Leopold Bauer was born in Jaegerndorf, Austrian Silesia (now called Krnov, and in Poland) in 1872 and studied at the Staatsgewerbeschule (Higher State Vocational School) in Bruenn (Brno), alongside Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos. He continued his studies in architecture at the Akademie der bildenden Kuenste (Academy of Fine Arts), Vienna, where his teachers included Otto Wagner from 1894-1896.
Influenced by Wagner, Bauer designed several Jugendstil villas in Silesia, Moravia, Bohemia, and in and around Vienna. Two examples are shown below, the Villa Reissig in Bruenn and a villa for the owner of the Loetz glassworks, Maximilian Ritter von Spaun, in Klostermuehle.
Villa Reissig, Bruenn (1901-1902)
Villa von Spaun, Klostermuehle (1904)
Around this time he also designed interiors, furniture and fittings, but from around 1905 he followed the growing trend towards classicism and distanced himself from his earlier avant-garde ideas. In 1913, he succeeded Wagner as professor of modern architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, an unpopular appointment and not Wagner's preferred choice. Bauer's was not as inspiring a teacher as Wagner and his ideas were very conservative, as can be seen in his work during this period.
Austrian National Bank, Vienna (1912-1919)
He wrote extensively on architecture and urban planning, but unrest among his students and colleagues finally led to his resignation in 1919; his replacement, after an interval, was Peter Behrens. The influence of historicism on much of Bauer's work during the 1920s is unmistakeable, and in his later years he veered towards a conservative modernism with stretched geometries which presaged postmodernism.
Vogelweidhof, Vienna (1926-1927)
St. Hedwig Church, Opava (1932-1938)
Leopold Bauer died in Vienna in 1938.