Page - 56 - in Demolished Modified Endangered - Modelling Austrian Architecture Of The 20th Century

56 HAUS BEER BY JOSEF FRANK & OSKAR WLACH Year 1931 Status Endangered Material Foamboard Pins Scale 1:50 Model maker Irnes Faktic Hannes Stockklauser In 1929, Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach were commissioned to design a villa in the 13th district of Vienna by the factory owner Julius Beer. The house was built from 1929 to 1931 and is located at Wenzgasse 12. The floor plan of the house can be seen as an advancement of the Raumplan by Adolf Loos. A generation after Loos, architects Frank and Wlach planned a house, where the main rooms were placed on different levels and were connected to the garden with large glazed windows, terraces and balconies. The ground floor consists of the dining room and the main hall. The living room is raised above ground floor level by a metre, and some steps lead down to the main hall. The mezzanine floor contains a gallery, a music room and a library. The private rooms are located on the second and third floor. The facade of the building is based on a proportionally devised system of squares and their segments, and features openings of different sizes at asymmetrical positions on the building.1 The main, unique feature of the house is the partially spiral, partially straight staircase that is based in the centre of the house, which has landings on various levels and twists and turns in different directions in order to connect the main rooms of the house to each other. The house is a combination of large connected rooms, oversized windows, curved walls, staircases, columns and beams. The walls of the house were painted white, and, as was unusual at the time, the interior furniture was not inbuilt, or specifically made for the building, but instead free- standing.2 The scale model is a cross section made of foam board and pins and it shows the main staircase connecting the main hall, the living room, the gallery and the private rooms. 1 Achleitner, Friedrich (1995): Österreichische Architektur im 20. Jahrhundert: Ein Führer in vier Bänden. Band III/2 Wien: 13.-18. Bezirk. Salzburg, Wien: Residenz Verlag. 65-66. 2 Weissenbacher, Gerhard (2000): In Hietzing gebaut: Architektur und Geschichte eines Wiener Bezirkes. Band II. Wien: Verlag Holzhausen. 224-227.