Nights at The Fabulous Cabaret Fledermaus by the Wiener Werkstätte, 1907-1913

The Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop) saw the Cabaret Fledermaus as a place where the “boredom” of contemporary life would be replaced by “ease, art and culture”. Opening on October 1907, on the corner of Kärntner Straße 33 and Johannesgasse 1 in Vienna, the club was housed in the basement of a nondescript large block of flats. It would be a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art.

 

The Wiener Werkstätte was founded by architect Josef Hoffmann (15 December 1870 – 7 May 1956), artist Koloman Moser (30 March 1868 – 18 October 1918) and entrepreneur Fritz Waerndorfer (5 May 1868 – 9 August 1939). Their aim was to stimulate the senses through a synthesis of modern architecture, painting, poetry, music and dance, creating a space where ‘none of the arts were excluded’ and craftsmanship was championed.

The workshop furthered the decorative aesthetic of the Vienna Secession and the sensuality of the emerging Expressionism movement. Meticulous attention was paid to everything from the cutlery and ashtrays to the stationery and pins for the waiting staff to wear, which featured the cabaret’s logo of a woman smelling a flower incorporated into the monogram ‘KF’.

 

 

Visitors descending a dramatically striped black and white marble staircase, into a large open space lined with over 7,000 tiles depicting fantastical motifs made by Löffler and Michael Powolny, co-founders of the Wiener Keramik workshop. Walking past a bar, visitors entered an auditorium with a traditional stage and a mezzanine level with boxes for the audience.

 

Live performance was at the cabaret’s heart: it hosted short satirical plays, evocative shadow theatre, avant-garde dance, poetry readings and musical performances ranging in tone from humour to decadence. In particular, the stage offered a platform for epoch-defining female performers such as Grete Wiesenthal and Marya Delvard, supported by extravagant sets and elaborate costume designs.

 

Cabaret Fledermaus closed its doors in 1913 due to financial difficulties and there are only a few records that remain of what this dazzling club space would have looked like. There are three surviving photographs, postcards by the Wiener Werkstätte and floorplan and elevation sketches by Le Corbusier from 1907, when he was in close contact with Hoffmann while staying in Vienna.

 

 

The cabaret was promoted through posters and programmes designed by eminent artists of the time including Bertold Loffler, Carl Otto, Moritz Jung, and Fritz Lang.

 

 

Celebrate the Wiener Werkstätte with lovely things from our shop.