Project Team

Professor Jeremy Aynsley
In the context of this exciting, cross-disciplinary research project, I hope to extend my long-standing interest in the interrelationship between graphic and interior design. In particular, I will explore how the space of the Viennese coffee house was, in part, defined by a variety of ephemeral graphic objects. Posters, trademarks, menus and postcards, especially commissioned from Secessionist designers, contributed to the distinctive character of some of the more prominent interiors. Yet, most cafés also provided a place to read magazines, newspapers or books — often less self-conscious in their appearance than the graphic landmarks of Viennese design. I hope to investigate the ideas of graphic currency and circulation as they contributed to the phenomenon of urban modernity, and to extend them to the situation of the contemporary café where new forms of graphic communication can occur.

Dr Tag Gronberg
I am interested in how issues of urban culture and consumption relate to the visual arts. My previous research projects on Parisian modernity of the 1920s explored the ways in which notions of shopping and window display were important for the art, design and architecture of that period. In researching my new book Vienna: City of Modernity 1890-1914 I came to see the Viennese café as another, equally fascinating, way to understand the significance of different forms of consumption in conceiving the complex relationships between 'high' and 'low' culture. This exciting new project will challenge the mythic, often touristy, image of the fin-de-siècle Viennese Kaffeehaus in order to discover more about coffee-house culture, both in the past and today.

Dr Simon Shaw-Miller
My work has for many years explored the relationships between music and art. I have previously published on the Viennese composer J.M Hauer and Vienna is a key site in the understanding of multidisciplinary in modernist visual and musical culture. This project will allow me to develop work further around the Second Viennese School and expressionism. I am also looking forward to programming a series of concerts and workshops with colleagues from the RAM that explore the relationship between popular culture and the Second Viennese School.

Dr Charlotte Ashby
I was awarded my doctorate from the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews in 2006. My thesis research focused on the question of the National Style in relation to broader concerns in architectural design in Finland between 1890 and 1916. I am very excited to be part of this new research project, continuing my interest in the complexities of design and culture around 1900, but taking it into a new field and new area of focus.

Among the areas I am interested in exploring are issues surrounding design and cultural history and how such research can be related to our understanding of contemporary design and design questions. I am also interested in the relation between avant-garde design and design discourse and the reality of the lived environment.

Diane Silverthorne
Diane is an art history graduate from Birkbeck, University of London. She specialises in the modern period, particularly late nineteenth century and early twentieth century European art and design. She is interested in interdisciplinary spaces between art and music, and wrote her graduate dissertation on Schoenberg's paintings and his crisis in music composition. She completed an MA in Cultural Memory at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies with distinction in 2006, and is now the PhD project research student at the Royal College of Art.

Sara Ayres
Sara is the project research student based at Birkbeck College, University of London. She gained a distinction in her MA in the History of Art Department at the University of Birmingham in 2006.

Angela Waplington
I am a Music graduate from City University, London, and the part-time administrator for the project. I am based at Birkbeck, University  of London, on Tuesdays. Please contact me if you have any queries about the project.