Werner Max Moser

Werner Max Moser (1896–1970) was an important Swiss architect. The son of Karl Moser, himself a well-known architect, Werner Max studied architecture at ETH Zurich and began his career working at various architecture firms in the Netherlands and the United States, including that of the great Frank Lloyd Wright. Upon returning to Switzerland in 1926, one of his first major works was, in collaboration with other Swiss architects, the design of the furnishings for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s apartments for the 1927 Stuttgart exhibition “Die Wohnung,” considered one of the seminal moments of modernist style. Moser’s role as a pioneer of modernism was further consolidated in 1928, when he was among the twenty-eight founding members of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), whose president was elected to be Werner Max’s father, Karl Moser. Alongside the intense theoretical and promotional activity carried out through CIAM—which over the years radically changed the way architecture was conceived in Europe—Werner Max Moser also devoted himself to his own projects. These included the Henry and Emma Budge Foundation retirement home in Frankfurt am Main (1928–30, designed together with Mart Stam and Ferdinand Kramer), the Tonhalle auditorium in Zurich (1936–39, developed with Max Ernst Haefeli and Rudolf Steiger—architects with whom he founded the HMS studio on that occasion), and the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur (1950). In 1931 he was also among the founding members of Wohnbedarf AG, which over time became one of Switzerland’s most important multi-brand furniture showrooms. Over the course of his career he also had opportunities to work in furniture design: today his designs are produced mainly by the Swiss brands Horgenglarus and Embru, as well as by the Italian company MisuraEmme.