Working group 4

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Parsch Church in Salzburg (1953–1956)
Pastoral care center Steyr-Ennsleiten (1959–1970)

Working group 4 was the name that four Austrian architects gave themselves as a group in 1950 in order to be able to submit joint projects to competitions, although (which was a prerequisite for submission) not all of its members were authorized as architects.

Members were at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the master class of Clemens Holzmeister student Friedrich Kurrent (born 1931), Johannes Spalt (1920-2010), Wilhelm Holzbauer (born 1930) and Otto Leitner (until 1953). Kurrent, Leitner and Holzbauer had previously attended the Salzburg trade school, which Spalt graduated a few years before them.

Otto Leitner left in 1953 to take part in the competition for the Museum of the City of Vienna on Karlsplatz as an individual in competition with the remaining group (neither of the two projects was successful). After Leitner left, Anna-Lülja Praun coined the unofficial name "the three-quarters" for the remaining group of three. Holzbauer spent the years 1956–1964 in the United States and then formally resigned from Working Group 4 in order to run his own architectural office. Kurrent and Spalt worked together the longest, until the early 1970s.

The drafts and ideas of Working Group 4 are considered milestones in Austrian architectural history. Over the course of two decades, the working group produced around 120 draft projects, around a dozen of which were implemented. The Parsch Parish Church of the Precious Blood in Salzburg is considered to be the group's early work . Many of the group's competition designs were praised, but ultimately not implemented. Especially with the client, the City of Vienna, hardly any projects were implemented.

In the invitation to an exhibition on Working Group 4, the Architekturzentrum Wien emphasized in 2010 that the group had “developed groundbreaking concepts from 1950–1970 that would provide important impetus for the following decades. The 'subliminal' effect of Working Group 4 to this day results from the apparent contrast between their conscious preoccupation with the past on the one hand and their avant-garde pioneering achievements with constructive-technical innovations on the other, making them an exciting phenomenon of their time.

Spalt and Kurrent handed over their archives to the Architekturzentrum Wien as “bequests” . They formed the basis for the research on the exhibition, which the center showed from March 4 to May 31, 2010 in its rooms in the Museumsquartier Vienna under the title x projects of the working group 4. Holzbauer, Kurrent, Spalt (1950–1970) .

literature

  • Architekturzentrum Wien (ed.): Working group 4. Wilhelm Holzbauer, Friedrich Kurrent, Johannes Spalt. 1950-1970 . With text contributions by Friedrich Achleitner , Gabriele Kaiser, Siegfried Mattl, Sonja Pisarik, Ute Waditschatka and Karin Wilhelm. Müry Salzmann Verlag, Salzburg 2010

Web links

Commons : Working Group 4  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry on Working Group 4 in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
  2. ↑ wien.orf.at: Look at the legendary architectural "boy group"
  3. ^ Press release of the Information Service of the City of Vienna on March 4, 2010
  4. ↑ nextroom: Working group 4