University of Applied Arts Vienna

From the Imperial Royal Arts and Crafts School to the "Angewandte" of Today

In the heart of Vienna, the capital of the Danube monarchy, the predecessor institution of the current University of Applied Arts, the Imperial Royal Arts and Crafts School, was founded in 1867. It was closely affiliated with the Imperial Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry (today the MAK), the first Arts and Crafts museum on the European continent. It was established in 1863 following the example of the South Kensington Museum in London, now the Victoria & Albert Museum, and was to serve as a collection of models for artists, industrialists, and the general public. At the time, early-industrialised England played a pioneer role in supporting a reformed Arts and Crafts movement in order to prevent its decline in the "Machine Age". In the spirit of Historicism, the aim was to make it possible, also in Vienna, to study the great styles of the past by example of Arts and Crafts objects in the museum and to set up a place of advanced education for designers and craftsmen with the Arts and Crafts School in Vienna. It should train artists and teachers in equal measure to serve the demands of the "art industry".

Heinrich von Ferstel, the architect of the museum building, was commissioned with the design for a separate building for the school. In 1877, the main building of our university, still in use to the day, was festively opened at its prominent location on the Ringstraße. In contrast to the Academy of Fine Arts, female students were allowed to study there from the very beginning. Gustav Klimt was but one of the numerous graduates from this era.

Along with the artistic development towards nature observation and free design, a break with work on the basis of historical precedents also took place at the Arts and Crafts School around the end of the nineteenth century. In 1899, Felician von Myrbach, a member of the newly-formed Viennese artists society Secession, was appointed as the director of the school, which was liberated from the administration of the museum in the following year. In Myrbach’s term as director, there were numerous reforms and teacher appointments that made the Arts and Crafts School into one of the birthplaces of Austrian Jugendstil and founded its reputation as an institution committed to the modern. As a member of the curatorial board, Otto Wagner played a significant role in the implementation of the reforms. The teaching staff at that time reads like a Who’s-Who of the today highly regarded "Vienna around 1900" with names such as Kolo Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Alfred Roller - who began his highly influential term as director in 1909 - and students with the like of Oskar Kokoschka.