Oswald Haerdtl (1899 - Vienna - 1959)
was an influential Austrian architect, designer and university lecturer. Born in Vienna, he studied at the Technical University and under Oskar Strnad, Josef Frank and Josef Hoffmann at the School of Applied Arts. From the 1920s onwards, he made a name for himself with modern buildings and furniture designs and worked closely with the Wiener Werkstätte. He gained international attention through his contributions to the 1925 Paris World's Fair and the 1958 Expo in Brussels, among other things. Haerdtl designed elegant, functional furniture, interiors and buildings. In 1947, he took over the master class for architecture at the Vienna University of Applied Arts, where he influenced a new generation of architects. He died in Vienna in 1959 and is considered a central figure of Austrian modernism.
