Portois & Fix building by Max Fabiani( 29. 4. 1865 Kobdil (HR), † 12. 8. 1962 Görz (SLO))

The Portois and Fix Company Store in Ungargasse 59-61 built between 1899 and 1901 according to plans by Max Fabiani. It is his earliest work, under the  influence of Otto Wagner and created a cordingly to the secessionists new way, having residential and commercial scope in the same building. The facade of the main floor is decorated with colored tiles manifactured by the Zsolnay Hungarian company.

In 1899, Max Fabiani, a close associate of Otto Wagner, was entrusted with planning the new company headquarters on Ungargasse 59/61, in Vienna’s third district. In its choice of materials, the young architect’s first work drew on Wagner’s solution for his Majolikahaus on Wienzeile. Extending from Ungargasse to Arenbergpark, the grounds accommodated the company’s entire production: carpentry and gilding facilities, an upholstering wing, a sewing workshop, an engine house, and a place for keeping exotic woods. The actual business premises on Ungargasse comprised three floors: ground floor, mezzanine, and first floor, furnished in a sequel of different styles: "Empire, Louis XVI, Louis XIV, then English, then modern." In terms of typology, the new building related to contemporary department stores, especially with its salesroom and the gallery above it. The layout reminds us of the Viennese department stores Herzmansky (1896/97) and Gerngross (1902/04), which, for their part, call to mind Paris Belle Epoque buildings of this kind such as the Galeries Lafayette. If Max Fabiani had constructed the house in the center instead of in the suburbs in 1900, the scandal caused by the almost unornamented tiling would have equaled the outrage Adolf Loos saw himself confronted with when he built his house on Michaelerplatz exactly ten years after. – http://www.ottowagner.com/ow-werk/en-archiv08.html