In that year, while attending a drawing class at The Vienna Academy of Fine Art, the younger Carl (now with a ‘C’) made the acquaintance of Swiss painter Johannes Itten (1888-1967). Itten was appointed by Walter Gropius to teach at the Bauhaus in Weimar not long after, and 16 of Itten’s Viennese students, among them Carl Auböck, followed him there.

Backed by both Gropius and Lyonel Feininger, Carl II started studying at the Bauhaus in the winter of 1919. He attended the renowned Introductory Course given by Itten and worked in the metal workshop of Naum Slutzky (1894–1965). After leaving the Bauhaus in 1921, he eventually started working full-time at his father’s Werkstätte by 1923. In addition to handling the orders placed by their American clientele, the younger Auböck began developing a series of intriguing new pieces whose designs were far more modern, more independent than the Art Deco styles being produced at the workshop thus far.

That very year, Carl II married Mara Utschkunova, a sculptor and, later, textile artist who he had met in Weimar. In 1924, their only son, Carl III, was born.

The elder Auböck, Karl Heinrich, passed away in 1925. Subsequently, work began on an ever-growing number of exciting new products under the masterful eye of his son. Venturing beyond bronze animal statues, Carl II introduced abstracted, functional art objects to the workshop’s palette — lustrous curios that included corkscrews, paperweights, bottle stoppers and, thanks to his penchant for coffee and cigarettes, lots of ashtrays. The new material of choice at the workshop became brass, which Carl II adeptly polished and patinated, breathing life and soul into each piece that left his hands. Many of those playfully exquisite designs went on to become American bestsellers.

Carl Auböck II’s unmistakable and often amusing designs, which artfully bestow new functions upon familiar forms, his uncompromising craftsmanship, ingenuity, and novel use of found objects – or ‘objét trouvés’ – to create larger, characteristic works like the much-celebrated Tree Table undoubtedly left their mark on the Austrian, if not international, landscape of art and design. It’s no wonder his works can be found in nearly every major art museum’s design collection around the world.

Carl II’s son, Carl III, proved to be a worthy heir to the family legacy. During his post graduate studies at MIT in 1951, the young architect and designer made the acquaintance of Charles Eames, Ben Thompson, and George Nelson and reconnected with his father’s old Bauhaus acquaintances, Walter Gropius and Herbert Bayer. Back in Vienna, he worked together with his father in the years that followed, moving the style of the workshop more toward industrial design. As a designer, he was commissioned by the industry to develop a series of innovative products like ski bindings, optical devices, and the Neuzeughammer flatware pattern #2060 for which he won numerous prestigious design awards, like the Compasso d’Oro at the Triennale Milano, and a great following among his contemporaries.

The relationship between the two Carls was devoted, inspirational, brotherly, and very spirited. Each used that chemistry back in the workshop to create objects for the home – from floor lamps and coat racks to shoe horns and table bells – that were nothing short of sensational in form and material handcrafting.

After Carl Auböck II passed away in 1957, Carl III began running the workshop together with his wife Justine. A visionary who loved to travel, he worked to successfully expand Auböck design on an international scale, gaining notable commercial clients like Tiffany & Co. and Saks 5th Avenue in New York, The Ginza in Tokyo, Harrods of London, and Paris’s Christofle. As a believer that good design could heal the world, Carl III continued to develop collections until the 1980s.

Carl Auböck III headed Werkstätte Carl Auböck until his death in 1993. The reigns were then passed to Justine Auböck (1926-2004), followed by her children, Maria Auböck, a talented landscape architect and teacher, and Carl Auböck IV, architect and, like all preceding Carls, designer. The two siblings, who are still at the helm today, helped successfully stage a comprehensive Carl Auböck solo exhibition at the Wien Museum in 1997 and oversaw the publication of two books about the workshop’s historical product catalogues as part of the Carl Auböck Archive.

The old Viennese townhouse, which witnessed the birth of the iconic hand-shaped bottle opener among countless deviceful ideas, still operates today, producing collections and collection pieces on a flexible and ever-changing basis in the heart of the so-called ‘brilliantengrund’ — or ‘diamond grounds’ – district because of the many chandelier manufactories in the area. As limited editions were never what the Auböcks were going for, international clients and collectors can still purchase ‘classic’ Werkstätte Carl Auböck designs at any given time. New works are continuously being developed there as well, with particular attention still being paid to Old World craftsmanship, endurable quality, and timeless, good design.