Adolf Loos1870 1933Born in Czechoslovakia,Practiced in Austria

Adolf Loos 1870 - 1933 Born in Czechoslovakia, Practiced in Austria

Adolf Loos was an architect who became more famous for his ideas than for his buildings. He believed that reason should determine the way we build, and he opposed the decorative Art Nouveau movement. In Ornament & Crime and other essays, Loos described the suppression of decoration as necessary for regulating passion.

Adolf Loos was born to a stonemason in Czechoslovakia, but -- to his mother's grief -- he refused to continue the family business. Instead, he studied architecture in Dresden and then went to the United States, where he worked as a mason, a floor-layer, and a dishwasher. Loos was impressed by the efficiency of American architecture, and he admired the work of Louis Sullivan.

Eventually Loos found work with the architect Carl Mayreder, and in 1898 he opened his own practice in Vienna. He earned little money, but he lived comfortably because his customers often paid their fee with goods. He also started his own school of architecture, and taught the Raumplan idea of simple, functional building. Two of his students, Richard Neutra and R. M. Schindler, went on to great careers in the United States.

Scandal In Vienna



Adolf Loos and the shocking Goldman and Salatsch Building
Article by Jackie Craven

Franz Josef, emperor of Austria, was outraged. Directly across Michaelerplatz from the Imperial Palace, an upstart architect, Adolf Loos, was building a modern monstrosity. The year: 1909.

More than seven centuries went into the creation of the Imperial Palace, also known as the Hofburg. The vast palace complex includes six museums, a national library, government buildings, and the imperial apartments. The entrance, the Michaelertor, is guarded by grandiose statues of Hercules and other heroic figures. And then, steps away from the Michaelertor, is the Goldman and Salatsch building designed by Adolf Loos.


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Adolf Loos was a functionalist who believed in simplicity. He had traveled to America and admired the work of Louis Sullivan. He felt that lack of ornamentation was a sign of spiritual strength, and his writings include a study about the relation between ornament and crime.  

"... the evolution of culture        marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects."  Adolf Loos, from Ornament & Crime

The Loos House was simple all right. "Like a woman with no eyebrows," people said, because the windows lacked decorative details. For awhile, window boxes were installed. But this did not solve the deeper problem.
 

"The dishes of past centuries, which display all kinds of ornaments to make peacocks, pheasants and lobsters look more tasty, have exactly the opposite effect on me... I am horrified when I go through a cookery exhibition and think that I am meant to eat these stuffed carcasses. I eat roast beef."  Adolf Loos, from Ornament & Crime

The deeper problem was that this building was secretive. Baroque architecture such as Michaelertor is garrulous and revealing. Rooftop statues strike poses to announce what lies inside. But the gray marble pillars and plain windows on the Loos House said nothing.  In 1912, when the building was completed, it  was tailor shop. But there were no symbols or sculptures to suggest clothing or commerce. Why, the building could just as easily be a bank. Indeed, it did become a bank in later years.

Perhaps there was something foreboding in this-- as though the building suggested that Vienna was moving into a troubled, transient world where occupants would stay for only a few years, and then move on.

The statue of Hercules at the palace gates appeared to scowl across the cobbled road at the offending building. Some say that even the little dogs, pulling their masters along Michaelerplatz, lifted their noses in disgust.