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Oswald Haerdtl

Oswald Haerdtl (1899–1959) attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, where he was taught by Kolo Moser, Oskar Strnad, Josef Frank, and Rudolf Larisch. In 1922, a year after completing his studies, Haerdtl began his long professional association with Josef Hoffmann, working initially as his assistant and later as his director of atelier and partner. Three years after designing and furnishing houses nos. 39–40 for the Werkbund Exhibition, Haerdtl was made professor at the Kunstgewerbeschule. Having fallen out with Hoffmann, he founded his own atelier in 1939. Haerdtl combined the strong, clear lines of his teachers Strnad and Frank with Hoffmann’s love of detail. He had a decisive influence on Viennese post-war modernism with his numerous works, which ranged from housing and offices to the design of cigarette packets.