The Modern Interior

(Wang) #1

original artworks by Gustav Klimt, that it was almost impossible to dis-


tinguish between the container and the contained. Hoffmann acted as the


choreographer of the whole ensemble, commissioning many of his col-


leagues to create items for it as well as designing many of them himself,


including the silverware, porcelain and glassware. In the sitting area in


the house depicted, the texture of the marble used for the walls almost


merges with the pattern on the fabric used to upholster the chairs. The


vases of flowers and the statue on a plinth serve to complete the artistry


of that rich interior.


In addition to working on many residential projects for clients, like


his contemporaries Hoffmann also designed for the commercial sphere.


In 1900 he created a striking rectilinear interior for a barber’s shop in


Vienna, demonstrating that men could also be pampered in fashionable


spaces and become part of modish display. In 1903 , with Koloman Moser,


the same architect-decorator designed a dramatic, rectilinear reception


space, complete with a table, high-backed chairs and flowers, for the salon


of the Flöge sisters. In the same year the two of them also created an inter -


ior for the Wiener Werkstätte’s showroom in Neustiftgasse in Vienna.


While the impetus for the New Interior undoubtedly began in the


domestic context, its public arena manifestations were not afterthoughts


but conceived, rather, as continuous spaces in the same modern world.


Mirroring to a significant extent the exodus of middle-class women from


the home into the commercial sphere in that period, the New Interior


was ‘at home’ in the commercial and cultural spaces of the metropolis,


especially in those locations in which women could increasingly be found


entertaining themselves and shopping. Linked to fashionable taste and


emphasizing the commodity, the New Interior undoubtedly posed less of


a threat in those temporary spaces as it could be experienced by itinerant


women, in their capacity as flâneusesin the city, as fleeting encounters. Its


fashionableness and desirability were heightened by its presence in pub-


lic spaces and it encouraged women to become consumers of its small


component parts – ceramics, glass objects, jewellery, even small pieces of


furniture – which could easily be added to existing domestic spaces


without transforming them beyond recognition.


A few hotels embraced the fashionable interior styles of their day,


among them the Hotel Metropole in Brussels ( 1904 ), the interior of which


was created by Alban Chambon; the Palace Hotel also in Brussels ( 1904 );


the Palace in Lucerne ( 1906 ); and the Hotel and Pension Eden au Lac


in Zurich ( 1909 ).^12 Other hotels, among them the Grand in Melbourne, 49

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