Session V : Design and Environment

Ornament education by Franz Cizek (1865-1946) at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts culminated around 1920 in ‘Viennese Kineticism’ (c. 1920-1924). Characteristic of the Viennese kineticists’ work is a rhythmic accumulation of impressions of movement, incorporating expressive elements of Expressionism, Cubism and Futurism. Cizek’s progressive exercises were ultimately intended to be applied to everyday objects. Expressive art training in the classroom has been noted in previous studies to have similarities with the pedagogical methods of Johannes Itten. Through analysis of Cizek’s manuscripts, students’ works and the writings of contemporary critics, this study aims to reveal an aspect of Kineticism’s activity as an artistic practice focused on the human body, which is commonly associated with avant-garde performance and modern dance. Particular attention will be paid to Erika Giovanna Klien’s (1900-1957) unrealised mechanical stage design, The Kinetic Marionette Theatre (1923/26). Here Klien designed a constructivist stage backdrop and the mechanical movement of marionettes representing depersonalised figures and objects. In conclusion, this study seeks to demonstrate that, from the late 1910s onwards, the themes of machine and body that had been an issue in Futurism, Constructivism and the Bauhaus, permeated the ornamental class of the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. By focusing on the elements of motion and body in their graphic, plastic and stage design works, the study will shed new light on designers’ search for a new relationship between humans and objects, and explore an ideal truth of design in post-World War I Vienna.