The New Interior

How the architects of the Vienna Secession turned their principles inward, creating a new trend in interior design

In The New Interior, architectural historian Christopher Long examines how, over the course of the seven years preceding World War I, three leading Viennese modernists--Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos and Oskar Strnad--redefined the idea of the modern interior. While their building designs shaped Vienna's urban landscape and exemplified the famous Secession movement, these three architects also applied their eclectic principles to domestic interiors, or Wohnkultur (meaning "living" or "dwelling culture"). This book follows the progress of their debates and works, and how each designer sought to frame his own distinctive vision of living. The result was a split between the imperatives of style, function and livability that is still in play today.

Christopher Long is the Martin S. Kermacy Centennial Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin.