Bakalowits
| Bakalowits Licht Design GmbH
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|---|---|
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1845 |
| Seat |
Vienna , Austria
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| management | Friedhelm Bakalowits |
| Branch | Light , glassware |
| Website | www.Bakalowits.com |
Bakalowits is a glass manufacturing company in Vienna's 6th district of Mariahilf with its headquarters at Gumpendorfer Strasse 32 and a workshop at Fillgradergasse 12-14. The company is a former purveyor to the court .
history
Elias Bakalowits (* 1810 in Vukovar; † 1861 in Vienna) was the son of a master furrier in Vukovar . The wealthy family lost their fortune in 1811, at the end of the 1820s the young Bakalowits went on a journey and finally arrived as a glazier journeyman on February 12, 1835 in Vienna , the capital of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . He graduated from February 20, 1835 an apprenticeship in Glaziers operating Ignaz Maeyr on the Tuchlauben and worked after its completion in glassware shop Louis Damiani. During this time his first - first business and later friendly - contacts with Ludwig Lobmeyr fell . Bakalowits finally went into business for himself and on October 13, 1845 opened his own glassworks and glassware shop at Hohen Markt 515. He married Therese Wieninger vom Hundsthurm, a sister-in-law of Franz Sacher , on July 31, 1849 in the Margarethen Church . With their help, he was able to open a new, larger shop at Hohen Markt 5 (corner of Tuchlauben) in 1855. The couple had six children. The eldest son, Ludwig Johann Bakalowits, was born on May 30, 1850. Godfather was Mr. Ludwig Damiani. The sixth child (Rudolf Franz Bakalowits) was born on July 25, 1859. Elias Bakalowits died of blood poisoning on April 9, 1861 . At that time, Ludwig Johann Bakalowits was just 11 years old. The widow Therese had to take over the business and at the same time raise her children before her eldest son started the business in 1865 at the age of 15. The need for equipment during the founding period brought the company, which continued to bear the name of its founder, many orders. Bakalowits equipped many Ringstrasse palaces with lighting fixtures, and a collaboration with the architect Theophil von Hansen came about. Due to its commercial success, the company was able to move into a new address in the Thonet store at Kärntner Strasse 16. Bakalowits maintained business relationships with the glass manufacturers Winterberg , Eleonorenhain and Marschendorf in Bohemia from 1870 at the latest , from which additional raw material was obtained. The grinding, painting and engraving work continued in Vienna.
In 1882 Therese Bakalowits brought her son Ludwig into the management of the company, which from then on was called E. Bakalowits Sons . Ludwig Bakalowits had attended a business school, but had to do a glass apprenticeship after the death of his father. He married Sophie Leitner .
Ludwig Bakalowits, an art-loving person, was on friendly terms with the artists who provided him with designs. With the emergence of Viennese Art Nouveau , the collaboration deepened. In 1883, Ludwig Bakalowits was a founding member of the Vienna Arts and Crafts Association and the Vienna Secession . Koloman Moser , Josef Hoffmann , Otto Prutscher , Otto Wagner , Joseph Maria Olbrich and other well-known artists have now designed for the Bakalowits company. The majority of the products were now manufactured in Bohemia, and the collaboration was expanded to include the Mariannenhütte , Klostermühle and Lötz glassworks .
Starting from the original glassware segment, from 1880 production was increasingly expanded to include lamps and luminaires (such as crystal chandeliers ). The advisory work of Rudolf Bakalowits, Daniel Bakalowits' youngest brother, proved helpful in this area. The former was a student of Oswald Haerdtls and later became professor of architecture in Graz. Despite his open-mindedness towards the new art movements, Bakalowits also remained true to tradition: He had a glass service of 500 pieces made for Prince Liechtenstein , which they presented to Prince Lobkowitz .
Ludwig Bakalowits applied for the title of imperial purveyor to the court in 1886. At that time he was already exporting to Belgium and England, but also to America and Asia. In addition, the company placed orders for Empress Elisabeth , Crown Prince Rudolf , Archduke Karl Ludwig and the Hofburg . It also supplied the courts of Saxony, Sweden and Serbia. In 1892 Bakalowits was finally appointed supplier to the imperial and royal court and received a lighting contract for the Neue Burg and the Redoutensaal tract of the Hofburg in Vienna. Ludwig Bakalowits' brother Gustav joined the company.
In 1900 Bakalowits exhibited his crystal chandeliers at the World's Fair in Paris , where he won a bronze medal. Further exhibitions followed in St. Petersburg , London , Geneva and Turin . When the old Thonet house was demolished in 1912, Bakalowits moved to Spiegelgasse 3.
The First World War and the collapse of the monarchy in 1918 brought Bakalowit's hard times. In 1928 he patented crystal chandeliers and technical drawings. The company was hit by the global economic crisis, but it was able to hold its own with the trade in glass, porcelain , silver and foreign trade. During the Second World War , the shop had to close in 1943. Valuable goods were walled in in the cellar, and E. Braun & Co. could continue to sell them in the cellar .
After the war, the company received orders from the federal states to rebuild the parliament building , the Vienna State Opera , the Burgtheater , the Vienna City Hall , St. Stephen's Cathedral and other buildings.
In 1959 Friedhelm Bakalowits joined the company. From 1960 the company began to work with architects from the Middle and Far East: u. a. the Kuwait International Conference Center for the Islamic Conference was equipped in Kuwait . Another important order was the delivery of what was then the world's largest chandelier for the Parliament building in Belgrade . One of their long-lasting designs in the style of the Sputnik lamps dates from the 1960s. It bears the name Miracle and consists of a centrally seated spheroid made of gold, from which cylindrical crystal rods protrude at all angles.
After a contract for the Metropolitan Opera in New York was lost to the competition Lobmeyr, Bakalowits received one in return for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC
The company has struggled with unlicensed copies of its products in the People's Republic of China since the 1990s, resulting in significant business losses. With an additional banking crisis in Russia in 1998, the branch in Moscow had to be closed and the company went bankrupt.
In 2001 the company was downsized and restructured into a GmbH. The company recently received further orders for the reconstruction of Bratislava Castle , for which several chandeliers were made. In addition to the manufacture of chandeliers, their repair and renovation are also important business areas of the Bakalowits company.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Aenghus Chisholme: The best things in life begin with the letter B . Angus Chisholm, 2017, ISBN 0-98727-207-1 , p. 172.
- ^ Two designer lamps: 1960s, Bakalowits company, Vienna . In: ZDF , Bares für Rares from October 22, 2018.
- ^ A b Sara Gross: Bakalowits: Big business with old chandeliers. Die Presse , July 11, 2010, accessed on July 11, 2010 (The former kuk chandelier maker Bakalowits has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and is now returning to its roots by furnishing a Habsburg residence.).
- ^ Franz Gansrigler: Leuchten-Bakalowits is fighting against a bad order situation. WirtschaftsBlatt , April 8, 1997, archived from the original on August 15, 2007 ; accessed on March 28, 2009 (Far East orders from the Viennese company Bakalowits have been stagnating for more than three months. Reason: The Chinese are copying the parade lights.): "Friedl Bakalowits:" With our European legal concept, we do not achieve much in China ""
- ↑ Harry Kain: News from the Phoenix Department from the Ashes. Der Standard , January 9, 2002, accessed on March 28, 2009 (- Bakalowits Licht Design GmbH (FN 216161i) was founded in Vienna-Mariahilf on November 28).
literature
- Ingrid Haslinger: Customer - Kaiser. The story of the former imperial and royal purveyors . Schroll, Vienna 1996. ISBN 3-85202-129-4
- Waltraud Neuwirth : The Art Nouveau glass . Prestel Verlag, Munich 1982. ISBN 978-3-7913-0049-8
Web links
- Bakalowits website
- Entry on Bakalowits in the Austria Forum (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
- Bakalowits & Sons (Austrian). In: artnet
Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 56.1 " N , 16 ° 21 ′ 29.3" E