Page - 72 - in Demolished Modified Endangered - Modelling Austrian Architecture Of The 20th Century

72 WERKBUNDSIEDLUNG BY OSKAR STRNAD Year 1932 Status Demolished Material Paper Tape Scale 1:100 Model maker Barbara Gruber Oskar Strnad was born in 1879 in Vienna, where he later studied architecture at the Technical University. He began teaching at the Kunstgewerbe Schule in Vienna in 1909, and was later, in 1914, appointed professor of the architecture course there. Besides working as an architect and realising projects together with Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach, Strnad also worked as a stage designer for the Volkstheater of Vienna as well as for the famous director Max Reinhardt.1 Under the supervision of Josef Frank, the Werkbundsiedlung of Vienna was designed and built from 1930 to 1932. 31 architects planned 70 houses to be built in Lainz, a district on the outskirts of Vienna. The houses were intended as prototypes for modern living and were seen as alternative designs to the Superblocks, buildings that, at the time, were built for the working class by the Vienna government. The settlement was financially unsuccessful because the houses were too expensive for the working class and too small for those who could afford them.2 House number 13 and 14 were designed by Oskar Strnad. A small entrance area, a bathroom, a bedroom, a kitchen and a living room formed the ground floor of the building. The living room was connected to the garden via glass doors. The first floor consisted of a small bedroom, a master bedroom and a terrace. The floor plans of the two houses mirrored each other, and the gardens and terraces of both houses were separated by thin walls. In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, both houses were destroyed by a bomb.3 1 Architekturzentrum Wien (Ed.) (2016): Architektur in Österreich im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Zürich: Park Books. 422. 2 Architekturzentrum Wien (Ed.) (2016): Architektur in Österreich im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Zürich: Park Books. 328. 3 Nierhaus, Andreas; Orosz, Eva-Maria (Ed.) (2012): Werkbundsiedlung Wien 1932 – Ein Manifest des Neuen Wohnens. Wien: Müry Salzmann Verlag. 130.