Design for the Austrian Pavilion at the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne, 1914

After 1905, Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) began to show a preference for fluted square columns in his architectural designs. He was able to first realize those on a larger scale in 1911 when he was responsible for the design of the Austrian pavilion at the International Exhibition of Art of 1911 in Rome. In planning his next major exhibition building in 1914, Hoffmann also decided for a three-wing ground plan shaped like a capital letter U opening toward the front. The challenge was to countervail Peter Behrens’s (1868–1940) Festival Hall in the first exhibition of the German Werkbund in Cologne with a commensurately monumental building. He met it by using a propylaeum-like colonnade with stepped attics on the flanks that appear like pedestals for the gable fronts. The two sketches reflect the plans for the building in an already advanced stage.

IR, 2021