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ADOLF LOOSA SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Adolf Loos (December 10, 1870 – August 23, 1933) was born in Brunn (Brno, Czech Republic), the Moravian edge of Austro-Hungary. Son of a stonemason and sculptor, Loos studied architecture in Dresden from 1890–1893. He lived in the United States for three years following his education and then moved to Vienna to practice architecture in 1896. Within Vienna’s lively fin-de-siècle café culture he began to formulate ideas on cultural reform and urban development, beginning what was virtually a second career as a writer and lecturer. He published articles in Die Zeit, Die Wage, and the Neue Freie Presse, but also briefly put out his own publication, Das Andere [The Other], which was a journal promoting “the introduction of Western Civilization into Austria.” Loos’ writings were later collected in several volumes, including Ins Leere Gesprochen [Spoken into the Void] in 1921, and Trotzdem [Nevertheless] in 1931; a portion have been translated into English as Ornament and Crime, Selected Essays (Ariadne Press, 1998), some of which are reprinted at the end of this volume.

In addition to his written work, Loos gave some sixty lectures from 1910 onward to audiences in Vienna, Prague, Brno, Berlin, Paris, Graz, and Munich.

Loos was influenced both by the Greek architect Vetruvius and Anglophone culture, and he incorporated aspects of classical architecture into his early work. Of these, a notable design was for the Chicago Tribune Tower (1922, unbuilt), a skyscraper in the form of a Greek column. Loos’ use of iconography was short-lived, as he turned his attention to revolutionizing building practices, valorizing the craftsman and the laborer, opposing the “wasteful” ornamentation of the Viennese Secession and objecting loudly to mixing art and craft (epitomized by the work of his archenemies Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann at the Wiener Werkstätte), as well as pioneering the use of raw materials for their simplicity and beauty.

Loos’ most radical project in Vienna, his Goldman & Salatsch building (1909–1911) on the Michaelerplatz, became colloquially known as “the building without eyebrows.” Its defining distinction is a complete lack of ornamentation on the facade, which reputedly so offended Emperor Franz Josef that he refused to exit the Hofburg Palace on the side facing the “Loos Haus.” Among Vienna’s other Loosian attractions are the Café Museum (1899), The American Bar (or Kärntnerbar, 1907), Kniže Men’s Outfitters (1909–1913) and his contribution to the Werkbundsiedlung housing project, a duplex (1931–1932).

During his lifetime Loos designed, built, and remodeled close to one hundred apartments and homes, and undertook a number of large civic projects like schools, government buildings, and workers’ housing. Dozens of additional works included sanatoriums, hotels, cafés and bars, and shops. Several of Loos’ projects were not realized but still remain influential, like the black-and-white striped marble house for Josephine Baker (1928) with its dramatic lighting and view underwater into the swimming pool.

Most relevant to this book, with its domestic and intimate qualities, are Loos’ striking interiors. Using marble and wood veneers, beautiful hardwoods, brightly colored paints, glass block, mirror, photo murals, and even fur (for the bedroom of his first wife, Lina Loos), he transformed and sensualized the experience of space. His revolutionary open floor plans and stepped half-floors, sometimes conceived in a café and drawn on a napkin, created cubic arrangements; this intuitive method, coined the Raumplan by one of his students, came to full expression during the time period of Claire’s narrative. Considered one of his most important contributions to Modern architecture, the Villa Müller (1928–30) in Prague, now a museum, is an excellent example of his highly evolved architectural philosophy.

But his work was neither immediately accepted nor appreciated, and Loos expressed constantly his feeling that he was either ignored or not properly recognized. As noted architecture historian Otto Kapfinger writes in his Afterword to the 2007 German edition of Adolf Loos Privat,

Loos was one of the most important reformers, innovators, and architectural critics of the 20th century. Internationally, the amount of literature written about his life’s work has increased tremendously in recent decades. During the course of his lifetime, Loos’ efforts in the area of architectural and practical design for everyday application through which he strove “to free humanity from superfluous labor” generally garnered him more ridicule and misunderstanding than anything else. Only a very few, like-minded people were able, or even wanted to accept this cultural reformer — an extremely exacting “destroyer of clutter,” where ideals and materials were concerned.

Texts contemporaneous to Loos’ era reinforce these ideas; take, for exmaple, critic Alfred Polgar’s partly tongue-in-cheek defense of Loos’ character in Das Tagebuch on September 13, 1928:

Loos has a lot to answer for. […] He is an obstinate man who has frequently and vehemently objected to Viennese taste in matters of art and lifestyle and who has not only expressed totally unique, revolutionary views, but insisted he is right in every respect. He has revered and advocated the philosophy of Peter Altenberg and other revolting people. […] He obliged Kokoschka to become a genius by bringing him to attention of the public early on. He championed acceptance of the most modern music as legitimate — a position which could be chalked up to his hearing loss — when it was still contended that it might not rightfully be considered music at all. Undoubtedly an additional side effect of his deafness, Loos states his opinion very loudly — in the metaphorical sense loudly. He forces one to listen. Contemporary cultural history, regardless of which position it may take or what evaluation it may make, will have to devote a long page to his unrelenting, passionate, fierce battle against ornamentation, against the mishmash of art and craft. In regard to aesthetic beliefs, he is fanatical to the point of being so just to be difficult; one could say, orthoparadoxical. He is a master of formulation, an absolute stylist, as caustic and witty in his attacks as he is in defense. In short, he is a man of eccentricities, of merit, of importance.

These contradictions were lost neither on his enemies nor his friends. For his sixtieth birthday Stefan Zweig wrote,

Explosive in his words and at the same time productive in his works, [Loos] demonstrates in his creations just as much prudent, far-sighted, moderate harmony as in his spirit an energetic and passionate revolt — that splendid unity of blood and spirit that only creates life and liveliness!

Indeed, it is the heterogeneity of his expression in both word and form that continue to fascinate, frustrate, and intrigue.

In the years since his death, Loos has been canonized in architecture, become the subject of many books, and retrospective exhibitions have taken place in locales around the world; among these: Berlin (1984–1985), Vienna (1989–1990, 2014, and others), Prague (2010, 2019, and 2020), Brno (2010), London (2011), Pilsen (2012), New York (1985 and 2013), Barcelona (2017–2018), with more undoubtedly to come. Among his peers, he garnered great respect — an architect’s architect, who ultimately stood for dignity and parity, and for the people.

Le Corbusier’s assessment of this unlikely hero: “Loos swept right beneath our feet, and it was a Homeric cleansing — precise, philosophical and logical. In this, Loos has had a decisive influence on the destiny of architecture.”^*

* Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1930; quoted in Rukschcio, Burkhardt and Roland Schachel, Adolf Loos: Leben und Werk (Vienna: Residenz Verlag, 1982) 278.

Claire Beck Loos, circa late 1930s.

Possible self-portrait.

PATERSON FAMILY ARCHIVE