Joseph Maria Olbrich was among the foremost representatives of the small group of turn-of-the-century reformers in Central Europe who sought to forge a new style liberated from the constraints of late 19th-century historic revivalism. During the early years of the century, his works in Austria and Germany won wide acclaim from contemporary critics, and later historians have generally regarded him as one of the early pioneers of modern architecture and design. Yet, despite the seminal role he played in the architectural experiments of the early years of the century, Olbrich’s position with regard to both the uses of past forms and the formation of a new, modern architectonic language is complex and ambiguous.

Upon graduating from Vienna Staatsgewerbeschule (State Trades School), Olbrich returned to Troppau to work for a local builder, but in 1890 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he was a student of Carl von Hasenauer, one of the preeminent architects of the city’s famed Ringstrasse. A brilliant draftsman, Olbrich won numerous prizes, including the school’s prestigious Rome Prize, which allowed him to undertake an extended trip through Italy and North Africa. In 1894, after completing his studies, he was offered a position in the office of Otto Wagner, who had succeeded von Hasenauer at the academy. He soon became Wagner's chief assistant, working principally on the Stadtbahn (city railway) project, and by 1896 his work for Wagner began to manifest the transition from late historicism to the new florid Jugendstil language.

Olbrich’s attempt to find an alternative to historicism, however, is most strikingly evident in his first independent work, an exhibition hall for the Vienna Secession (1897—98). The design, inspired partly by a sketch by Gustav Klimt, featured a large perforated dome of gilded metal laurel leaves set on four squat pylons and high battered stucco walls with incised vegetal forms framing the entrance and the corners. The building's unconventional exterior, however, concealed the innovative character of its interior that centered on a large, flexible exhibition gallery. Lighted by four skylights and three north windows, the entire space had only six permanent stanchions; secondary walls could be positioned or removed at will, allowing the gallery to be reconfigured for each new show.

Although the Secession provoked a storm of indignation from the Viennese public, who mockingly referred to it as the “Mahdi’s Tomb” and the “Golden Cabbage,” it brought Olbrich international accolades and an invitation, in 1899, from Ernst Ludwig, the grand duke of Hesse, to join the artists’ colony he was establishing in Mathildenhöhe Park in Darmstadt. Olbrich found kindred spirits among the new colony’s painters, sculptors, and designers (which included Peter Behrens), and Ludwig’s patronage provided him the freedom to pursue his ideas; eventually, except for Behrens’s house, he would design all the buildings at the colony, including the artists’ residences and studios, and a variety of permanent and temporary exhibition buildings.

Olbrich’s early designs on the Mathildenhöhe represented a continuation of the free mixing of historical forms—often from quite disparate epochs—and Jugendstil decorative elements that had been a hallmark of his later Viennese works. The Ernst Ludwig Haus (1899-1901), designed to be a communal studio and exhibition hall for the colony's first public exhibition, “Ein Dokument deutscher Kunst? (“A Document of German Art”), in 1901, offered an eclectic blending of stripped classicism and geometric ornament, suggesting an updating of Wagner's own formal inflections. However, for many of the colony's houses, including his own house of 1901, Olbrich employed traditional German folk elements and picturesque massing and composition, to which he added Jugendstil accents. This style, although widely influential at the time, drew strong condemnation for its expensive, overabundant ornamentation and its seeming detachment from everyday life.

Olbrich’s arrogance and his privileged position with Ludwig aroused resentment among the other artists, and a number left the colony after 1901. Undeterred by the criticisms and defections, Olbrich continued to experiment with a welter of new ideas, but his later works show a gradual shift toward an emphasis on simple rectilinear forms and a pared-down classicism. This new attitude is discernible already in the Hochzeitsturm (Wedding Tower, 1905-08), designed to commemorate the grand duke’s marriage, which became the dominant motif of the assemblage of buildings crowning the Mathildenhöhe and an often-reproduced icon of the early Modern movement. Olbrich’s move toward classicism, however, became even more conspicuous in a series of buildings he designed outside Darmstadt after 1906, including the Villa Feinhals (1909) in Cologne and his last project, the Tietz Department Store (1906-09) in Düsseldorf.

After his death, Olbrich was lauded as one of the leaders of the effort to create a modern architecture in Germany, and although he was later sometimes criticized for his “overconcentration on decorative aims” (Giedion, 1967), he has nonetheless found a secure place in the modernist pantheon. However, although Olbrich investigated the possibilities of a new architectonic language, he never wholly abandoned the idea that history could provide useful and meaningful forms and ideas. Indeed, much like Wagner, Olbrich sought to reconcile the new and old, to shape a contemporary style while still maintaining a link to the past. In that sense, Olbrich’s approach was profoundly different from the later radical functionalists, who attempted to devise an architecture devoid of historical precedent and aesthetic aspiration.

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.2 (G-O).  Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.