DOI Artikel:
Wójcik, Agata: “Looking Back” – an artistic tendency in Polish interior design around 1910
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.54670#0073
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1. Henryk Uziembło, the design of the living room in the Adolf Oppenheim villa in Sosnowiec, 1906, phot, courtesy of the Suffczyński family
Michael Powolny, and Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill.
Around that time, multiplied, geometrized, tightly space-
filling floral ornaments appeared. Artists did not abandon
abstract geometric decoration, but rather gave them illu-
sionistic forms. Around 1915, the Vienna Workshops fur-
ther developed its decorative forms. This trend was start-
ed by a new, younger generation of designers who joined
the Vienna Workshops in the 1910s. They distanced them-
selves both from the tendencies prevalent at the begin-
nings of the Workshops and from functionalism. Design-
ers such as Dagobert Peche were not afraid to reinterpret
old styles, to exaggerate furniture proportions, to move
to the limits of logic, to combine contrasting shapes (for
example, rigid, geometrical forms with curves, the stiff-
ness of wood with the softness of quilted fabrics); they did
not emphasize furniture components, but blurred its bor-
ders, “wallpapered” it with multiplied motifs like a wall,
not spatial objects; they used lush ornamentation inspired
by ancient styles, and the decorations were stylized and
rescaled3.
See W. J. Schweiger, M. Brausch, Ch. Brandstätter, Wie-
ner Werkstätte. Art et artisanat 1903-1932, Bruxelles, 1983; W.J.
Schweiger, Art nouveau à Vienne. Le wiener Werkstätte, Paris,
Approximately at the same time, and happening like-
wise in Paris, designers searched for new inspirations.
These arrived with Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russ-
es, which performed in Paris from 1908. The scenography
and costumes, designed by Eeon Bakst and Aleksander
Benois, combined fascination with Middle Eastern, an-
cient, old Russian and Asian arts. Owning to this, such
shows as “Oriental Fantasies”, “Fire Bird”, and “Schehe-
razade” could reflect the fairytale-like atmosphere of the
imaginary Orient. The Ballets Russes exerted a great im-
pact on ladies’ fashion and Paul Poiret’s designs; it also
made a certain mark on interior design - intense colours
were more often used, and there also appeared a fash-
ion for private interiors filled with comfortable, low so-
fas and chaises longues, and for soft carpets, carelessly
tossed cushions, multi-coloured wallpapers and textiles,
1990; Dagobert Peche and the Wiener Werkstätte, ed. by P. Noe-
ver, H. Egger, New York-New Haven, 2002; C. Klein-Primavesi ,
Die Familie Primavesi. Kunst und Mode der Wiener Werkstätte,
Wien, 2006; G. Fahr-Becker, Wiener Werkstaette 1903-1932,
Köln, 2015; Yearning for Beauty. The Wiener Werkstätte and the
Stoclet House, ed. by P. Noever, V. Doufour, E.E Sekler, Ostifern-
Ruit, 2016.
1. Henryk Uziembło, the design of the living room in the Adolf Oppenheim villa in Sosnowiec, 1906, phot, courtesy of the Suffczyński family
Michael Powolny, and Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill.
Around that time, multiplied, geometrized, tightly space-
filling floral ornaments appeared. Artists did not abandon
abstract geometric decoration, but rather gave them illu-
sionistic forms. Around 1915, the Vienna Workshops fur-
ther developed its decorative forms. This trend was start-
ed by a new, younger generation of designers who joined
the Vienna Workshops in the 1910s. They distanced them-
selves both from the tendencies prevalent at the begin-
nings of the Workshops and from functionalism. Design-
ers such as Dagobert Peche were not afraid to reinterpret
old styles, to exaggerate furniture proportions, to move
to the limits of logic, to combine contrasting shapes (for
example, rigid, geometrical forms with curves, the stiff-
ness of wood with the softness of quilted fabrics); they did
not emphasize furniture components, but blurred its bor-
ders, “wallpapered” it with multiplied motifs like a wall,
not spatial objects; they used lush ornamentation inspired
by ancient styles, and the decorations were stylized and
rescaled3.
See W. J. Schweiger, M. Brausch, Ch. Brandstätter, Wie-
ner Werkstätte. Art et artisanat 1903-1932, Bruxelles, 1983; W.J.
Schweiger, Art nouveau à Vienne. Le wiener Werkstätte, Paris,
Approximately at the same time, and happening like-
wise in Paris, designers searched for new inspirations.
These arrived with Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russ-
es, which performed in Paris from 1908. The scenography
and costumes, designed by Eeon Bakst and Aleksander
Benois, combined fascination with Middle Eastern, an-
cient, old Russian and Asian arts. Owning to this, such
shows as “Oriental Fantasies”, “Fire Bird”, and “Schehe-
razade” could reflect the fairytale-like atmosphere of the
imaginary Orient. The Ballets Russes exerted a great im-
pact on ladies’ fashion and Paul Poiret’s designs; it also
made a certain mark on interior design - intense colours
were more often used, and there also appeared a fash-
ion for private interiors filled with comfortable, low so-
fas and chaises longues, and for soft carpets, carelessly
tossed cushions, multi-coloured wallpapers and textiles,
1990; Dagobert Peche and the Wiener Werkstätte, ed. by P. Noe-
ver, H. Egger, New York-New Haven, 2002; C. Klein-Primavesi ,
Die Familie Primavesi. Kunst und Mode der Wiener Werkstätte,
Wien, 2006; G. Fahr-Becker, Wiener Werkstaette 1903-1932,
Köln, 2015; Yearning for Beauty. The Wiener Werkstätte and the
Stoclet House, ed. by P. Noever, V. Doufour, E.E Sekler, Ostifern-
Ruit, 2016.