PRINCIPALLY WORKING WITH BRASS, HE GAVE HIS HANDCRAFTED ACCESSORIES AND HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS A SIMPLIFIED, GENTLY HUMOROUS AESTHETIC THAT SHOWED HIS UNDERSTANDING OF THE MATERIAL.
erkstätte Carl Auböck is still located in the townhouse in Vienna’s Seventh District where the family run metal business was founded more than a century ago.
Carl Auböck II took over the workshop from his father in the 1920s, having studied at the Bauhaus. Over the next couple of decades, he developed a distinctively Modernist style that marked a departure from the Art Deco wiener Bronzen that were his father’s speciality.
Principally working with brass, he gave his handcrafted accessories and household objects a simplified, gently humorous aesthetic that showed his understanding of the material. Aided by his friendships with designers such as Walter Gropius and Charles Eames, Auböck’s work became internationally popular after WWII. Today, the workshop is run by his grandson, Carl Auböck IV, continuing both its traditions of craftsmanship, and executing original design.
- WORDS: Lily Le Brun
- PHOTOS: Jonathan Gregson
- ART DIRECTION: Rich Stapleton
- OBJECTS: Sigmar London
- ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal