Arthur of Scala

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Arthur von Scala (born December 14, 1845 in Vienna ; † September 26, 1909 in Lana near Meran , South Tyrol ) was an Austrian engineer, economist and museum official.

Life

Arthur von Scala was the son of an official in the Treasury. His brothers were the ancient historian Rudolf von Scala (1860–1919) and the director of the Villach operations management of the kk Austrian State Railways Theodor von Scala (1847–1896). He graduated from secondary school in Vienna and studied at the polytechnic and at the commercial academy from 1862–63 . He then undertook extensive trips to the industrial areas of Western Europe, especially England, where he studied economics and languages ​​and got to know the English lifestyle, which he loved throughout his life. Commissioned by the Ministry of Trade and Economics In 1867 he was a reporter on the textile industry at the Paris World Exhibition , after which he took part as an expert on the textile industry in the First Austro-Hungarian East Asia Expedition (fully Austro-Hungarian expedition to India , China , Siam and Japan , 1868–1871 ). At the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873 he was secretary of the Committee for the Orient and East Asia . In 1875 he became Secretary of the Commerce Department and Director of the newly founded Oriental Museum (from 1886: Commerce Museum ). After a six-month stay in India, he was appointed inspector of the applied arts schools in 1897 and, as successor to Bruno Bucher (1826–1899), director of the Imperial and Royal Austrian Museum for Art and Industry . In 1906 he was able to get the construction started on the new museum wing before he gradually gave up official duties due to illness. In 1909 he retired as a councilor and retired to South Tyrol, where he died a little later. Scala was the recipient of several prestigious awards: 1871 Knight's Cross, 1907 Commander's Cross with the star of the Franz Joseph Order , 1901 Leopold Order .

Arthur von Scala was buried on September 28, 1909 in the cemetery of Untermais near Merano .

Act

In Scala's work, the passion for collecting arts and crafts, inherited from his father, was combined with economic ambitions, an interest in oriental research and an ardent enthusiasm for the contemporary English lifestyle, especially the Arts and Crafts movement . As the founding director of the Oriental Museum, he established the Asian Collection (which was incorporated into the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry in 1908), initiated relevant exhibitions and scientific publications and showed modern English furniture for the first time in Vienna.

As head of the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, he continued the Anglophile direction, broke with the prevailing traditions of historicism and, against the fierce resistance of established forces, reformed the domestic arts and crafts based on the English model, enjoying the support of state authorities, so that his reforms got semi-official character. To revitalize the arts and crafts, he organized a series of historical exhibitions with accompanying publications, including 1899, 1902 and 1905 Japanese colored woodcuts, 1903 book covers, 1904 Old Viennese porcelain, 1905 Austrian folk art, 1906 lace and portraits, 1907 metalwork.

By drawing on artists such as Otto Wagner , Felician von Myrbach , Kolo Moser , Arthur Strasser , Josef Hoffmann , Alfred Roller and others to work at the museum and the attached arts and crafts school (today University of Applied Arts, Vienna ), Scala became a pioneer of the Art Nouveau in Vienna. His methodological principle of sticking to the faithful copying of English furniture, however, gradually alienated him from the Vienna Secession and the Wiener Werkstätte , where efforts were made to create an independent vocabulary of forms after the initial international impulses.

Fonts

  • Julius Böhm, - (Red. 1875–1885): Austrian monthly for the Orient . Austrian Orient and Overseas Society , Vienna 1875–1918, ZDB -ID 520152-4 . - ( Online at ANNO ).
  • New economic studies on Constantinople and the surrounding area , 1882
  • Oriental pottery , 1884
  • Oriental carpets , 1891; 1908
  • Collection of images of Turkish, Arabic, Persian and Indian metal objects , 1895
  • - (Red., Ed.): Arts and crafts. Monthly magazine of the kk Austrian Museum for Art and Industry . Artaria, Vienna 1898-1924, ZDB -ID 2712774-6 . - Online at MAK - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts .
  • Exhibition of kk arts and crafts schools at the St. Louis World's Fair , 1904

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ † Theodor v. Scala. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Abendblatt, No. 11375/1896, April 24, 1896, p. 2, top center. (Online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp
  2. ↑ † Councilor v. Scala. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Afternoon Sheet, No. 16201/1909, September 27, 1909, p. 6, bottom right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  3. ↑ Karl von Scherzer : For the introduction . In: - (Ed.): Expert reports on the Austro-Hungarian expedition to Siam, China and Japan . Maier, Stuttgart 1872, p. IV. - Text online .
  4. ↑ Austrian Library Association .
  5. ↑ a b Fritz Minkus: On the change of direction in the Imperial and Royal Austrian Museum for Art and Industry . In: Arts and Crafts. Journal of the Bavarian Arts and Crafts Association in Munich . Volume 47.1897, pp. 59 ff. - Text online .
  6. ↑ Arthur of Scala † . In: Arts and Crafts. Monthly publication of the kk Austrian Museum for Art and Industry 12, 10, 1909, pp. 544–545.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Scala, Arthur of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian engineer, economist and museum administrator
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1845
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1909
Place of death Lana near Merano