Pragmatic Modernism – In-Between Avantgarde and Mainstream

Text: Matthias Boeckl

Joseph Urban: Zedlitzhalle, Vienna, 1901

The „architecture of the Hagenbund” represents a field of activities on the margins of avantgarde and beyond which regularly supplied standard architecture with the essences of Modernist ideas. AS it was widely accepted it used to have more significant influence that the spectacular expressions of the Avantgarde the basic cultural innovations of which were only accepted several decades later as a rule. Thus the field of activities wedged between the Avantgarde and the mainstream actually played the role of mediation, which tends to be recognized and appreciated only recently. 1 This is the environment for which the Viennese Hagenbund provided an important platform for discussion which in turn has been used by Austrian, Czech, German and French architects.