Marcel Kammerer

Boyd Whyte, 1989, p. 100, pl. 3.

At the beginning of a new semester in October 1898 three students entered the architecture school of Otto Wagner. Emil Hoppe, Marcel Kammerer and Otto Schönthal were selected by the master himself who only wanted the best to attend his school. The chances of being admitted were 1 in 100 as Wagner wanted to educate a talented few rather than few talents (‘eine mehrwertige Minderheit statt einer minderwertigen Mehrheit’, Boyd Whyte, p. 10). Wagner (b. 1841) can be credited as the missing link between Historicism and the Modern Movement in Vienna, of which he is seen as the founding father, and it was an honour to work with him.  As Joseph August Lux remarked in his biography of Wagner: ‘He wasn’t just an extraordinary talent himself at drawing, but he also judged and chose his pupils and assistants according to their skills in this area.’ (op. cit., p. 33) The classrooms were adjacent to Wagner’s own offices and this resulted in a vibrant exchange of ideas. The three students collaborated on some of his most important projects including the Postal Savings Bank and the Church in Steinhof. 

It was the time of the height of the Secessionist movement, the beginnings of the Wiener Werkstätte, names like Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos announced the dawn of a new style in architecture and design. Amongst them Otto Wagner and his school contributed to the new movement whilst developing their own ideas. Wagner’s teachings had a great emphasis on the needs of the human being. Practicality and maximum use of space were at the forefront and in line with Gottfried Semper’s premise: ‘Art has only one master: requirement’ (op. cit., p. 14). Wagner wanted them to be conscious of architectural history but also to inspire their imagination. In 1902 he sent Hoppe, Kammerer and Schönthal, his three most promising students, on a Grand Tour to Italy where they spent their time sketching their surroundings and thus each developed a distinctive individual eye and style. After their return their drawings were published in the 1902 yearbook of the Wagner school. They spoke of a great interest in the use of the cube in architecture, simple surfaces devoid any ornament and the idea of the stepped plinth. Many of these features reminiscent of the Secessionist style, but the Wagner students rejected its populist appeal and sought their inspiration within the traditional European past.

Their individual development shows that Wagner did not impose a uniform workshop style. Wagner took inspiration from his three main students as he had done with previous assistants such as Olbrich and Hoffmann. Their relationship not only blossomed in the workshop, but also at home and invitations to social events were frequent.

In 1908 Kammerer, Hoppe and Schönthal worked with Gustav Klimt at the Kunstchau which had helped to make a name for themselves in the Viennese architectural circle. The next year they opened their own workshop. The success of their firm lay in their ability to combine Wagner’s ideas of modern architecture with their own understanding of developments within the architectural taste of Vienna. Despite the varied types of commissions and the collaboration of different artistic personalities, their oeuvre shows a consistent unity within its diversity. Their collaboration after many award winning contributions to competitions and to Viennese architecture came to a sudden end with the First World War. In later life Hoppe and Schönthal described their debt to Wagner with the words: ‘Our journey: It has brought us here from Otto Wagner. We were not just close to him as academics of the Wagner school, but also as colleagues and later as friends’ (op. cit., p. 9).

Architectural drawings by Kammerer, Hoppe and Schönthal and in the collections of the MOMA, New York, the Musée d'Orsay, Paris and the collections of the museums of Vienna.

For further reading, see: Otto Antonia Graf, Die Vergessene Wagnerschule, Vienna, 1969; Marco Pozzetto, Die Schule Otto Wagners 1894-1912, Vienna/Munich, 1979; Anthony Alofsin, When Buildings Speak, Chicago/London, 2006.

We are grateful to Paul Asenbaum for his help in cataloguing this group.