Otto Wagner: An Architectural Colouring Book

By the time Viennese architect Otto Wagner (1841-1918) began publishing the drawings included in this colouring book, he had already spent a great deal of his career designing buildings in the historicist style. But his attitude was changing, and in time he wholly disregarded those early designs. The images here, presented roughly chronologically, show the shifts he made throughout his career. He published these drawings as part of Einige Skizzen, Projekte und ausgefu¨hrte Bauwerk (Sketches, Projects and Executed Buildings), beginning in 1890 and ending with a posthumous fourth volume in 1922.

Some one hundred years after Wagner's death, his mark can still be found throughout his hometown, in buildings that include the Church of St. Leopold (a.k.a. Kirche am Steinhof), the architect's two villas, and former railway buildings for the Stadtbahn. Drawings for those structures are among these images, but many of the others you will find here were never completed. Despite this, today Wagner is celebrated for his lasting contributions to the architectural spirit of Vienna.