Adolf Loos

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(b Br?nn [now Brno], Moravia, 10 Dec 1870; d Kalksburg, Austria, 23 Aug 1933). Austrian architect, theorist and writer. He was an often satirical critic of the Vienna Secession, an early advocate of the Functionalist aesthetic, a radical polemicist and one of the most important and influential pioneers of the Modern Movement, achieving in his buildings of c. 1910 the style generally adopted elsewhere only a decade later.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The Viennese architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933) was one of the pioneers of modern architecture at the turn of the century.

Adolf Loos was born in Brünn (Brno), now in the Czech Republic but then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on December 10, 1870, the son of a stone mason and sculptor. Loos was deaf until the age of 12 and was hearing-impaired until the end of his life; this physical disability influenced his character, and he remained a loner as an individual and as an artist. In 1890-1893 Loos studied at the Technical University of Dresden. Between 1893 and 1896 he lived in the United States, mostly in Philadelphia with some relatives, but also visited New York, Chicago, and St. Louis. In 1896 Loos returned to Vienna and devoted himself to architecture. In 1898 he was associated briefly with the Vienna Secession. In 1917 he participated in World War I. Between 1920 and 1922 Loos worked as chief architect of the Department of Housing of Vienna in the newly established Austrian Republic. He resigned, disillusioned, in 1922 and emigrated to France. Between 1922 and 1927 Loos lived mostly in Paris and the French Riviera; he returned to Austria in 1928 and lived there intermittently until his death on August 23, 1933.

Although he began practicing in the late 1890s when Art Nouveau was at its peak, Loos was not affected by it at all. The fact that he had lived in the United States and thus had become aware of the advances in the commercial and domestic architecture of that country may account for this. Loos' earliest commissions were interior remodellings of stores and cafes. His first shop interior was done in 1898 for the Goldman and Salatsch haberdashery shop in Vienna. This interior, entirely straightlined and without any ornament, already showed his design principles and especially his mastery in the creation of articulate space effects.

His Museum Café of the next year, dubbed "Café Nihillsmus" for its plainness, was simple and unadorned, although effective architecturally. His Kärtner Bar in Vienna (1907) was a masterpiece in the exploitation of a tiny space and in the use of sumptuous materials.

Loos did many remodellings of flats, in which he used fine materials with polished surfaces uninterrupted by moldings; these would prove a potent inspiration to the architects of the next generation. In his free-standing houses Loos introduced the compact, block-like mass, although he did not subject it to the geometric rigor characteristic of the work of the Internationalists. But it was in the design of interiors that Loos revealed himself as a first-class architect; the dignity and coziness of his interiors and their deliberate suitability to modern living conditions have rarely been surpassed. In this Loos was inspired by English domestic architecture, which he frequently singled out for praise. Distinctly his, however, was the emphasis on precious materials and the creation of flowing spaces - very similar to those of Frank Lloyd Wright - and also the notion of Raumplan - that is, architectural composition with volumes of space as opposed to two-dimensional planning.

Loos' Karma Villa near Montreux in Switzerland from 1904 to 1906 may have influenced Le Corbusier. The Steiner House of 1910 and the Scheu House of 1912, both in Vienna, belong to his finest works. The simplicity of their facades, their flat roofs, white walls, and horizontal windows without any moldings, together with the openness of their planning, provided a great impetus toward the emergence of the International Style. Loos' larger urban work, the Goldman and Salatsch Building on the Michaelerplatz in Vienna of 1910-1911, aroused a storm of protest because it presented a plain unadorned facade opposite the Hofburg (Imperial Palace). Yet the ground story had marble-clad columns externally and contained internally Loos' articulate spaces increased to a monumental scale.

As chief architect of the city of Vienna in 1920-1922 Loos designed an experimental district in Heuberg which was only partly built and which included many types of buildings which were never realized but constituted the most advanced experiments in low-cost housing at the time anywhere in Europe.

At least as effective as his buildings were his writings, in which he advocated a functional simplicity of form. Loos was the author of numerous articles; those from 1897-1900 were collected in 1921 and published under the title Ins Leere Gesprochen (Spoken into the Void). Those from 1900-1930 were collected in 1931 under the title Trotzdem (Nevertheless). Loos published the article "Ornament und Verbrechen" ("Ornament and Crime"); in it he claimed that architecture and the applied arts could do without any ornament, which in itself should be regarded as a survival of barbaric custom. Indeed, Loos saw the progress of his era precisely in the abolition of ornament for economic and aesthetic reasons. Therefore he was a sworn enemy not only of the ponderous historicism of Vienna, but also of the style of the Vienna Secession, which he felt was nothing more than a search for a new ornamental vocabulary.

Loos instead proposed a strict functionalism, which in turn derived from the theories of the great German architect Gottfred Semper and from the rationalism of Otto Wagner, whom Loos regarded most highly. At the same time Loos maintained the deepest respect for ancient architecture; this found expression in the frequent use of classical architectural elements in his architectural designs. He even went so far as to propose a tower in the form of a Doric column in his competition entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower of 1922. It is important to note, however, that Loos' respect for antiquity was of a functionalistic nature: he always considered the question, what would the ancients have accomplished under the present conditions? In any event Loos' writings and architectural works provided great inspiration to the architects of the following generation who brought about the International Style of 1925-1950.

Further Reading

A beautifully illustrated monograph on Loos is Benedetto Gravagnuolo's Adolf Loos: Theory and Works (1982). See also Ludwig Münz and Gustav Künstler, Adolf Loos: Pioneer of Modern Architecture (English edition, 1966) and Mihály Kubinsky, Adolf Loos (1970). A brief critical discussion of Loos' importance for modern architecture can be found in Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (4th edition, 1977); Leonardo Benevolo, History of Modern Architecture, 2 volumes (1977); and Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: from William Morris to Walter Gropius (2nd edition, 1975). An English translation of Loos' early writings is in Adolf Loos, Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays 1897-1900, translated by Jane O. Newman and John H. Smith (1982). Loos' collected works are in Sámtliche Schriften, 2 volumes (1962).

Additional Sources

Altmann-Loos, Elsie, Mein Leben mit Adolf Loos, Wien: Amalthea, 1984.

A highly influential figure in the development of Modernism, architect and designer Loos was perhaps most widely known for his celebrated and influential text Ornament und Vebrechen (Ornament and Crime) of 1908. His design work included bentwood furniture for Thonet and a set of simple, cleanly articulated drinking glasses and jug for the Lobmeyr company (1931). Identified by Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the ‘Pioneers of Modern Design’, Loos was a prolific writer on architecture and design opposed to the widespread embellishment of architecture at the turn of the century. In sympathy with the earlier writings of Gottfried Semper, Loos was influenced by what he saw as qualities of simplicity in British and American design and engineering, although in his own architectural and design work there were also clear affinities with the clarity of form of neoclassicism. Although born in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic) and trained in Dresden, much of Loos's professional life was spent in Vienna. He was the chief architect for housing in Vienna from 1920 to 1922, the year in which he submitted an entry to the Chicago Tribune Building Competition in the form of a massive Doric column. His theoretical links with Modernism were underlined by the republication of Ornament und Vebrechen in Le Corbusier's periodical L'Esprit nouveau in 1920.

Influential Austro-Hungarian architect and polemicist. Born in Brno, Moravia, he studied in Dresden, where Semper's ideas made a great impression on him, and in 1893 visited the USA, where he absorbed the lessons of the Chicago School, and was influenced especially by an essay of Sullivan (1892) in which the latter advocated refraining from all ornament for a period, so that architects could concentrate on the design of buildings ‘well-formed and comely in the nude’. He was also influenced by the work of F. L. Wright (whom he also met), by the English Arts-and-Crafts movement, and by the designs of Otto Wagner. Loos settled in Vienna, and in a series of articles denounced the ornamenting tendencies of Jugendstil, notably in the works of Hoffmann and Olbrich, so he was opposed to aspects of the Sezession. He likened extravagance and dishonesty in architecture to the fake fronts of streets in towns erected for show by Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin (1739–91) in Russia, publishing his views in the important journal Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring) in 1898.

In 1908 came the publication of Ornament und Verbrechen (Ornament and Crime), in which he claimed that lack of ornament was a sign of spiritual strength: this has led to his beatification as a ‘pioneer’ of the Modern Movement, but he was nothing of the sort, for his designs of the period are almost entirely Neo-Classical in spirit, reflecting his admiration for Greek architecture and for Schinkel. A prime example of this stripped Classicizing tendency is the Goldman & Salatsch block on the Michaelerplatz, Vienna (1909–11), with its simplified Tuscan columns and unornamented façades using the finest materials, but nearly two years before, in 1907–8, his Kärntner Bar, Vienna, had demonstrated a type of stripped Classicism, but using fine materials. The Steiner House, St-Veit-Gasse, Vienna (1910) is usually shown in a view from the garden, but the street-front, an almost single-storey symmetrical composition with a great curved roof, is hardly ever illustrated because it shows how Loos was deeply rooted in tradition, as it is an interpretation of a small Baroque building stripped of ornament and with its curved roof simplified.

In both the Steiner and Scheu (Larochegasse 3, Hietzing—1912–13) Houses, Loos suggested exposed timber beams (they were not always structural), and drew heavily on the Arts-and-Crafts tradition of England (a country he greatly admired), with inglenooks, brick fireplaces, and wooden panelling. His reverence for Greek architecture was expressed in his competition entry (1923) for the Chicago Tribune Building: his design was a skyscraper shaped like a gigantic Greek Doric column. For a brief period (1920–2) he was the Chief Architect for the City of Vienna's Housing Department, and produced several schemes, including proposals for a model estate at Heuberg. He designed a ‘row-house with one wall’ which he patented.

He spent the next five years in Paris, where he made contact with the leading figures of the avant-garde and built the celebrated house for Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) (Avenue Junot 15, Paris XVIII—1925–6), which, like the Michaelerplatz building, had an innovative plan with the volumes divided up to form rooms of differing heights, but the architectural language was more stark, and followed Modernist tendencies. After he returned to Vienna in 1928 Loos designed a few houses, including the Moller House, Starkfriedgasse 19, Pötzleinsdorf, Vienna (1927–8), and the Müller House, Střešovická 33, Prague (1929–30), both of which had complex interiors with ingenious spatial planning, and had smooth rendered walls that were very much de rigueur as International Modernism acquired its essential language. In 1931, he designed houses for the Werkbund at Woinovichgasse 13–15–17–19, Vienna, also with stark geometries and white rendered walls. These late works appear to have influenced the younger generation of architects. Both Neutra and Schindler were among those who were profoundly affected by Loos's ideas before the 1914–18 war. His early writings on architecture and design (1897–1900) were collected as Ins Leere Gesprochen (Spoken into the Void—1921) and his later works (1900–30) as Trotzdem (In Spite Of—1931).

Bibliography

• Arts Council of Great Britain (1985)
• R.Banham (1960)
• Duzer & Kleinman (1994)
• Gravagnuolo (1982)
• Hitchcock (1977)
• Kristan (ed.) (2001, 2001a)
• Kulka (ed.) (1931)
• Les'nikowski (ed.) (1986)
• Loos (1962)
• Lustenberger (1994)
• Münz & Künstler (1966)
• Opel (eds.) (2003)
• Safran & Wang (eds.) (1985)
• Schezen et al. (1996)
• Schweighofer (2000)
• J. Stewart (2000)
• Tournikiotis (1994)
• Trevisiol (1995)
• Jane Turner (1996)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

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Adolf Loos
Personal information
Name	Adolf Loos
Birth date	December 10, 1870(1870-12-10)
Birth place	Brno, Austria-Hungary
Date of death	August 23, 1933 (aged 62)
Place of death	Vienna, Austria
Work
Significant buildings	Steiner House, Goldman & Salatsch Building (Looshaus)

Adolf Loos (10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was one of the most important and influential Austrian and Czechoslovak^[1] architects of European Modern architecture. In his essay Ornament and Crime he repudiated the florid style of the Vienna Secession, the Austrian version of Art Nouveau. In this and many other essays he contributed to the elaboration of a body of theory and criticism of Modernism in architecture.

Contents 1 Life 2 Architectural theory 3 Major works 4 Notes 5 Bibliography 6 References 7 External links

Life

Born in 1870 in Brno, Moravia, Loos was only nine when his stonemason father died. A rebellious boy who rather lost his bearings, he failed in various attempts to get through architecture school. Contracting syphilis in the brothels of Vienna, by 21 he was sterile and in 1893 his mother disowned him. He went to America for three years, and did odd jobs in New York, somehow finding himself in that process and returning to Vienna in 1896 a man of taste and intellectual refinement, immediately entering the fashionable Viennese intelligentsia. His friends included Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arnold Schönberg, Peter Altenberg and Karl Kraus. He quickly established himself as the preferred architect of Vienna’s cultured bourgeoisie. Diagnosed with cancer in 1918, his stomach, appendix and part of his intestine were removed. For the rest of his life he could only digest ham and cream. He had several unhappy marriages. By the time he was fifty he was almost completely deaf; in 1928 he was disgraced by a paedophilia scandal and at his death in 1933 at 62 he was penniless.^[2] He died in Kalksburg near Vienna.

Architectural theory

To understand fully Loos’s radical, innovative outlook on life, his admiration for the classical tradition, his passion for all aspects of design, lifestyle and taste, and the breadth of his ideas, it is essential to read his own collected writings, which were published by MIT press in English as “Spoken into the Void” in 1982.

In his essays, Loos was fond of using the provocative catch phrase and has become noted for one particular essay/manifesto entitled Ornament and Crime, written in 1908, in which he repudiated the florid style of the Vienna Secession, the Austrian version of Art Nouveau.

In this essay, he explored the idea that the progress of culture is associated with the deletion of ornament from everyday objects, and that it was therefore a crime to force craftsmen or builders to waste their time on ornamentation that served to hasten the time when an object would become obsolete. Perhaps surprisingly, Loos' own architectural work is often elaborately decorated. The visual distinction is not between complicated versus plain, but between "organic" and superfluous decoration.

Loos was also interested in the decorative arts, collecting sterling silver and high quality leather goods, which he noted for their plain yet luxurious appeal. He also enjoyed fashion and men's clothing, designing the famed Knize of Vienna, a haberdashery.

Major works

Looshaus in Michaelerplatz, Vienna.

• 1899 Café Museum, Vienna
• 1908 American Bar, Vienna
• 1910 Steiner House, Vienna
• 1910 Goldman & Salatsch Building, a mixed-use building overlooking Michaelerplatz, Vienna (known colloquially as the "Looshaus")
• 1922 Rufer House, Vienna
• 1925 Maison Tzara, house and studio for Tristan Tzara, one of the founders of Dadaism, in Montmartre, Paris, GIS coordinates: +48.888146, +2.335500
• 1926 Villa Moller, Vienna
• 1927 House (not built) in Paris for the American entertainer Josephine Baker
• 1928 Villa Müller, Prague (now in the Czech Republic)
• 1929 Khuner Villa, Kreuzberg, Austria

Notes

1. ^ http://www.architektursprache.de/pdf/02.01.02_adolf-loos.pdf
2. ^ Bock, Ralf (2007). Adolf Loos. Geneve: Skira. ISBN 8876246436. 

Bibliography

• Loos, Adolf (2007-05-02). On Architecture. Ariadne Press. pp. 216. ISBN 1572410981. 
• Loos, Adolf; Adolf Opel (1997-11-15). Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays. Ariadne Press (CA). pp. 204. ISBN 1572410469. 
• Loos, Adolf (1982) (in German). Trotzdem, 1900-1930. G. Prachner. pp. 218. ISBN 3853670377. 
• Loos, Adolf; Heinrich Kulka (1931) (in German). Adolf Loos: Das Werk des Architekten. Anton Achroll & Co, Neues Bauen in Der Welt, IV. 
• Loos, Adolf (1983) (in German). Die Potemkin'sche Stadt: Verschollene Schriften, 1897-1933. Prachner. pp. 231. ISBN 3853670385. 

References

• Gravagnuolo, Benedetto (1995). Adolf Loos, Theory and Works. London: Art Data. ISBN 0948835168. 
• Bock, Ralf (2007). Adolf Loos. Geneve: Skira. ISBN 8876246436. 
• Rukschcio, Burkhardt; Schachel, Roland (1982). Adolf Loos-Leben Und Werk. Salzburg: Residenz. ISBN 3701702888. 
• Foster, Hal (2003). Design and Crime (And other diatribes). London: Verso. ISBN 9781859844533. 
• Ottillinger, Eva (1994). Adolf Loos Wohnkonzepte und Möbelentwürfe.. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag. ISBN 9783701708505. 
• Gemmel, Mirko (2005-10). Die Kritische Wiener Moderne: Karl Kraus, Adolf Loos, Ludwig Wittgenstein - Ethik und Ästhetik. Berlin: Parerga Verlag. pp. 439. ISBN 3937262202. 
• Oechslin, Werner, "Stilhülse und Kern : Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos und der evolutionäre Weg zur modernen Architektur", Zuerich 1994.
• Szadkowska, Maria (ed.) (2009). Adolf Loos - dílo v českých zemích / Adolf Loos - Works in the Czech Lands. Prague: Muzeum hlavního města Prahy + KANT. ISBN 9788085394634. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Adolf Loos

• Adolf Loos at the archINFORM database
• Biography and significant buildings of Loos in Vienna
• Life and important works
• Biography at WOKA
• Adolf Loos papers, 1930-1933. Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.A portion of the papers documenting the late period of Adolf Loos’ work, 1930-1932, as reflected in the papers of his assistant Kurt Unger. The papers include correspondence, drawings, manuscripts, miscellaneous printed material, and portraits of Loos.
• Muirhead, Thomas. "Adolf Loos seen through the keyhole". Building Design. http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=429&storycode=3100078&c=2&encCode=00000000013eda51. Retrieved 11-19 2007. 

Persondata
NAME	Loos, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Austrian Architect
DATE OF BIRTH	1870-12-10
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brno
DATE OF DEATH	1933-08-23
PLACE OF DEATH	Kalksburg

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