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Title
- Elephant Trunk Table from Mary and Gustav Turnowsky’s Gentlemen’s Room
Collection
Production
- design: Adolf Loos, Vienna, 1901 - 1902
- design: Max Schmidt, Vienna, 1901 - 1902
- execution: Alexandre Bigot (?), Paris, 1901 - 1902
- execution: Friedrich Otto Schmidt, Vienna, 1901 - 1902
Period | Style | School
Material | Technique
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Mahagoniholz,
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massiv und furniert,
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politiert; Messing Keramikfliesen,
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glasiert
Measurements
- height: 65 cm
- diameter: 81 cm
- diameter: 60 cm
Inventory number
- H 2616-5
Acquisition
- donation , 1981
Department
- Furniture and Woodwork Collection
Superordinated Object
Description
-
In a certain sense, architect Adolf Loos can be viewed as Viennese Modernism’s great lone warrior. He authored culturally critical articles in which he rejected his contemporaries’ supposed aberrations of taste. In contrast to the thinking of colleagues such as the Secessionists and the members of the Wiener Werkstätte, above all Josef Hoffmann, whom his sharp criticism frequently targeted, Loos’s idea of renewal was more one of content than of form or style. To him, Modernism meant not the invention of a new style, but rather the functional and aesthetic adaptation of proven solutions. It was thus that he designed this mahogany corner seating ensemble for the study at the apartment of Gustav and Marie Turnowsky in 1902 based on time-honored English examples, with some pieces being made according to originals owned by the museum and some according to Loos’s own instructions. The famous "Elephant Trunk Table", which Loos employed in various contexts, was produced at the workshops of F. O. Schmidt.
(Hackenschmidt, Sebastian)
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table, Elephant Trunk Table from Mary and Gustav Turnowsky’s Gentlemen’s Room, Adolf Loos, MAK Inv.nr. H 2616-5
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https://sammlung.mak.at/en/collect/elephant-trunk-table-from-mary-and-gustav-turnowskys-gentlemens-room_185772
Last update
- 13.01.2026
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