Adolf Loos

Adolf Loos
Born	Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (1870-12-10)10 December 1870 Brünn (Brno), Austria-Hungary
Died	23 August 1933(1933-08-23) (aged 62) Vienna, Austria
Buildings	Steiner House, Goldman & Salatsch Building (Looshaus)

Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian architect. He was influential in European Modern architecture, and in his essay Ornament and Crime he abandoned the aesthetic principles of the Vienna Secession. In this and many other essays he contributed to the elaboration of a body of theory and criticism of Modernism in architecture.

Life

Loos was born on December 10, 1870 in Brno in the Moravia region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, a German stonemason, died when Loos was nine. Loos attended a technical school in Liberec and later studied at Dresden University of Technology.

In 1893 Loos travelled to the United States for three years. In his first year he visited the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He visited St. Louis and did odd jobs in New York. Loos returned to Vienna in 1896 and became friends with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arnold Schönberg, Peter Altenberg and Karl Kraus. Loos visited the island of Skyros in 1904 and was influenced by the cubic architecture of the Greek islands. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed after World War I Loos was awarded Czechoslovakian citizenship by President Masaryk.

Loos was married three times. In July 1902, Loos married drama student Carolina Catherina Obertimpfler. The marriage ended three years later in 1905. In 1919, Loos married 20 year old Elsie Altmann, a dancer and operetta star and the Austrian-born daughter of Adolf Altmann and Jeannette Gruenblatt. They divorced seven years later in 1926. Loos married his third wife, writer and photographer Claire Beck, in 1929. She was the daughter of his clients Otto and Olga Beck, and thirty-five years his junior. They were divorced on 30 April 1932. Following their divorce, Claire Beck Loos wrote Adolf Loos Privat, a literary work of snapshot-like vignettes about Loos’ character, habits and sayings, which was published by the Johannes-Presse in Vienna in 1936. The book was intended to raise funds for Adolf Loos’ tomb.

In 1918 Loos was diagnosed with cancer. His stomach, appendix and part of his intestine were removed. By the time he was fifty he was nearly deaf. In 1928 Loos was disgraced by a paedophilia scandal. He died aged 62 on August 23, 1933 in Kalksburg near Vienna. Following his death in 1933, Loos’ body was moved to Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof to rest among the great artists and musicians of the city – including Arnold Schoenberg, Peter Altenberg, and Karl Kraus, all some of Loos’ closest friends and associates.

Architectural theory

Loos authored several polemical works. In Spoken into the Void, published in 1900, Loos attacked the Vienna Secession, at a time when the movement was at its height.

In his essays, Loos used provocative catchphrases and has become noted for one particular essay/manifesto entitled Ornament and Crime, spoken first in 1910. 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. Loos' stripped-down buildings influenced the minimal massing of modern architecture, and stirred controversy. Perhaps surprisingly, some of Loos's own architectural work was elaborately decorated, although more often inside than outside, and the ornamented interiors frequently featured abstract planes and shapes composed of richly figured materials, such as marble and exotic woods. The visual distinction is not between complicated and simple, 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 Kníže of Vienna, a haberdashery. His admiration for the fashion and culture of England and America can be seen his short-lived publication Das Andere, which ran for just two issues in 1903 and included advertisements for 'English' clothing.

Major works

Looshaus in Michaelerplatz, Vienna.

• 1899 Café Museum, Vienna
• 1907 Field Christian Cross, Radesinska Svratka, Czech Republic
• 1908 American Bar (formerly called the Kärntner Bar), Vienna
• 1910 Steiner House, Vienna
• 1910 Goldman & Salatsch Building, a mixed-use building overlooking Michaelerplatz, Vienna (known colloquially as the "Looshaus")
• 1913 Scheu House, Vienna
• 1915 Sugar mill, Hrušovany u Brna, Czech Republic
• 1917 House for sugar mill owner, Hrušovany u Brna, Czech Republic
• 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, Czech Republic
• 1929 Khuner Villa, Kreuzberg, Austria
• 1932 Villa Winternitz, Na Cihlářce 10, Praha 5, Czech Republic
• 1928-1933 many residential interiors in Pilsen, Czech Republic

Legacy

Loos, through his writings and his groundbreaking projects in Vienna was able to influence other architects and designers, and the early development of Modernism. His careful selection of materials, passion for craftsmanship and use of 'Raumplan'--the considered ordering and size of interior spaces based on function—are still admired today.

Bibliography

• Loos, Adolf (2007-05-02). On Architecture. Ariadne Press. p. 216. ISBN 1-57241-098-1. 
• Loos, Adolf; Adolf Opel (1997-11-15). Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays. Ariadne Press (CA). p. 204. ISBN 1-57241-046-9. 
• Loos, Adolf (1982). Trotzdem, 1900-1930 (in German). G. Prachner. p. 218. ISBN 3-85367-037-7. 
• Loos, Adolf; Heinrich Kulka (1931). Adolf Loos: Das Werk des Architekten (in German). Anton Schroll & Co, Neues Bauen in Der Welt, IV. 
• Loos, Adolf (1983). Die Potemkin'sche Stadt: Verschollene Schriften, 1897-1933 (in German). Prachner. p. 231. ISBN 3-85367-038-5. 
• Rukschcio, Burkhardt; Schachel, Roland (1982). Adolf Loos-Leben Und Werk. Salzburg: Residenz. ISBN 3-7017-0288-8. 
• Oechslin, Werner, "Stilhülse und Kern : Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos und der evolutionäre Weg zur modernen Architektur", Zuerich 1994.
• Ottillinger, Eva (1994). Adolf Loos Wohnkonzepte und Möbelentwürfe. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7017-0850-5. 
• Gravagnuolo, Benedetto (1995). Adolf Loos, Theory and Works. London: Art Data. ISBN 0-948835-16-8. 
• Tournikiotis, Panayiotis (1996). Adolf Loos. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-878271-80-6. 
• Foster, Hal (2003). Design and Crime (And other diatribes). London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-85984-453-3. 
• Bock, Ralf (2007). Adolf Loos. Geneve: Skira. ISBN 88-7624-643-6. 

Notes

• 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.

External links

• Adolf Loos online exhibition images, podcasts and video about Loos's life and work. Royal Institute of British Architects
• Adolf Loos, Vienna 1900 & Austrian Modern Architecture TourMyCountry.com
• Adolf Loos biography 1870-1933 WOKA Lamps Vienna
• Muirhead, Thomas. "Adolf Loos seen through the keyhole". Building Design. Archived from the original on 17 November 2007. Retrieved 11-19 2007.