The Secession Building, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Vienna, c. 1897-98
Joseph Olbrich designed the Secession Building with decoration by the artist Klimpt. Colloquially known as the 'Golden Cabbage'. Applied ornament that is flattened as just surface ornamentation that does not look at traditional architectural past where ornamentation was sculpted. Angular walls holding up the ‘golden cabbage’. Begins a new stylistic phase in which there is a shift towards looking at natural forms. There is a focus on individual imagination and ideas. The forms are new and signify nothing from the past. They speak to the individual identity instead of historical sources. In the context of the time it towered over the flat landscape. It was a building that housed exhibitions of new forward thinking artists.