Josef Hoffmann: Sanatorium Purkersdorf By Gunter Breckner - Rare in Doylestown, PA

A very rare treasure for connoisseurs of Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Secession), which Hoffmann founded with his fellow artists, such as Gustav Klimt, in the late 19th century. This book is an in-depth examination of the Sanatorium Purkersdorf, a spa that the Austrian architect Hoffmann designed near Vienna in [removed phone] and filled with the Secession's geometric, practical, yet strikingly beautiful chairs, benches, tables, chests, lighting fixtures, and other furnishings. It was the first expression of the Secession's concept of a "Gesamtkunstwerk" (unified work of art) and a forerunner to the streamlined modern design that was to sweep Europe and the US in the 1920s and '30s. Published by Galerie Metropol, which was a legendary purveyor of Secession decorative arts in New York and Vienna in the 1980s (and which lent some of its pieces to the landmark Museum of Modern Art exhibition "Vienna 1900" in 1986). Text in German and English. Very good condition overall. Dust jacket