Jane Kallir's comprehensive work not only charts the rise, flowering and
decay of the Wiener Werkstatte, but assesses its extraordinary artistic
achievements in every branch of design. In doing so, the author analyzes
for the first time the dense web of connections--institutional and
educational, intellectual and social--that enabled the imaginative
leaders of the Werkstatte to impress upon the Austrian elite and the
world beyond their visual ideals and stylistic idiom. --Carl E. Schorske