As previously mentioned, tiny price labels, labels showing the model number and the
place of origin, such as MADE IN AUSTRIA or MADE IN GERMANY, were also known in
addition to the trade mark. Labels with the name of the artist, such as the one on a
vase at the Technical Museum in Vienna with the name, Fritz Lampl, are very rare.
THE DESIGNERS
Attributing individual “Bimini” glasses to specific artists with any certainty is usually
very difficult. The artistic director was undisputedly Fritz Lampl, and his artistic asso-
ciates are listed as the architects, Josef and Artur Berger (in relevant literature some-
times erroneously written “Anton”). In old catalogues the three are usually named to-
gether.
Fritz Lampl was born on September 28, 1892, in Vienna and died on March 5, 1955, in
London.
He grew up in middle dass surroundings: his father was a corn merchant, his mother a
housewife; his brothers August and Paul worked as architect and bank amployee.
Fritz, the youngest son, was sickly both as a child and in adulthood; he turned to po-
etry early in life. As the only surviving son after the death of both of his brothers in the
First World War, he was exempt from military Service and assigned to the “Krieg
spressequartier” (War Press Division). Through marriage with Hilde Berger (she and
her sister, Fritzi, ran a dressmaker’s salon), he became the brother-in-!aw of Josef and
Artur Berger, his most important associates at “Bimini.”
He founded a cooperative Publishing Company together with some like-minded friends
in order to fulfil the idea of having a Publishing house owned and run by authors. This
enterprise was not destined to succeed, however.
He returned from a trip to Berlin full of enthusiasm over lampworks made by Marianne
von Allesch. Thus, the “Bimini-Werkstatt” came into being in 1923 in Vienna, and soon
the glasses made to designs by Artur and Josef Berger along with those of Fritz Lampl
became extraordinarily successful.
After only fifteen years, the political Situation put an end to the Company that had by
then become world famous. In 1938 Fritz Lampl had to emigrate to London where he
founded the Company, “Orplid,” under extremely difficult circumstances. In the same
building in Soho, Josef Berger designed modern furniture.
Since the importation of glass jewelry from Czechoslovakia was interrupted in England
during the war, “Orplid” had no competition in this area. Piaster casts of ancient coins,
cameos, etc., from the British Museum in London served as patterns.
When he returned from an internment camp on the Isle of Man, Lampl was faced with
the rubble that had been his Studio in Soho. It had been hit by a bomb in 1940. Once
more he had to take the risk of starting over again, this time in Hampstead. He was
able to get Lucie Rie to come and design ceramic broches, necklaces, buttons and
other objects.
Lampl’s uncertain state of health and his work for “Orplid,” at which he persisted,
sometimes to the point of exhaustion, lead to a heart attack from which he was never
to recover entirely. He died from a second attack in 1955 in London. His wife followed
him a few months later.
Obituaries praise Fritz Lampl for the versatility of this talent and for the poetry in his
writing and his glasses.
We have extracted the most important facts in the life of Josef Berger from an obituary
printed in an English newspaper for the following biographical sketch.
Josef Berger (Joseph in English) was born in Vienna on September 13, 1898. Dis-
charged from Service in the Austrian-Hungarian army in 1917, he began studies in ar-
chitecture at the “Technische Hochschule” in Vienna under Adolf Loos and Oskar
Strnad (length of study: 1917 to 1921). From 1921 to 1934 he ran an architectural Office
together with Martin Ziegler. In 1922 he married the artist, Margarete Hamerschlag,
whose works were seen in numerous exhibitions (including the “Bimini” Studios).
After the murder of Dollfuss in 1934, Josef and Margarete Berger went to Haifa, and fi-
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