KORNHÄUSEL, Josef Georg

Austrian architect. He primarily employed the contemporary style of Neoclassical architecture, moving to the BiedermeierGLOSSARYTerm applied to a style characteristic of much German and Austrian art and interior decoration in the period roughly between the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and the Year of Revolutions (1848). The name derives from a fictional character called Gottlieb Biedermaier (sic) from the journal Fliegende Elssner (Flying Leaves), who personified the solid yet philistine qualities of the bourgeois middle classes, and the art to which he lent his name eschewed flights of the imagination in favour of sobriety, domesticity, and often sentimentality. There were, as is to be expected, no major painters associated with Biedermeier but many excellent practitioners, such as Waldmüller. The term is sometimes extended to cover the work of artists in other countries. style in his later oeuvreGLOSSARYThe complete body of works created by an artist..

In Vienna, Kornhäusel was neither an architect of the court, nor was he otherwise graced with an official commission. His clients were members of the aristocracy, religious congregations and the aspiring bourgeoisie. Today, his tenements buildings are the clearest evidence of Vienna's growth prior to the construction of the Ringstrasse. They are an impressive synthesis of compact masses with flat wall surfaces and monumental Neoclassical elements - though it is his interiors that create the most striking impressions. He made up for the restraint in the design of his façades by lavishly furnishing his interiors.

Kornhäusel was court architect to Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein, for whom he had built palaces, theaters and garden pavilions.