NGV Vienna Art and Design - Klimt Schiele Hoffmann Loos

Architecture

Adolf Loos (1870–1933)

Architect, critic and theorist – Adolf Loos was a vital and contrary force in the evolution of architecture in Vienna in the early twentieth century. His belief in functionality and objectivity proved critical to modern architecture.

Adolf Loos was born in Brünn in Moravia (now the Czech Republic) in 1870. After completing the State Crafts School in Brünn and further studies in Dresden, Loos visited America where he was influenced by Louis Sullivan's architecture in Chicago.

Ornament and crime

On his return to Vienna, Loos became one of the chief proponents of functionalist architecture, whose first legacy was the Bauhaus, and documented his views on architecture, design and modernity among others in his now famous essay and manifesto 'Ornament and crime' (1908).

As the manifesto's title suggests, Loos was highly critical of a decorative approach to architecture and design and publicly derided the work of those who favoured such an approach, among them architect designer Josef Hoffmann and artist Gustav Klimt.

Loos was also opposed to the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) as well as the 'dictatorial' attitude of architect designers who determined every detail of the domestic dwelling as well as its furnishings and decoration (which he believed, with some justification, was exemplified by Hoffmann). The designers' differing approaches are clearly evident in the contrast between Hoffmann's Gallia apartment and Loos's Langer apartment.

Alternative modernist design

Loos expounded an alternative approach to modernist design, placing the individual and their need to live 'in a modern way' at the centre of architecture. For Loos, 'the house did not belong to art because the house must please everyone, unlike a work of art, which does not need to please anyone.'

Yet his own buildings were not to everyone's liking. The severity of his apartment building at Michaelerplatz provoked such resentment from the Viennese bourgeoisie (it was said to look like a face without eyebrows!) that he was made to install flower boxes to soften its façade.