By Lawrence Kreisman

Visitors to Vienna are enticed by visions of an imperial city resplendent with elaborate Neoclassical and Baroque palaces, churches and concert halls, and by the Ringstrasse, a grand boulevard that replaced the ancient city walls in the 1850s. Swept along by Johann Strauss waltzes, they flock to restaurants serving the city’s signature Wiener schnitzel, or by Sacher torte, a decadent chocolate dessert that originated at the Hotel Sacher but is easily found throughout the city. Even diehard dieters embrace the notion that everything tastes just a little bit better mit schlag (with whipped cream).

While the curvilinear patterns and stylized foliage and figures of French and Belgian Art Nouveau swept the world at the end of the 19th century (Central Europe’s own version was called Jugendstil—literally, “youth style”), German and Austrian masters were brewing their own variation. Seceding from the Künstlerhaus, Austria’s leading artists association, this group of artists combined the fluid lines of Art Nouveau with simple geometry, controlled and limited use of surface embellishments, and, ultimately, relied solely on form and materials to express buildings and interiors. … Subscribe to read the entire article.