Kiesler. The best and most impressive use of the Raumplan can be found in the Villa Müller by Adolf Loos. While Frank Lloyd Wright was perfecting the seamlessness of the transition from inside to outside, Loos was deliberately keeping the public outside and the private inside of his houses as separate as possible. Among Josef Frank’s most important works is Villa Beer, which he created together with Oskar Wlach from 1929–1930 – an architectural work with very special artistic, cultural, and historical significance. Friedrich Achleitner, chronicler of Austrian modernist architecture, called it “probably the most important specimen of Viennese residential culture of the interwar period”.

After the Palladio era, pioneer architects in Europe recognized the villa as a laboratory for their innovative ideas of spatial inventions. Villa Beer (1929-1930) is one of the most important works of private housing of the 1920s and 1930s. Designed by Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach, it is on par with other important Modernist buildings by such architects as Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or Adolf Loos. Villa Beer forms an important part of the Austrian cultural heritage.  

The Fischers’ villa summer house was planned from 1972 and completed in 1978. It is the first solar house in Austria and is characterized by its experimental character of using solar energy. The façade on the south side is designed as a ‘Trombe wall’, named after the engineer Félix Trombe, developer of the system in the 1960s. The wall is made of black heavy concrete at up to 40 centimeters thick, and over 28 square meters. It absorbs the sun’s heat through the single glazing in front of it, stores it, and then emits it inwards. Four heat sources supply the house: the solar heating, the traditional tiled stove heating, the underfloor heating, and the retrofitted electric central heating.

The Rauch experimental house by Austrian architect Martin Rauch is another exercise in practicing Rauch’s proclamation that he wants to ‘build contemporary forms’. The rhythm of the exterior is defined by erosion checks – clay bricks entirely handmade by Rauch that serve to slow the flow of water on the surface of the building. The successive bricks surface as horizontal stripes with a crayon-like line that has a softness which surrenders to the character of the rammed-earth walls they sit amid. This spirit is not lost in the interior either, and the haptic qualities of the earth are emphasized in the oval space enclosing the staircase. Moving through the building means ascending through this dramatic vertical tunnel of clay. There is a pleasant balance to the building. Living needs are gently taken care of within the constraints of the rectangular volume.

The Austrian radical architecture office Coop Himmelb(l)au found the villa a media setting to send their futuristic prototypes and critical voices. The Villa Rosa represents the design ideas for an architecture that changes like clouds. Pneumatic constructions without supports permit changes in volume with air as a building material, which was new at the time. And the new forms influence – supported through projections of color projections, sounds, and fragrance – the quality of experience within the spaces.

The impact of villas by Austrian architects extends far beyond their physical presence, permeating various facets of life, art, culture, and even politics. The Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister was invited in 1927 by the Turkish government to work on the building up of Ankara as the new capital city of Turkey. Holzmeister designed several ministry buildings and was also commissioned to design the Atatürk palace, the residence of president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in Ankara. This commission led to Holzmeister receiving numerous commissions for private villas. However, only some of the designs were actually implemented, and few of the projects were as radical as the functional and modern architecture of the Atatürk palace. As a result, when, in many of these villa designs, Holzmeister formulates a classic tiled roof, bay windows, and stone base, the picture that emerges is of a residence that has been cautiously modernized.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000) was a pioneer: She was one of the first women in Austria to practice the profession of architect. Her great commitment to social and political matters was reflected in her ideas of building and living. She especially considered the situation of independently living working women, health aspects in combination with recreational spaces in nature, and housing shortage. Her life was defined by architecture, feminism, and her anti-fascist resistance.

Gabriel Guévrékian (1892–1970), who studied from 1915 to 1919 at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna under Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank, before working in the atelier of Strnad and Josef Hoffmann until 1922. He then moved to Paris, where he was active initially as a partner of Robert Mallet-Stevens and afterwards as an independent architect, garden designer, and publicist. Having designed houses nos. 67–68 at the Vienna model estate, he was summoned to Tehran by the Shah to work as an architect and city planner in 1933. Subsequently, he was active in London, Paris, and Saarbrücken (from 1937), before emigrating to the USA (1948), where he held a number of professorships. Guévrékian, who was of Persian Armenian origin, was a co-founder and general secretary of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and an important representative of the International Style.

 

The Wiener Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna and the Weissenhof housing estate in Stuttgart played a crucial role in the development of modernist architecture, particularly in the context of villas and experimental houses. The Wiener Werkbundsiedlung, built between 1930 and 1932, is considered one of the most important records of Modernism in Austria. It occupies a special place in the historical context and various forms of the council estates of the housing program in Vienna between 1918 and 1934, the period of so-called ‘Red Vienna’. The estate was built to provide affordable housing for the masses, reflecting the socially oriented building policies of the time. Both estates were designed by leading modern architects, including Austrian architects, and they played a significant role in promoting the modern way of life in Austria and around. The houses in the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung and the Weissenhof estate were designed to be functional, practical, and affordable, with an emphasis on simplicity and modern construction principles. The estates are a testament to the modern construction of that time and have had a lasting impact on the development of modern architecture particularely in Europe.