Exhibition on Viennese Table Culture

The long-established company J. & L. Lobmeyr is hosting an exhibition at its store on Kärntner Straße on Viennese table culture from the Baroque era to the present day.

Lobmeyr has shaped Viennese table culture since 1823 with its glass designs, which can be found in museum collections around the world, and to this day remains committed to the Viennese style. In its latest exhibition at its city-center store, Lobmeyr presents seven tables that tell stories of Viennese table culture.

The dining table, poised between ritual, the necessity of eating, social interaction, and conversation, offers a variety of points of reference to the state of a society and its prevailing style.

Seven tables on Table Culture

Each of the staged tables in the exhibition features both an authentic table setting with original pieces from that era and a contemporary interpretation of the style.

The story begins in the Baroque era, when table settings as we know them today first emerged and making a good impression was the top priority.
In the Biedermeier period, the journeymen took their meals together with the owner’s family at one table, and the Congress of Vienna shaped social life in Vienna.
At the beginning of the 20th century, during the era of Viennese Modernism and the Wiener Werkstätte, a new view of humanity emerged. Adolf Loos, the great innovator of modernism, once sent Lobmeyr his vision of a set table in letters, and it has now been realized for the first time.
In the 1950s, a new sense of middle-class confidence emerged in a democratic society.
Contemporary table settings are characterized by eclecticism, and while conventional rules are being set aside, people still play with them to find their own personal style.

Table culture over time

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Lobmeyr’s Table Culture — Contemporary table culture – © J. & L. Lobmeyr

Lobmeyr Exhibition Table Culture — Baroque forms in table culture – © J. & L. Lobmeyr

J. & L. Lobmeyr produced the first tableware set for the imperial court as far back as 1835. Ludwig Lobmeyr was the leading figure in the European glass industry during the Historicist period and many artists from the Wiener Werkstätte designed for Lobmeyr. Lobmeyr celebrated the dawn of Art Deco in 1925 with a Grand Prix at the Paris World’s Fair. Visitors to the new cafés of the 1950s sat beneath Lobmeyr chandeliers, and today Lobmeyr is the premier destination for contemporary tableware in Vienna.

Group offers

Guided tours of the exhibition and discussions about table culture are also available for groups of up to 10 people.
Price: €160
Bookings can be made at wien@lobmeyr.at or +43 1 5120508-60