INVENTING USEFUL objects was a Monday-to-Friday job for my father,” says Carl Auböck IV, 64, of his upbringing within a family of celebrated Austrian designers. “It made for a special childhood.” A fourth-generation metal craftsman and a practicing architect, Auböck was raised in the embrace of the Werkstätte Carl Auböck, producer of household gadgets and tools—door handles, wine pourers, toast racks—that, over almost a century, have become sought-after collectibles around the world. He now heads the Vienna-based business, as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather did before him. (“My father always said we lack...