Design for a Hall, foreshortened view, c. 1905

Emil Pirchan (1884–1957) studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts from 1903 to 1906. Studying alongside Pirchan in Otto Wagner’s (1841–1918) elite architectural class were Franz Gessner (1879–1975) and Karl Ehn (1884–1959), two eminent protagonists of social municipal housing in Vienna in the 1920s and 30s. Wagner endeavored to awaken a maximum of creative imagination in his students, without, however, losing sight of practical considerations. While Pirchan’s projects were not especially daring, he was a proponent of a holistic approach to architecture in keeping with the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or universal work of art, espoused by Viennese Jugendstil. This meant that he felt responsible – beyond structural matters – for all the details of a building’s interior decoration. The skills thus acquired would later prove highly useful for his work as a set designer.

IR, 2021