Elana Shapira
Mar 2, 2017Style and Seduction
Jewish Patrons, Architecture, and Design in Fin de Siecle Vienna
Brandeis University Press 2016
In Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture, and Design in Fin de Siecle Vienna (Brandeis University Press, 2016), Elana Shapira, Lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, examines the complex histories of Jewish cultural patronage in Vienna. She offers a nuanced and compelling account of the cultural networks of the time. This book is an important contribution, which overturns established ideas about the Jewishness of Viennese cultural figures of this period. Shapira brings into question dominant ideas about assimilation, modernism and cultural interchange. This book will be an important reference on this subject for many years to come.
Max Kaiser is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. He can be reached at kaiser@student.unimelb.edu.au.