Josef Hoffmann grew up as the mayor’s son in the small market town of Pirntiz, Moravia. After hesitations concerning his career, he traveled to Vienna to attend the Academy of Fine Arts. He was awarded a fellowship to sketch in Italy, where he studied the classical and vernacular architecture of the countryside.
Returning to Vienna, Hoffmann established his reputation by exhibiting his architectural designs with the Viennese Secession, a group of artists who rejected the rigidity of academicism in favor of more modern designs. He became a professor at Vienna’s vocational school, where his teaching reflected the scope of his practice. In addition to architecture, Hoffmann continued his interest in the decorative arts, designing furniture, metal work, and a variety of objects such as: wallpaper, jewelry, textiles, book bindings, and posters. Many of his designs were produced by manufacturers for the Wiener Werkstätte, an enterprise he founded to create objects in keeping with the new design reforms. Even through ill health and the troubled period between the two world wars, he continued to work as an architect and remained an influential figure of worldwide repute.
In 1904, Hoffmann was commissioned to design the interior furnishings of the Purkersdorf Sanatorium near Vienna. The Sanatorium, a nursing home serving a well-to-do clientele, required furniture that would contribute to the well-being of its ailing patients. This reclining armchair, with its deep seat, was designed for comfort. Its soothing qualities were originally supplemented by cushions for both the seat and back. The latter was easily adjustable by a moveable rod that fit between the side pieces. Only a small number of these chairs were made in this two-toned finish, which makes it very rare.
Furniture made for comfort was an important concept in the second half of the 19th century, when the promoters of England’s Arts and Crafts Movement, such as William Morris (1834–1896), advocated good design as a means of improving the general quality of life. In the 1860s, Morris designed and marketed a chair that would become the basic template used by Hoffmann in his design of the Sitzmaschine in 1905.
Hoffmann transformed Morris’s popular chair into one of the more memorable objects of the time by creating a balance between rectangular planes and curved surfaces. He accomplished this through the bentwood technique, which entailed heating wood with steam so that it could be molded into shape. The process allowed for the partial arch of the rear frames, which indicate the range of motion of the adjustable back. Hoffmann created visual harmony by enclosing the main elements of the chair, the square seat and its rectangular back, with curved wooden legs. He continued this interplay in the chair’s details: the square and rectangular perforations in the sides and back of the chair are offset by the solid structural balls at the front of the chair and the functional domes on the back legs. These spheres, which strengthened the joints that held the chair together, would become a hallmark of Hoffmann’s style.
The Arts and Crafts Movement developed in the second half of the 19th century and lasted well into the 20th century. Artists, architects, and designers revived traditional craftsmanship techniques and revered the objects of preindustrial times. The movement was strongest in Britain and the United States, and can best be described as a reaction against industrialization. Hoffmann’s Sitzmaschine combined the beliefs and basic design tenets of the Arts and Crafts Movement with the visual sensibilities of the Wiener Werkstätte.
