1.
Josef Hofmann
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Josef Casimir Hofmann was a Polish American virtuoso pianist, composer, music teacher, and inventor. Josef Hofmann was born in Podgórze, in Austro-Hungarian Galicia in 1876, Hofmann was of partial Jewish ancestry. His father was the composer, conductor and pianist Kazimierz Hofmann, Anton Rubinstein took Hofmann as his only private student in 1892 and arranged the debut of his pupil in Hamburg, Germany in 1894. Hofmann toured and performed extensively over the next 50 years as one of the most celebrated pianists of the era, in 1913, he was presented with a set of keys to the city of St. Petersburg, Russia. As a composer, Hofmann published over one hundred works, many of those under the pseudonym Michel Dvorsky and he made the United States his base during World War I and became a US citizen in 1926. In 1924, he became the first head of the department at the inception of the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia. He was instrumental in recruiting illustrious musicians such as Efrem Zimbalist, Fritz Reiner, Marcella Sembrich, Hofmanns pupils included Jean Behrend, Abram Chasins, Abbey Simon, Shura Cherkassky, Ezra Rachlin, Nadia Reisenberg, and Harry Kaufman. While not a pupil, Jorge Bolet benefited from Hofmanns interest, in 1937, the 50th anniversary of his New York debut performance was celebrated with gala performances including a Golden Jubilee recital at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City. In 1938 he was forced to leave the Curtis Institute of Music over financial, in the years from 1939 to 1946, his artistic eminence deteriorated, in part due to family difficulties and alcoholism. In 1946, he gave his last recital at Carnegie Hall, home to his 151 appearances and he spent his last decade in Los Angeles in relative obscurity, working on inventions and keeping a steady correspondence with associates. As an inventor, Hofmann had over 70 patents, and his invention of pneumatic shock absorbers for cars, Hofmann died of pneumonia on February 16,1957 in Los Angeles. He was survived by four children and his second wife, Betty Short, had previously been one of his pupils. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, the Josef Hofmann Piano Competition, co-sponsored by the American Council for Polish Culture and the University of South Carolina Aiken was established in his honor in 1994. Anton Rubinstein heard the seven-year-old Hofmann play Beethovens C minor Piano Concerto in Warsaw, at that age, Hofmann gave concerts in Germany, France, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Great Britain. In 1887, an American tour was arranged and after three months of performances that included fifty recitals, seventeen of which were at the Metropolitan Opera House, yet soon after, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children stepped in, citing the boys fragile health. However, as per the contract that had paid Hofmann $10,000, the contract was rendered void by Alfred Corning Clark who donated $50,000 and, in turn, legally forbade Hofmann to perform in public until he turned 18 years old. The final segment of the tour was cancelled and the returned to Potsdam. This marked the end of Hofmanns child prodigy years, in 1892, Rubinstein accepted Hofmann as his only private pupil, the two meeting for 42 sessions in Dresdens Hotel dEurope
2.
Brtnice
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Brtnice is a town in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. The town consists of the centre, Brtnice, and 9 town districts named, Dolní Smrčné, Jestřebí, Komárovice, Malé, Panská Lhota, Přímělkov, Příseka, Střížov. The large ancestral and childhood house of the architect Josef Hoffmann is in the centre of the town, the architects great-grandfather Franz Hoffmann moved into it in the 1780s. From a young age, Hoffmann spent most of the year away from the house but would often return and his parents having died, he made subtle alterations to it in 1910–11, redecorating its interior and keeping much of the furnishings but also adding some of his own work. He and his sisters returned to it every summer until 1945, however, a plaque commemorating Hoffmann was placed on the house as early as 1970, and extensive work to strengthen the foundations and reinforce the vaults was done from 1974 to 1980. Following a 1992 exhibition in Brtnice on Hoffmanns work mounted by the town and MAK, from then on, an ambitious programme of refurbishing the building to Josef Hoffmanns design was carried out, this was completed in 2003. From 2006, the building has been administered by the Moravian Gallery in Brno, gustav Haloun Josef Hoffmann, Austrian architect Hermann of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich House of Waldstein Brtnice is twinned with, Orpund, Switzerland Municipal website
3.
Moravia
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Moravia is a historical country in the Czech Republic and one of the historical Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. Moravia has an area of over 22,348.87 km2 and about 3 million inhabitants, the statistics from 1921 states, that the whole area of Moravia including the enclaves in Silesia covers 22,623.41 km2. The people are historically named Moravians, a subgroup of Czechs, the land takes its name from the Morava river, which rises in the northern tip of the region and flows southward to the opposite end, being its major stream. Moravias largest city and historical capital is Brno, however before being sacked by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years War, though officially abolished by an administrative reform in 1949, Moravia is still commonly acknowledged as a specific land in the Czech Republic. Moravian people are aware of their Moravian identity and there is some rivalry between them and the Czechs from Bohemia. Moravia occupies most of the part of the Czech Republic. Moravian territory is naturally strongly determined, in fact, as the Morava river basin, with effect of mountains in the west and partly in the east. Moravia occupies a position in Central Europe. All the highlands in the west and east of part of Europe run west-east. Moravia borders Bohemia in the west, Lower Austria in the south, Slovakia in the southeast, Poland very shortly in the north and its natural boundary is formed by the Sudetes mountains in the north, the Carpathians in the east and the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands in the west. The Thaya river meanders along the border with Austria and the tripoint of Moravia, Austria and Slovakia is at the confluence of the Thaya, the northeast border with Silesia runs partly along the Moravice, Oder and Ostravice rivers. Between 1782–1850, Moravia also included a portion of the former province of Silesia – the Austrian Silesia. Geologically, Moravia covers an area between the Bohemian Massif and the Carpathians, and between the Danube basin and the North European Plain. Its core geomorphological features are three wide vales, namely the Dyje-Svratka Vale, the Upper Morava Vale and the Lower Morava Vale, the former two form the westernmost part of the Subcarpathia, the latter one is the northernmost part of the Vienna Basin. The vales surround the low range of Central Moravian Carpathians, the highest mountains of Moravia are situated on its northern border in Hrubý Jeseník, the highest peak is Praděd. Second highest are the Moravian-Silesian Beskids at the very east, with Smrk, the White Carpathians along the southeastern border rise up to 970 m at Velká Javořina. The spacious, but moderate Bohemian-Moravian Highlands on the west reach 837 m at Devět skal. The fluvial system of Moravia is very cohesive, as the border is similar to the watershed of the Morava river
4.
Austria-Hungary
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The union was a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and came into existence on 30 March 1867. Austria-Hungary consisted of two monarchies, and one region, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia under the Hungarian crown. It was ruled by the House of Habsburg, and constituted the last phase in the evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Following the 1867 reforms, the Austrian and the Hungarian states were co-equal, Foreign affairs and the military came under joint oversight, but all other governmental faculties were divided between respective states. Austria-Hungary was a state and one of the worlds great powers at the time. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, at 621,538 km2, the Empire built up the fourth-largest machine building industry of the world, after the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. After 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and civilian rule until it was annexed in 1908. The annexation of Bosnia also led to Islam being recognized as a state religion due to Bosnias Muslim population. Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I and it was already effectively dissolved by the time the military authorities signed the armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918. The realms full, official name was The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council, each enjoyed considerable sovereignty with only a few joint affairs. Certain regions, such as Polish Galicia within Cisleithania and Croatia within Transleithania, enjoyed autonomous status, the division between Austria and Hungary was so marked that there was no common citizenship, one was either an Austrian citizen or a Hungarian citizen, never both. This also meant that there were always separate Austrian and Hungarian passports, however, neither Austrian nor Hungarian passports were used in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia. Instead, the Kingdom issued its own passports which were written in Croatian and French and it is not known what kind of passports were used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was under the control of both Austria and Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary, the administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained largely untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire. Hungarys central government structures remained well separated from the Austrian imperial government, the country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary – located in Pressburg and later in Pest – and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna. The Hungarian government and Hungarian parliament were suspended after the Hungarian revolution of 1848, despite Austria and Hungary sharing a common currency, they were fiscally sovereign and independent entities. Since the beginnings of the union, the government of the Kingdom of Hungary could preserve its separated. After the revolution of 1848–1849, the Hungarian budget was amalgamated with the Austrian, from 1527 to 1851, the Kingdom of Hungary maintained its own customs controls, which separated her from the other parts of the Habsburg-ruled territories
5.
Vienna
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Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austrias primary city, with a population of about 1.8 million, and its cultural, economic and it is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin, Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city is located in the part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region, along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, apart from being regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy, Vienna is also said to be The City of Dreams because it was home to the worlds first psycho-analyst – Sigmund Freud. The citys roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city and it is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first for the worlds most liveable cities, between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne, Australia. Monocles 2015 Quality of Life Survey ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world to make a base within, the UN-Habitat has classified Vienna as being the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. Vienna regularly hosts urban planning conferences and is used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the worlds number-one destination for international congresses and it attracts over 3.7 million tourists a year. The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the name or the French Vienne. The etymology of the name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning forest stream, which produced the Old High German Uuenia. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech and Slovak names of the city, the name of the city in Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian and Ottoman Turkish has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic languages means the Danube River, evidence has been found of continuous habitation since 500 BC, when the site of Vienna on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north
6.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
7.
Austrians
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Austrians are a Germanic ethnic group and nation, native to Austria that share a common Austrian culture, Austrian descent and Austrian history. The English term Austrians was applied to the population of Habsburg Austria from the 17th or 18th century, subsequently, during the 19th century, it referred to the citizens of the Empire of Austria, and from 1867 until 1918 to the citizens of Cisleithania. In the closest sense, the term Austria originally referred to the historical March of Austria, historically, Austrians were regarded as ethnic Germans and viewed themselves as such. Austria was part of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Confederation until the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 which resulted in Prussia expelling Austria from the Confederation, thus, when Germany was founded as a nation-state in 1871, Austria was not a part of it. In 1867, Austria was reformed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the First Austrian Republic was founded in 1919. The Third Reich annexed Austria with the Anschluss in 1938, today, majority of Austrians do not identify as German. Austrians may be described either as a nationality or as a homogeneous Germanic ethnic group, the English word Austrian is a derivative of the proper name Austria, which is a latinization of Österreich, the German name for Austria. This word is derived from Ostarrîchi, which first appears in 996 and this, in turn, is probably a translation of the Latin Marcha Orientalis, which means eastern borderland. It was a margraviate of the Duchy of Bavaria, ruled by the House of Babenberg from AD976, during the 12th century, the Marcha Orientalis under the Babenbergs became independent of Bavaria. What is today known as Lower Austria corresponds to the Marcha Orientalis, the territory of what is today Austria in the Roman era was divided into Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia. Noricum was a Celtic kingdom, while the Pannonii were of Illyrian stock, the Raetians were an ancient alpine people probably akin to the Etruscans. During the Migration period, these territories were settled by the Bavarians and other Germanic groups in the west, in the 8th century, the former territories of Raetia and Noricum fell under Carolingian rule, and were divided into the duchies of Swabia, Bavaria and Carinthia. Pannonia until the end of the 8th century was part of the Avar Khaganate, the East March during the 9th century was the boundary region separating East Francia from the Avars and the Magyars. The site of Vienna had been settled since Celtic times, the various populations of these territories were not unified under the single name of Austrians before the early modern period. The term Austrian in these times was used for identifying subjects of the Domus Austriae, although not formally a united state, the lands ruled by the Habsburgs would sometimes be known by the name Austria. In reality they remained a disparate range of states, most of which were part of the complex network of states that was the Holy Roman Empire. However, the half of the 18th century saw an increasingly centralised state begin to develop under the regency of Maria Theresa of Austria. After the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon, the emperor Franz II formally founded the Austrian Empire in 1804 and these non-Hungarian lands were not officially called the Austrian Empire
8.
Sanatorium Purkersdorf
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The Sanatorium Purkersdorf was built as a sanatorium in Purkersdorf, Wien-Umgebung, Lower Austria. It was built in 1904-05 by the architect Josef Hoffmann for the industrialist Victor Zuckerkandl and is an example of the style of the Viennese Secession in architecture. Zuckerkandl, the director of the Silesian Iron Work of Gliwice. It was acquired as a spa together with cure-park. Since the 19th Century a mineral spring bubbled on the property, the original furnishing were made by the Wiener Werkstätte with which the architect Hoffmann was involved. The ownership and management of the sanatorium were lost in the course of the Aryanization of 1938, the sanitorium was more of a hotel than hospital and turned into a social and artistic venue of Viennese society. Among the treatments were mineral baths, physical therapies, therapeutic massages, convalescence cases and mental illnesses were especially treated in the upper classes. Through silence, light and air, and the rationality of the facility with ornament reduced to a minimum, cures of the new illnesses such as nervousness, and hysteria were sought. Also provided were reading rooms, a playroom for card games, table tennis, billiard, in 1926, against the will of Josef Hoffmann, the architect Leopold Bauer heightened the building with another floor, which impaired the original artistic conception. After the death Victor Zuckerkandls in 1927 the sanitarium was inherited to his nephews, from 1930, a son-in-law continued the business with little success. Trude Zuckerkandl tried in 1938 to restore the ailing business, before an economic recuperation, Austrias Anschluss took place and in March 1938 was the Aryanization. Towards the end of World War II, the served as a military hospital. In 1945, it was requisitioned by the Russian occupying forces, the Protestant church acquired the building 1952 and rebuilt it as hospital. A part of the facility was used as nursing home, the old pavilions had to be rebuilt because of dilapidation. The business was discontinued in the year 1975, the buildings and park remained long unused and fell into disrepair. In 1995 an external renovation took place, whereby the upper floor added by Leopold Bauer was removed and the original appearance was restored. On the inside cultural festivities took place and in the years 1996 to 2001 Paulus Mankers Alma – A Show biz ans Ende about the life of the Alma Mahler-Werfel was filmed there. The necessary interior renovation was carried out in the year 2003
9.
Stoclet Palace
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The Stoclet Palace is a mansion in Brussels, Belgium. It was built by architect Josef Hoffmann for banker and art lover Adolphe Stoclet between 1905 and 1911 and is located in the Sint-Pieters-Woluwe / Woluwe-Saint-Pierre area of Brussels, considered Hoffmans masterpiece, the Stoclets house is one of the most refined and luxurious private houses of the twentieth century. The mansion is occupied by the Stoclet family and is not open to visitors. It was designated as a heritage site by UNESCO in June 2009. The Stoclet Palace was commissioned by Adolphe Stoclet, a wealthy industrialist and he chose 35-year-old Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann, a founder member of the Vienna Secession, a radical group of designers and artists established in 1897. Hoffman abandoned fashions and styles of the past and produced a building that is a compilation of rectangular blocks, underlined by exaggerated lines. Regimented upright balustrades line the balconies, touched with Art Nouveau ornamentation, the Stoclet Palace was the first residential project for the Wiener Werkstätte, co-founded by Hoffman in 1903. Josef Hoffman and his colleagues designed every aspect of the mansion, down to the door handles, the interior is as spartan as the exterior, with upright geometric furniture and minimal clutter. This was an approach, presenting a reformed interior where function dictated form. The interior of the building is decorated with paneling and artworks, including mosaic friezes by Gustav Klimt. The integration of architects, artists, and artisans makes Stoclet Palace an example of a Gesamtkunstwerk, Klimts sketches for the dining room are in the permanent collection of the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna. The Stoclet Palace is on Avenue de Tervueren in the municipality of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, the building was designed to appear from the road as a stately city mansion. Adolphe Stoclet died in 1949, and the house was inherited by his daughter-in-law Annie Stoclet, following Annies death in 2002, the house was inherited by her four daughters. The Palais Stoclet is currently not open to the public, press reports have described the house as being looked after by two caretakers while there is dissension between Stoclets four granddaughters as to the future of the Palais Stoclet. Catalog of images of the Stoclet Palace, royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgiums Artistic Heritage. Exhibition of Klimts work for Stoclet House at MAK. at Article and large selection of pictures of the Stoclet Palace
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Quotations related to Josef Hoffmann at Wikiquote
Media related to Josef Hoffmann at Wikimedia Commons
