Читать книгу The Private Adolf Loos - Claire Beck Loos - Страница 7

PREFACEREFLECTIONS OF A FEMALE PROTÉGÉ

An inscription by the author on a found second-hand copy of her 1936 book, Adolf Loos Privat [The Private Adolf Loos], is revealing: “In memory of a feverish time. Claire Beck Loos.”

What follows is Claire’s documentation of this passionate moment in culture, as well as her short-lived but impactful marriage to one of the great minds of the early-twentieth century. Through a penetrating view of her ex-husband, the architect Adolf Loos, she offers a dramatic and personal understanding of what it is to have spent time with a genius, an older mentor, and retain some of the creative psychic residue impressed by that experience.

Claire comes away from her time with Loos a changed person, and like anyone who has thrown himself or herself with abandon into a new mode of thinking — in rebellion or out of necessity — her struggle to integrate this moment into her life requires a generative act: this book. Through the unique form of her writing we learn not only about Loos and his work, but also about the role of emotional connections in forging new times.

CARRIE PATERSON, EDITOR

Adolf Loos in the living room of his apartment in Vienna, Giselastrasse 3, now Bösendorferstraße, Vienna I, 1929.

Courtesy Janet Beck Wilson

PHOTO CLAIRE BECK