Felix Augenfeld

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Felix Augenfeld (born January 10, 1893 in Vienna , † July 21, 1984 in New York ) was an Austrian - American architect , interior designer, set designer and designer . He represented a modern conception of living for everyone, planned and built houses, designed furniture, equipped exhibition rooms and wrote specialist publications and books on the subject.

Life

Felix Augenfeld came from a Jewish family in Vienna . His parents were the businessman Isidor Augenfeld († 1936) and his wife Paula Augenfeld, née Bendiener, († 1946). They had two sons. The younger brother Alois Augenfeld (1865–1936) was also an architect.

After primary school and passing the Matura at the KK Staatsrealschule Schottenbastei in Vienna, he began to study architecture and spatial planning at the Technical University of Vienna in 1910 . In 1914 he was drafted into the war and in 1915 he was taken prisoner of war in Italy. In 1919 he resumed his studies and completed it in 1920 with a diploma thesis on Viennese architecture and interior design at the Technical University of Vienna. Until 1921 he worked as an intern in Friedrich Mahler's architectural office in Vienna. In 1926 he received the diploma as a civil architect.

In 1922 he founded his own office together with Karl Hofmann, which existed until the two architects emigrated in 1938. In 1938 Augenfeld emigrated to London , where he worked as a freelance architect and designer for private clients until 1939. He moved to the United States at the end of 1939 and was licensed as an architect for New York State in 1940. In 1941 he opened his own architectural office in New York. In 1966 he married the designer Anna Epstein-Gutmann, who was also from Vienna . Although Augenfeld had numerous contacts with former compatriots and was also respected and respected by American clients, he could not come to terms with the forced exile until his death. He died in New York at the age of 91.

Works and projects (excerpt)

  • Gottlieb Schnabel office building, Vienna, 1924
  • House of Heaven, Brno, 1925
  • Municipal housing in Pragerstraße 56–58, Vienna, 1925/26
  • Office building of the Gottlieb Schnabel spinning and weaving mill, Neupaka (Czechoslovakia), 1926
  • Draft of the League of Nations Palais des Nations in Geneva (together with Oskar Strnad and Fritz Epstein), 1927
  • Austria pavilion at the Brussels World Exhibition, 1935
  • Exhibition design for the Society of Ceramic Artists, Museum of National History, New York, 1940
  • 1946-1970s numerous furniture designs and home furnishings
  • Design of the “Thonet Show Rooms”, 1953 and 1960
  • Buttinger Library and Townhouse, New York, 1956/58
  • The main part of his furniture designs were sideboards, secretaries and built-in cupboards. Multifunctional furniture played a major role, especially when furnishing individual living rooms. Augenfeld often used differently structured wood as a material, often combined with tubular steel.

Fonts (selection)

  • Viennese architecture and interior design , diploma thesis, Vienna 1920.
  • True modernity , in: Interior decoration, May 1929, p. 216.
  • The living space, beyond fashion. Thoughts on interior design , in: Die Bühne, March 1935, p. 34 f.
  • Problems of Style , in: Decoration, July 1936, p. 24.
  • Modern Austria. Personalities and Style , in: The Architectural Review, April 1938, pp. 165-174.
  • Two Identical New York Apartments Have Their Faces Lifted , in: Pencil Points, Vol. 25, December 1944, pp. 63-67.
  • Park Avenue Penthouse. Customs Furnishings Promote the Success of a Bachelor , in: Interiors, Vol. 108, June 1949.
  • Memories of Adolf Loos , in: Bauwelt, 72/1981, p. 1972.

Exhibitions

  • 1930: Werkbund exhibition in Vienna
  • 1936: "Modern furniture in private ownership", exhibition in the Hagenbund , Vienna
  • 1995: Visionaries and displaced persons , Kunsthalle Wien

Design and drafts by Felix Augenfeld can be found today in:

literature

  • U. Prokop:  Augenfeld, Felix . In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 . 2nd revised edition (online only).
  • Matthias Boeckl: Limited options. Austrian architects in the USA 1938–45 , in: Yearbook of the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance , Vienna 1992, pp. 132–156

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Eyes field, Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-American architect, interior designer, set designer and designer
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 1984
Place of death New York City