VENICE.- The exhibition features glass works by the main protagonists of the Viennese Modernism: Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Leopold Bauer, Otto Prutscher, Oskar Strnad, Oswald Haerdtl and Adolf Loos

With over 300 works, mostly from the collection of the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna and from private collections, the exhibition The Glass of the Architects. Vienna 1900-1937, curated by Rainald Franz, will run from April 18th to July 31st, 2016 on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, in Venice. The exhibition focuses on the birth of the art of modern glassmaking in Austria between 1900 and 1937, a very lively period spanning the years between the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the First Republic. It is the second exhibition organized by Le Stanze del Vetro - after the Glass from Finland in the Bischofberger Collection show - focussing on the international developments of glass in the 20th century. Le Stanze del Vetro is a long-term joint initiative of Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Pentagram Stiftung devoted to studying the art of glassmaking in the 20th and 21st centuries.

At the turn of the 20th century, a group of young architects and designers, students from the Vienna Academies and Schools of Architecture, developed a special interest in glassmaking. The so-called protagonists of the Viennese Modernism, internationally renowned today, such as Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956), Koloman Moser (1868-1918), Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867-1908), Leopold Bauer (1872-1938), Otto Prutscher (1880-1949), Oskar Strnad (1879-1935), Oswald Haerdtl (1899-1959) and Adolf Loos (1870-1933), launched the first pioneering developments of modern glassmaking, working in close connection with furnaces, in order to fully understand the medium of glass. The so-called Viennese Glass Style resulted from the fruitful collaboration between architects and designers, integrating innovation in the production process, with the help of Viennese glass masters and stores, such as J. & L. Lobmeyr and E. & L. Bakalowits, or through the interaction with Special Schools for Glassmaking, one in Steinschönau. This style was successfully incorporated in new projects such as the ‘Wiener Werkstätte’, an innovative Design-oriented production community that further developed the legacy of the Viennese Secession, ‘Arts and Crafts’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Art Nouveau’, ‘Jugendstil’ towards a new Classicism, or the 'Werkbund' movement, which aimed to glorify the production process and foster the collaboration between art, craft and industry.