Architecture and Truth in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

This book examines one of the key notions of modernist architecture as it was formulated in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century. Providing a close analysis of four major buildings - Olbrich’s Secession Building, Hoffmann’s Purkersdorf Sanatorium, Wagner’s Postal Savings Bank, and Loos’s Michaelerplatz building - Leslie Topp investigates how ‘truth’ could be interpreted in a variety of ways, including truth to purpose, symbolist or ideal truth, and ethical notions of authenticity. Drawing on newly uncovered archival materials, Topp offers a new interpretation of familiar buildings that are shown to encompass utopianism, hyper-rationality, and subjectivism. She also explores the connections between Viennese modern architecture and contemporary painting, psychiatry, fashion, labor issues, and anti-Semitic politics.

• New archival research yielding original interpretations on 4 canonical buildings • First book to examine the notion of truth in architectures with attention to social and cultural context • Explores connections between architecture and painting, psychiatry, labor issues, banking, fashion and anti-Semitic politics

1. The Secession Building: multiple truths and modern art; 2. The Purkersdorf Sanatorium and the appearance of science; 3. The Postal Savings Bank: pragmatism and ‘inner truth’; 4. The Michaelerplatz Building, an honest mask.

\'Architecture and Truth in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna provides a welcome reading of how architects innovated in concert with institutions. It offers many insights.\' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians