The Pleasure Of 90-Years-Old Before And After Pictures, Or The Rise Of Upcycling And Zoning In Liane Zimbler’s Living Space

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In the 45th volume of the Innendekoration journal (1934), the well-known architect and interior designer Liane Zimbler published a modernization of a master bedroom in a prominent bourgeois apartment in Vienna. On a first glance, the project might look like a stylish interior commissioned by an upper class Viennese client with cash to spend. This desire for a fashionable interior where everything is selected and styled by the designer – even the client’s dressing gown – was mocked by Adolf Loos in his essay “The Poor Little Rich Man,” in which the client wanted the architect to “bring him art, art under his own roof, the money does matter!” Creating a gesamtkunstwerk, total work of art, by Otto Wagner and his pupils such as Josef Hoffmann was criticized by Loos on numerous occasions. For that reason, Loos’s own interior designs always had an eclectic nature and he substituted the aesthetics, the “total style,” with comfort. Was the modernization of a bedroom from 1910, which had a very expensive furnishing in a very detailed, stylish design, ‒ at that point only 23 years old – this case, a vanity to show off a social status, or was it a necessity that would make the lives of the residents easier and indeed more modern? And does Zimbler’s project reflect her original thinking?

Liane Zimbler; interior design; furniture design; upcycling; recycling; Vienna; 1930s

JACKSON, L.

23. 3. 2023

Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies (BIAAS); Austrian Cultural Forum (Washington D.C.).

Brno; New York

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https://viennatotheworld.com/