When Vienna's architecture, art, and design are studied, they are often reduced to a limited number of subjects and viewpoints. The Austrian capital is frequently presented as the city of fin-de-siècle, the Secession of Klimt, the expressionism of Schiele, and the psychoanalysis of Freud. And we are often told that Vienna ceased to exist after the Second World War. Michelle Jackson-Beckett's monograph, Vienna and the New Wohnkultur, 1918–1938, nevertheless shows us a different city and perspective. Exploring a more mundane culture of living, she focuses on interior design and home furniture in the interwar period, which were set to improve living standards and taste of the Viennese by offering an alternative and affordable modernism. We get an insight into Vienna that deals with the consequences of the Great War on many levels. The breakup of the large Habsburg Empire in 1918 impacted all parts of the monarchy, but Vienna was hit particularly badly. It suddenly became the capital of one of the smallest countries. Its former grandeur somewhat survived, yet issues that were bubbling under the surface before the war, and were often omitted, came out bursting with force. In the ruptures caused by the economic downfall, new tariffs, goods shortages, and movement of populations, decent housing and housing culture became pressing topics.

The setting of the book in many ways evokes the image conjured up in Tom Stoppard's latest play, Leopoldstadt. It opens with a view of a cushioned, comfy chair of the grandmother surrounded by other Biedermeier furniture and Gustav Klimt's portrait on the wall. Set in a Viennese apartment, the play follows the life of an extended Jewish family from the end of the nineteenth century until 1955. The interior, its furniture, and the lighting are indicative of the changes outside the apartment—the economic downturn after the First World War, a brief moment of brighter prospects for the people of Vienna, and the ultimate displacement of the Jewish population and many other people in the late 1930s. In Stoppard's play, this is indicated by the fact that by 1938, the central room where all activity happens “is just different enough.” The comfortable chair and the painting, symbols of the past, eventually disappear, and so do many members of the family. By 1938, the entire city of Vienna was different enough.

Jackson-Beckett studies these changes that affect society outdoors and indoors. She approaches her subject through the medium of exhibitions, which offer visitors a dramatic experience, in a way similar to theatre. Design ideas are staged in the artificial world of exhibitions and framed in a way that presents them as easy to access and adopt. A great number of exhibitions were organized in the interwar period that offered ideas on how best to furnish one's dwelling. Michelle Jackson-Beckett turns attention to the solutions that designers, architects, and traders offered to the crises not only in material supply but also in labor and taste. By opting for the medium of exhibitions of housing and their wider commercial, cultural, and social setting, she shows that the ideas of what good design was originated in fin-de-siècle Vienna. They were refined between the wars and carried through the post–World War II period until today in many countries of the world, as many designers left Austria for exile in the 1930s. Yet, the interwar exhibitions of appropriate living culture, organized by, for instance, the Museum of Art and Industry, the Austrian Association for Housing Reform, the Austrian Werkbund, and other organizations, were aspirational: they showed how things could be, or should be. They offered ideas that often could not be adopted.

Exhibitions are a useful way of approaching any subject, because they open additional questions that go beyond the objects of display. Jackson-Beckett, therefore, follows the individual interwar exhibitions and explores in detail not only their content but their context, too. She uncovers the mechanisms used to target visitors and prospective customers. For exhibitions, the arrangement of space is one of the most important methods of persuading potential buyers. Lighting, placement of objects, and occasional music create an almost theatre-like feeling. In terms of the exhibits, most emphasis was put on the flexibility of the interiors, comfort of the furniture, tasteful decorations, and, indeed, affordability. Whether the items displayed were really affordable was a different question. Ideas about living culture were also not limited to physical exhibitions, and Jackson-Beckett illustrates this by various debates among designers, retailers, and museum people that were led in various publications and lectures about good design for the home.

This focus on a somewhat top-down approach to the topic gives more prominence to those who introduce and try to implement the design ideas. It is not clear and most probably impossible to ascertain what the impact on the target groups was. Jackson-Beckett nevertheless pays the much-needed attention to class differences and gender divisions that shaped the acceptance or rejection of the exhibited concepts. She reminds us that although the economic aspect of the displayed design played an important role, the objects remained mostly unaffordable for the working classes. The woman's question was also often ignored in exhibitions, Jackson-Beckett points out, even though women would be affected the most by the various design and interior choices presented in the exhibitions. What becomes clear, too, is that the Austrian interwar living culture was very much constructed by men who were in charge of the design, exhibitions, trade, and institutions.

This dense book also hints at topics that could be developed in future studies. This is the case of, for example, the briefly mentioned connection between eugenics and modern dwelling. As a global phenomenon, the eugenic ideology of perfecting humanity affected many areas of life, from science to architecture and interior design. Reform of living, emphasis on hygiene in the home, and the right choices of furniture may be less obvious but more mundane examples of how eugenics trickled down to Austrian everyday life.

Focusing on Vienna from this distinctive perspective, Jackson-Beckett challenges the continuing and often stereotypical image of the city, and her book is, therefore, a welcome contribution to the more recent revisions of Vienna as the city of 1900. Vienna is shown not only as the city of famous painters, psychoanalysts, and bourgeois families who surround themselves with historicist Biedermeier furniture. It is also a city of struggle between tradition and modernism, luxury and necessity, in both home design and in society. It is, indeed, different enough.