Otto Wagner was unquestionably the father and leader of the Viennese school of architecture that produced Adolf Loos, Josef Hoffmann, Josef Olbrich, and others. After training in Vienna and Berlin, he began his career with buildings noted for their classicist approach—an approach he never forsook.

It is as an architect who reacted against Viennese historicism that Wagner is chiefly remembered, as well as for his important contributions to town planning. The Vienna Stadtbahn (metropolitan railway) project of the mid 1890s was an enterprise of vast scope; it remains today a monument to his imagination, technical ingenuity, and concern for the minutiae of detail. Aesthetically it is predominantly a Jugendstil work. Wagner adopted the style at this time, possibly under the influence of pupils like Olbrich; he also used it in two blocks of flats in Vienna, numbers 38 to 40 Linke Wienzeile (1898 - 9).