Josef Hoffmann studied under Otto Wagner and Karl von Hasenaure at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Hoffman's graduation project was an updated Renaissance building for which he won the Prix de Rome and allowed him to study one year in Italy.
After graduation Hoffmann worked in Wagner’s architectural office but founded his own studio in 1898 from where he designed buildings such as Villa Moser-Moll (1900-01), Villa Ast (1909-11) and Villa Skywa-Primavesi (1913-15) all in Vienna and the Sanatorium Purkersdorf (1904-05) and Palais Stocklet in Bryssels (1905-11).
Hoffmann was one of the central members of the Austrian radical artist and architectural group Wiener Secession founded in 1897 together with a.o. Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt. For the Secession Building, the movements first gallery created by Joseph Maria Olbrich in 1898, Hoffman designed the foyer and office. (The gallery is regarded as seen as one of the most prominent expressions of Art Nouveau in architecture.) In 1905 Hoffmann left the Secession together with Klimt and other artists.
In 1899 (at the age of 29) Hoffmann was appointed Professor at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna/University of Applied Arts where he taught in the departments of architecture, arts and crafts, metalwork, and enameling. In 1902 he travelled on a study trip to England and Scotland where he met Charles R. Mackintosh who became a great influence for Hoffmann. Two years later (in 1903) he was one of the founders of the Wiener Werkstätte, together with Koloman Moser and Fritz Wärndorf. The idea was to create an enterprise of artists and craftsmen jointly working on the elements of a complete work of art – called the Gesamtkunstwerk – consisting of architecture, glass, furniture, lamps, metal work and pottery.
Josef Hoffmann designed several pieces for the Wiener Werkstätte such as the armchair No.670, Sitzmaschine from 1905 and the Armlöffel from 1908, but also buildings such as the Cabaret Flerdermaus in Vienna, that opened in 1907. For the cabaret, Hoffmann created a collection of furniture manufactured by J. & J. Kohn, where the armchair No.728 (often called the Fledermaus) is the best known.
The concept of the Werkstätte spread and in 1907 Hoffmann was a co-founder of the Deutscher Werkbund and in 1912 the Österreichischer Werkbund (Austrian Werkbund). Due the Great Depression the Werkstätte and Werkbunds were forced to close in 1932. From the 1920 until his death in 1954 Hoffmann worked mainly on architectural projects such as housing developments for the municipality of Vienna (1923-25 and 1949-54), the Austrian pavilion at the World Fair in Paris (1925), the Venice Biennale (1934) and the conversion of the German Embassy in Vienna into the Haus der Wehrmacht.
Josef Hoffmann is represented at museums all over the world including the British Museum in London, the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna and the Museum of Furniture Studies in Stockholm.
