Review: Hans Hollein and Postmodernism: Art and Architecture in Austria, 1958–1985, by Eva Branscome

Abstract

Eva Branscome Hans Hollein and Postmodernism: Art and Architecture in Austria, 1958–1985 Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2018, 244 pp., 106 b/w illus. $140 (cloth), ISBN 9781472459947 Throughout the 1980s, one could barely open an architectural magazine without finding an article about Hans Hollein. He created two of the most memorable icons of postmodernism: the Strada Novissima at the Venice Biennale (1980) and his Haas Haus in Vienna (1987). These, along with the Pritzker Prize he received in 1985, made his name synonymous with postmodern architecture. But stardom is fickle, and by the beginning of the 1990s, postmodernist star architects had become victims of their own success. The sensational Deconstructivist Architecture show at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1988 was the final blow. For postmodernism, it was curtains. More is the pity when it comes to Hollein. As a result of postmodernism's eclipse, his early, pre-postmodern work from the late 1950s to the late 1970s has largely slipped from view. In those years he was a celebrated artist, exhibiting at the Richard Feigen Gallery with Christo and Claes Oldenburg, at the Monchengladbach Museum with Josef Beuys, at the Galerie St. Stefan in Vienna with Walter Pichler, and in the Austrian pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. His output included collages, ink drawings, sculptures, installations, and performance art. Many of these works are now held at MoMA, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and various Viennese museums. It took a decade for Hollein to resurface. The comeback came with the Centre Pompidou's blockbuster 2001 exhibition Les Annees Pop . Hollein's art of the 1960s was given pride of place, along with the pop art of Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. Subsequent publications tried to dislodge Hollein's early work from knee-jerk …