The famous enterprise, also named: Vienna Workshop, Wiener Werkstatte, Wiener Werkstätte, Wiener Werkstaetten, evolved from the Vienna Secession, founded in 1897 as a progressive alliance of artists and designers.
From the start, the Secession had placed special emphasis on the applied arts, and its1900 exhibition surveying the work of contemporary European design workshops prompted the young architect Josef Hoffmann and his artist friend Koloman Moser to consider establishing a similar enterprise in Austria.
Finally in 1903, with backing from the industrialist Fritz Wärndorfer, the Wiener Werkstätte saw the light of day. From three small rooms, it soon expanded to fill a three-story building with separate, specially designed facilities for metalwork, leatherwork, bookbinding, woodworking and a paint shop.

The undertaking "WIENER WERKSTAETTE" (Wiener Werkstatte, Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna Workshop) had a clear aim: to make all facets of human life into one unified work of art.
This began with the creation of - for that time extraordinarily - advanced working conditions for the craftsmen, and it ended with the wish to create everything entirely anew, whether or not it was needed for everyday use or should act as decoration.
It was also decided only to approve objects of outstanding individuality and beauty, and great value was put on the exclusive and exquisite craftsmanship.
This followed the organisation's motto: "Better to work 10 days on one product than to manufacture 10 products in one day."
The seat of the venture was in the Neustiftgasse 32-34, where a new building was adapted to their requirements. It would eventually exhaust Wärndorfers complete fortune, in the meantime, however, the enthusiasm with which the keyfigures threw themselves into work was great. Through exhibitions and fairs and along with the encouragement of a well-wishing press the Wiener Werkstatte quickly gained an excellent and widespread reputation. The duo Hoffmann and Moser complemented each other so well, that for a time it was impossible to differ between their design.

The circle of customers of the Wiener Werkstatte and Josef Hoffmanns mainly consisted of artists and the open-minded, progressive and financially well-to-do jewish upper middle class of the monarchy.
Most of the objects produced in the Wiener Werkstatte were stamped with a number of different hallmarks, with the trademark of the Wiener Werkstatte, the monogram of the designer and that of the craftsman, who completed it. The Wiener Werkstatte had about 100 employees in 1905, of whom 37 were masters of their trade.
Between 1904 and 1908 the Wiener Werkstatte had its own carpentry workshop. Hoffmanns significance as an early industrial designer for bentwood - furniture can hardly be overestimated. For the firm Jakob and Josef Kohn he designed a furniture series which convinced through its simple forms and also had a timless elegance.
From 1905 the Wiener Werkstatte produced handpainted and printed silks. The Backhausen firm was responsable for the machine-printed and woven textiles. The varitey of objects produced from the Wiener Werkstatte was immense. As well as leather goods, enamel, jewellery, postcards and ceramic the Wiener Werkstatte even had a hat department. After the wartime of the First World War the Wiener Werkstatte was influenced by a new generation of artists and craftsmen. The most important impulses came from Dagobert Peche.
In 1907, the Wiener Werkstätte took over distribution for the Wiener Keramik, a ceramics workshop of kindred spirit headed by Michael Powolny and Berthold Löffler.

The Wiener Werkstätte's first years were heady times, during which the collaboration between Hoffmann and Moser reached its peak. The two artists created a geometric style whose functional simplicity anticipates later modernism and has influenced the work of many of today's leading designers and architects.
In architectural commissions such as the Purkersdorf Sanatorium and the lavish Palais Stoclet in Brussels, the Wiener Werkstätte was able to realize its ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork), a coordinated environment in which everything down to the last teaspoon was consciously designed.
In 1907, Moser, embittered by the financial squabbling, left the Wiener Werkstätte, which subsequently entered a new phase, both stylistically and economically.
Berthold Löffler and Carl Otto Czeschka, who both became associated with the Werkstätte around 1905, brought with them a renewed interest in figuration that had direct bearing on the early work of the Expressionist Oskar Kokoschka. During and immediately following World War I, it was Dagobert Peche whose ornamental, almost baroque fancies exerted the most palpable influence.
The founding of textile and fashion divisions in 1909 and 1910 brought a further shift in the Wiener Werkstätte's emphasis-- away from the architectural and toward the ephemeral.

After the war, material shortages encouraged experimentation with less durable, less precious materials such as wood, ceramics and papier-maché. The original, grand Gesamtkunstwerk vision became diluted and submerged by the Kunstgewerbliches-- the artsy-craftsy.
The complete impoverishment of the truncated Austrian nation after World War I undoubtedly played a significant role in the demise of the Wiener Werkstätte. Attempts to expand the workshop's scope-- adding such items as wallpaper to its limited program of industrial licenses, and establishing branches in