Josef Hoffmann

Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956), Austrian architect, who was a pioneer of modern architecture. He was a pupil of the architect Otto Wagner, whose rationalistic principles he carried toward greater refinement and elegance. Hoffmann's early designs, such as the flat-topped Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1903, Purkersdorf, Austria), emphasized squares and rectangles. His masterpiece, the Palais Stoclet (1911, Brussels), a large but delicately detailed building, anticipated the midcentury International Style. His later works—including villas, exhibition halls, and working-class housing—moved increasingly away from mainstream architectural developments toward an extreme purity and austerity. He was also interested in the relationship between crafts and architecture and was a cofounder in 1903 of the Wiener Werkstätte, a workshop that exerted a great influence on 20th-century industrial design.