Adolf Loos & the Critique of

Ornamentation - Raumplan
Ornament & Crime was a lecture attacking “ornament in art” by the
influential “modern” Austrian architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933),
written in 1908 but first lectured on 21 January 1910 and first
published in 1913. “The evolution of culture marches with the
elimination of ornament from useful objects”, Loos proclaimed,
linking the optimistic sense of the linear and upward progress of
cultures with the contemporary vogue for applying evolution to
cultural contexts.
In Loos essay, “passion for smooth and precious surfaces” he explains
his philosophy , describing how criminal it was to waste the effort
to add ornamentation , when it would cause the object to soon go
out of style and become obsolete. Loos introduced a sense of the
“immorality” of ornament, describing it as “degenerate”, and it’s
suppression as necessary for regulating modern society. Loos
concluded that “No ornament can any longer be made today by
anyone who lives in our cultural level … and the Freedom from
ornament is a sign of spiritual strength”. The essay was written
when Art Nouveau, which Loos had decried even at it’s height in
1900, was about to show a new way of modern art. The essay is
important in articulating some moralizing views, inherited from the
Arts & Crafts movement, which would be fundamental to the
Bauhaus design studio and would help define the ideology of
Modernism in architecture. Loos’ stripped-down buildings
influenced the minimal massing of modern architecture, and stirred
controversy.A utilitarian approach to use the entire floor plan, was
his concept, exemplified in the so-called “Loos House”or Goldman
& Salatsch Building (1910-12), the façade dominated by rectilinear
window patterns and a lack of stucco decoration and awnings,
which earned it the nickname “House without Eyebrows”. Loos’
careful selection of materials, passion for craftsmanship and use of
“Raumplan” (‘Plan of Volumes’) – the considered ordering and size
of interior spaces based on function, are still admired.
 Peter Behrens & The Werkbund
Behren’s (1868-1940)was one of the leaders of architectural reform
at the turn of the century and was a major designer of factories
and office buildings in brick, steel and glass. He was named as
the Director of Dusseldorf’s art’s and crafts school in 1903. He and
11 others (including Hoffmann and Olbrich of the Art Nouveau
School), plus 12 companies, gathered together to create the
German Werkbund. As a movement, it was clearly indebted to the
principles of the Arts & Crafts movement, but with a decidedly
The gantry shape was
modern twist. Though the Werkbund was founded in Munich in blended ingeniously
1907, it was less an artistic movement than a state-sponsored with the image of
classical pediment
effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass-
production techniques to put Germany on a competitive footing
with Great Britain and the United States. It’s motto “Vom
Sofakissen zum Stadtebau”(from sofa cushions to city building)
indicates it’s range of interest. The Werkbund emphasized the The steel skeleton
creation of standardized prefabricated elements . frame penetrates the
glass skin articulating
Behren’s work for AEG, a large electrical company as it’s artistic The vast areas of glass in the main and enclosing the
advisor was the first large-scale demonstartion of the viability facade were laid flush with the building. Sloping glass
pediment plane, so as to give the membranes takes the
and vitality of the Werkbund’s initiatives. It was a comprehensive place of massive
sense of a thin screen hovering in
job that led him to design the hexagonal trademark of AEG, it’s front of the massive corner quoins vertical walls.
catalogs, office stationary, products such as electric fans, street in concrete, which provided a
lamps, retail shops and factories. His AEG Turbine Works factory suitable sense of structural
stability to eye
in Berlin (1909-1912), with it’s sweeping glass curtain wall,
became the most significant building in Berlin at that time.
Behrens AEG factory was a conscious work of art. A temple to
industrial power. Instead of concealing the different load-bearing
systems of the two bay hall behind the bulwarks of stone, he
exposed them to view in the long faces of the factory.
He was an influential pioneer of Modernism; Walter Gropius, Le
Corbusier and Mies van de Rohe, all worked in his office. He
taught at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna and remained Head
of the Architecture Department at the Prussian Academy of Arts
in Berlin. The house named ‘New Ways’ which he designed for an
Englishman, is regarded as the first Modernist house in Britain.
In 1928, Behrens won an international competition for the
construction of the New Synagogue Zilina and the building
still survives today as a cultural centre. As the Nazi’s came into
power in the 1930’s, Behrens was associated with Hitler’s
urbanistic dreams for Berlin with the commission of the new
headquarters of the AEG, planned by Albert Speer. But it was
never to be realized.

Modern Architecture & Art :

Expressionism
Expressionist Architecture was an architectural movement that
developed in Europe in the first decades of the 20th century, in
parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts that
specially developed and flourished in Germany. It initially
described the activity of the German, Dutch, Austrian, Czech
and Danish avant garde from 1910 until 1930. Today the
meaning has broadened even further to refer to architecture of
any date or location that exhibits some of the qualities of the
original movement such as; distortion, fragmentation or the
communication of violent or overstressed emotion.
The style was characterized by an early modernist adoption of
novel materials, formal innovation and very unusual massing,
sometimes inspired by natural biomorphic forms, sometimes by
the new technical possibilities offered by the mass production
of brick, steel and especially glass. Economic conditions
severely limited the number of built commissions between 1910
and the mid 1920’s , resulting in many of the most important
expressionist works remaining as projects on paper. Important
events in expressionist architecture include; the Werkbund
Exhibition (1914) in Cologne, the completion and theatrical
running of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin in 1919 by Hans
Poelzig, and the activities of the Amsterdam School. The most
important permanent landmark of Expressionism is Erich
Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany.
 E.Mendelsohn, B.Taut & H.Polzeig Characteristics of Expressionist Architecture
 Distortion of form for an emotional effect.
Some of the philosophers who contributed to the ideology of
Expressionism were Friedrich Nietzche, Soren Kierkegaard,  Subordination of realism to symbolic
and Henri Bergson. Naturalists such as Charles Darwin and expression of inner experience.
Ernst Haeckel contributed towards Biomorphic form, as  An underlying effort at achieving the new,
much as the exploration of the psychological effects of form
and space were influenced by the emergent psychology of original and visionary.
Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung.
 Profusion of works on paper and models with
A recurring concern of Expressionist architects was the use of
materials and how they might be poetically expressed. Often representation of concepts more important
the intention was to unify the materials in a building so as to than pragmatic finished products.
make it monolithic. Just as Bruno Taut and the poet Paul
Scheerbart attempted to address the problems of German  Often hybrid solutions, irreducible to a single
society by a doctrine of glass architecture as inscribed on the concept.
pineapple shaped, polygonal designed, rhombic Glass
Pavilion at the Werkbund exhibition. Taut is unique among
 Themes of natural romantic phenomena such
his European modernist contemporaries for his use of colour as caves, mountains, crystal and rock
and controversial flat roofs as in the Falkenburg Housing formations. As such it is more elemental than
(1912) and ‘Horseshoe’ development (1924), both built in florid and organic.
Berlin. Mendelsohn’s use of monolithic materials is evident
in the Einstein Tower. Though the latter was not cast in one  Utilizes creative potential of artisan
pour of concrete (due to technical difficulties, brick and craftsmanship.
stucco were used partially) the effect of the building is an
expression of the fluidity of concrete before it is cast. Light  Tendency towards the gothic than classical.
from the telescope is brought down through the shaft to the  Though a movement in Europe, expressionism
basement where the instruments and laboratory are located.
The sculpted building is devoid of applied ornament and is as eastern as western. It draws as much from
represents a unity that cannot be divided or extended. The Moorish, Islamic, Egyptian and Indian art and
Mossehaus is an office building that was renovated by architecture, as from Roman or Greek.
Mendelsohn in 1921-23.
The Grosses Schauspielhaus (Great Theater) was opened in  Conception of architecture as a work of art.
1919 in Berlin with the interior being domed, while large
lobbies were provided. The cavernous dome was supported
by pillars decorated with maquernas, a honeycombed
pendentive ornament which resembled stalactites. When
illuminated, the ceilings lightbulbs formed patterns of
celestial constellations and the night sky.
 Futurism
Futurist architecture is an ofearly 20th century form of architecture born in
Italy, characterized by long dynamic lines suggesting speed, motion,
urgency and lyricism : it was part of Futurism, an artistic movement
founded by the poet Filippo Marinetti. He produced the first manifesto,
the Manifesto of Futurism in 1909. The movement attracted not only poets,
musicians and artists, but also a number of architects. A cult of the
machine age and even a glorification of war and violence were among the
themes of Futurists. Sant Elia was one of the foremost architects of this
movement, who though building little, translated the futurist vision into
urban imagery.
Anarchist in inspiration, the Futurist outlook had no political affiliations,
but was in favour of a revolutionary change; speed, dynamism of all
sorts, and an aggressive adulation of the machine. This was the shared
central conception of the early painters of the movement, among them
Boccioni and Severini, who attempted to translate the Futurist ethos not
only by choosing such subjects like trains leaving stations, building sites
on the edge of industrial cities, and strikes, but by treating these themes
in a vital play of contemporary colours, lighting effects, and unstable
diagonal compositions. Thus the new architecture was to express ‘new
spiritual attitudes’: but also to find new forms appropriate to new
materials and means of construction. That the new architecture is the
architecture of cold calculation … boldness and simplicity: the
architecture of reinforced concrete, iron, glass, textile fibres and all those
replacements for wood, stone and brick that make for the attainment of
maximum elasticity and lightness. The importance of Futurism in the
context of the history of modern architecture is clear: it pulled together a
collection of progressivist attitudes, anti-traditional positions and
tendencies towards abstract forms, with the celebration of modern
materials and the indulgence in mechanical analogies. Both Futurism and
the Deutscher Werkbund rested on the central assumption that the spirit
of the times was inevitably tied to the evolution of mechanization and
that authentic modernism must take this into account in it’s functions,
methods of construction , it’s aesthetics and it’s symbolic forms.
 Constructivism
Constructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that
flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920’s and early 1930’s. It
combined advanced technology and engineering with avowedly
Communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several
competing factions, the movement produced many pioneering
projects and finished buildings, before falling out-of-favour in
1932. It emerged from the wider constructivist art movement,
which grew out of Russian Futurism. Constructivist art had
attempted to apply a three dimensional cubist vision to wholly
abstract non-objective ‘constructions’ with a kinetic element. After
the Russian Revolution of 1917 it turned it’s attentions to the new
social demands and industrial tasks required of the new regime.
Constructivist artists like Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner
encapsulated the Realist Manifesto which was concerned with
space and rhythm.
The first and most famous Constructivist architectural project was
the 1919 proposal for the headquarters of the Comintern in St.
Petersburg by the Futurist Vladimir Tatlin, often called Tatlin’s
Tower. Though it remained unbuilt as a paper project for a
Monument to the Third International of 1920. Inside 2 interlacing
spirals of open structural lattice work were suspended 3 volumes
– a cube, a pyramid, and a cylinder. – containing the various
congress halls of the state. Each of these chambers was designed to
revolve at a different speed – once a year, once a month and once a
day in accordance with the supposed cosmic importance of the
enclosed institutions. Tatlin intended the tower to be over 300m
tall (even taller than the Eiffel Tower) and painted red, the colour
symbolizing the Revolution. Another famous Constructivist project
was the Lenin Tribune by El Lissitsky (1920), a moving speaker’s
podium. Ideal Constructivist cities were also designed like El
Lissitsky’s Prounen-Raum or the ‘Dynamic City’ (1919) of Gustav
Klutsis. In this and Tatlin’s work the components of
Constructivism can be seen to be an adaptation of various high-
tech Western forms, such as the engineering feats of Gustave
Eiffel, New York and Chicago’s skyscrapers, for a new collective
society.