Prominent member of the Viennese Secession, he was born in
Pirnitz-Mähren in 1870. At the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna,
he studied under Karl Hasenauer and Otto Wagner and until 1937
he held a course in architecture at the Kunstgewerbeschule of
the Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie. In 1903,
together with Kolo Moser he founded the Wiener Werkstätte. He
developed his simple geometric shapes starting from the
curvilinear language of the European Art Nouveau. One of his
most important works was the Stoclet Palace in Brussels
(1905-1911). He developed the principles of the total work of
art. He died in 1956.