The Architecture of Adolf Loos

The Architecture Of Adolf Loos | Yehuda Safran | Pidgeon Digital 14/05/20, 15:42
HOME ABOUT EXPLORE SUBSCRIBE FAQ CONTACT
The Architecture Of Adolf Loos

Yehuda Safran
YEHUDA SAFRAN, 1987

©Monica Pidgeon
Adolf Loos was the son of a stonemason and he was born in Brno, in Moravia,
Czechoslovakia in 1870. He died in 1933 in a sanatorium outside Vienna. He studied
intermediately in Dresden from 1889 to 1893, travelled in America from 1893
onwards and settled finally in Vienna in 1896. In 1897 Loos began to design interiors
and to write the numerous controversial essays which established him as the
foremost cultural critic. His essays considered a wide range of problems which
expressed his struggle over many years for the transformation of 'everyday life',
encompassing customs, art and the cultivation of manners. His 128 projects spread
over thirty-five years of architectural activity and over a wide geographical area,
even though few of his projects were built, and fewer still survive intact. The
integrity with which his projects were conceived and executed, together with the
force of his critical stance, established Loos as a seminal figure of Vitruvian
dimension, drawing upon tradition and yet facing up squarely to the demands of the
modern world.
https://www-pidgeondigital-com.proxy-auth3.iuav.it/talks/the-architecture-of-adolf-loos/chapters/ Pagina 1 di 23
ADOLF LOOS. PORTRAIT BY OSKAR KOKOSCHKA,

VIENNA, 1909
©Berlin National Gallery
From his vantage point in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Loos' view of the English
remained idealised, and his praise unqualified. Loos' dedicated Anglophilia was not
for the 'vernacular' of the Arts and Crafts movement but for a deep love of nature,
emancipated craftsmen, furniture, fashion, habits of eating and dwelling. Equally, for
Loos America was a myth of democracy attained, a Europe emancipated and a
pragmatic culture free of hypocrisy. This was a view which many of his generation
shared. He visited the Colombian World Exhibition in Chicago in 1893: he became
familiar with the early skyscrapers of New York and of the Chicago School and with
the writing of Louis Sullivan. Loos disagreed profoundly on theoretical grounds with
the Secessionists, with the Wiener Werkstätte, and with the Deutscher Werkbund.
In the aftermath of the First World War and transition from a constitutional
monarchy to a republic, the Social Democratic leaders of the City of Vienna tried to
overcome the chronic shortage of housing. Loos was appointed as the chief architect
of the communal housing. Failing to ward off the inflated iconography of the Hof
(which was over-sized and unsuitable for living in), as his own alternative proposals
were rejected, Loos became disillusioned. In 1922 he moved to Paris. with his close
friend Schoenberg and with the Parisian 'avant-garder' - in particular Marcel
Duchamp, the group engaged in editing 'L'Esprit Nouveau', and the architect Charles-
Édouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier). Loos found a congenial personal environment,
although not the ability to realise his larger projects.
KÄRNTNER BAR, VIENNA, 1908. ENTRANCE

PORTICO
©B. Rukschcio And R. Schachel
Among the built projects of Loos, the first one perhaps encompasses some of his
principals and stands, still, as a monument for his work, is the Kärntner Bar of 1908.
The Kärntner Bar is small but the use of material and space is exemplary. Despite its
small size, the bar creates a spacious environment.
4
KÄRNTNER BAR, VIENNA, 1908. INTERIOR
LOOKING TOWARDS ENTRANCE
Loos found ornament to be deceptive because it denies the material and overlays it
with grotesque work, compelling it to 'lie'. Instead, the interior of the bar masterfully
deploys traditional materials: marble, onyx, wood and mirrors. The chequered floor,
the inverted pyramid ceiling of veined marble, the panels of onyx on the entrance
wall, the dark mahogany facing, the black leather separés, the polished brass of the
table edges, the suffused, discreet light reflected by the crystal of the glass, all add to
the atmosphere of the room. The end wall and the two sides are faced with mirrors,
reflecting the marble ceiling and multiplying its image to infinity. The visitor to the
bar cannot see his own image in these mirrors, as they are above eye-level.
KÄRNTNER BAR, VIENNA, 1908. VIEW TO REAR

The forms which Loos employed in the bar include elements which had appeared in
various ways before in his work and were to recur in his later work: the classical
quarter column, the mirrors set in between the columns, the beam structure rising
above the timber-clad walls and the coffered marble ceiling. The treatment of the
marble, with panels cut out of one slab and recessed successively with regular bead
mouldings in brass, diverges into different directions: on the one hand the repetition
of the ceilings into pyramidal forms, and on the other hand the notion of the principal
of 'cladding' put forward by Gottfried Semper, architect, architectural historian and
theoretician, the first functionalist in terms of design. The continuous veins of the
marble underlie the unity of the ceiling as a skin of cladding, broken up
simultaneously. The effect of the mirrors realises Loos' idea of the relationship
between the individual and the public, which finds its expression in the bar.
Everything contained by the bar is cosy and visible - and thus knowable.
MICHAELERHAUS, VIENNA, 1909 - 1911. VIEW

FROM MICHAELERPLATZ (1920)
Among the most controversial and seminal works of Loos is no doubt the
Michaelerhaus built in 1909 - 11 just opposite the Imperial Palace, the Hofburg,
completing the Michaelerplatz with an eight-storey apartment block and
department store. The prime shopping space facing the square was taken by
Goldman and Salatsch, for whom Loos had already converted one shop (1898) and
was in the process of converting Leopold Goldman's house, and from whom (since
1896) Loos had a subscription to purchase suits, shirts, etc., for a substantial sum
every year. In September 1910 an injunction by the planning authorities was taken
out, preventing further work on the building. This was to be followed by a
competition for an alternative decorative façade. It was abandoned after Otto
Wagner, the most respected architect of his time, and others publicly advised against
such a course. The dispute was resolved only in March 1912, when the Council
retracted by accepting a compromise and granted the final licence subject to the
addition of flower baskets to the upper section of the building. This event provoked
the onset of life-long stomach illness which eventually caused Loos' death. Loos
intended essentially to create a building in the Viennese tradition, in which the upper
residential floors have a plain white rendered façade, which the main public interface
- the ground and mezzanine levels - consist of more varied materials. In order to
underscore this tradition, Loos severed the relationship of the structural lines
between top and bottom, not in the way in which a solid masonry block appears to
rest upon the glass of the shop window, but in the way in which such a block rests
upon a frieze and colonnade. The columns are made of solid Cipollino marble, known
for its brittleness, which challenges the skill of the best mason. Loos chose real
marble because he loathed any kind of imitation; the decorative effect of the marble
was inherent, not man-made. Similarly, the formal language of the columns and the
profiles are classical, not invented by Loos himself. Yet the columns do not bear the
weight of the upper residential floors, and the structural system consists of a
reinforced concrete portal frame. It would have allowed Loos to employ the first strip
windows, but instead it enabled him to realise the principle of differentiation, firstly
between the 'private' and the 'public', that is between the real plaster top and the
real marble base, and secondly between load-bearing and non-load-bearing
elements: that is, side piers versus inset columns. The differentiation extends not
only between upper and lower parts but also between the façades of the side street
and the main square, changing the scale of the formal response.
MICHAELERHAUS, VIENNA, 1909 - 1911. HAUS

GOLDMAN & SALATSCH FOYER (1981)
Loos treated both the exterior and interior spaces of the Michaelerhaus in this sense.
From the metropolitan grandeur of the giant external colonnaded front to the Anglo-
Saxon domestic interior of the mezzanine gallery, the character and rhythm
undergoes a total, if almost imperceptible, change. This is achieved by the complex
arrangement of levels in the main store, as the grand scale of the square is gradually
reduced from the double height of the ground floor volume...
MICHAELERHAUS, VIENNA, 1909 - 1911.

MEZZANINE SEEN FROM CLOTH STORE (1930)
...to the mezzanine, and finally to the mezzanine gallery. It is a precursor of Loos'
spatial plans, (the Raumplan). The building might be perceived as a string of
contradictory architectural decisions, but a closer interpretation might well conclude
that Loos deployed the principle of differentiation in order to bridge the gaps
between the characters of inside and outside, top and bottom, and the Imperial
Palace and the shopping street. It was a principle which struck the refined nerves of
the day, and was so 'modern' and so wholly appropriate that it has today become as
inconspicuous as possible.
SCHEU HAUS, VIENNA, 1912. STREET FAÇADE

(1981)
The Scheu House of 1912 is again a seminal house in the oeuvre of Loos. Of this
house he wrote "It has always been my desire to build such a terracing house for
worker's housing. The fate of the proletarian's child from its first year of life to its day
of entry into school seems particularly harsh to me. The child, locked up by its
parents, should have the prison-like flat opened up by the communal terrace, which
allows for neighbourly supervision." It's clear therefore that for Loos the project of
the Scheu House was inter-related with other ideas that he entertained at the time
for social housing. Dr. Gustav Scheu was intimately connected with the Austrian
Social Democratic movement. His father was co-founder of the Austrian Social
Democratic Party. His uncle, Andreas Scheu, and William Morris united in voting for
a public housing policy, as opposed to merely requesting artisans' dwellings. But it
was not just Morris and the English Arts and Crafts movement which were
influential among the Austrian intelligentsia: the Garden City movement and ideas
concerning public housing became vehicles for planning policies in Vienna both
before and after the First World War. These were reflected not only in the Scheu
House but also in Loos' post-war public housing projects. The English model had
governed his decision for the Scheu House more than a decade earlier, and the house
embodies many of the principles which gave rise to Loos' alternative to the socialist
iconography evolved following the First World War and exemplified by the oversized,
inadequately equipped mass dwellings like the Karl-Marx-Hof. Loos chose to set the
flat-roofed terraced section of the Scheu House emphatically towards the street.
The reaction to it was both immediate and negative: before planning permission was
granted, Scheu had to pledge to grow plants over the plain façade, and Loos had to
produce a design for a house on the adjacent site. It was never built. Loos' published
intentions of the Scheu house itself were to provide the two upper floors, which
contained the bedrooms, with roof terraces.
10
SCHEU HAUS, VIENNA, 1912. LIVING ROOM &

LIBRARY (1930)
The character of the detailing on the inside - the library, the inglenook, the dining
room and hallway - and the windows which mediate between this and the outside,
have an air of Englishness about them, which only gradually became absorbed and
abstracted into a tectonic language of columns, beams, floors and ceilings in his later
houses, such as the Moller and Muller Houses. The separate access to the upper
apartment (the service quarter) prefigures the type of terracing section which was to
appear later on a larger scale in Loos' public housing schemes which in the 19505
came to be widely known as the 'street-in-the-air'.
11
TOP: TWENTY VILLAS, 1921. PERSPECTIVE.

BOTTOM: WERKBUND HOUSES, VIENNA, 1932.
DRAWING
Soon after, during one of his more extensive tours to the South of France, Loos
developed a more complex version of the arrangement of stepped terracing in
Twenty Villas with Roof Terraces; a private housing scheme. This is a complex essay
in spatial planning, akin to a three-dimensional interlocking puzzle in which the
staircases and small study-like rooms form the joints; the Grand Hotel Babylon (in
the form of two wings flanking one side of a spine) elaborated the theme still further.
It formulates an answer to the Viennese politician's question of what to do with the
void created by the deep plan of a stepped section: a top-lit swimming pool and an
ice-skating rink - that is to say, communal facilities. At first the Scheu House was
intended to have a gymnasium in the basement, and in this respect, as in others, the
Anglophile Scheu House can be seen to have marked the beginning of a series of
housing schemes, both public and private, which culminated in the Werkbund
houses.
12
MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928. STREET

FAÇADE (1928)
Of the most exemplary houses from the point of view of Raumplan, of all successful
private houses, the Moller House and the Muller House are no doubt supreme
examples. The Moller House, built for Hans Moller, a textile industrialist, represents
a fully mature stage in the transformation which took place in Loos' building
configurations. It is a cubic configuration, the external character of which arose in
response to an internal demand of the spatial plan which could not be
accommodated within the parameters of a classical villa. At the same time, elements
from an anonymous Mediterranean repertoire - terraces, loggias, projections and
balconies - offer the building other configurations with spatial differentiations. Thus
the classical tradition could be transcended as a new solution (the spatial plan) made
it necessary to do so. The house has a perfect rectangular wall which by its geometric
purity stresses its nature as a wall separating private from public. It provides a
conceptual grid which holds the whole composition together. Compact, dense, solid
presences are pierced only in a few places by the rectangular windows and scored
only by the diagonal cuts which mark the entrance. The only element which projects,
contrasting with the static quality of the wall, is the white bay window suspended
above the entrance in an almost surrealistic manner. If abstraction dominates the
façade overlooking the street, matter-of-factness dominates the façade overlooking
the garden. Features of everyday life - the windows, the balconies, the steps, the
railings, in short, all the elements of the composition - are reduced to their functions.
13
MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928.
AXONOMETRIC
The transition from the external, public space to the interior private space occurs
along a carefully planned route of penetration introduced by an articulate
assemblage of forms. The entrance hall is a rather low space which serves as a
resting point, directing one further inside in other directions. A few steps on the right
lead to the first stop: the brightly lit cloakroom. Up the stairs, which turn through
ninety degrees, the force of ascent is accentuated, or revealed, by the play of
volumes. At the top of the stairs one enters the large space of the living room, set on
several levels. Here we are at the heart of the house, with a sitting room in the alcove
set five steps above the floor of the living room and enclosed by the white bay
window. The living room, which is higher than the alcove, follows the latter's
relatively more private character with one relatively more public, and it confirms the
spatial plan as a method of volumetric design charged with living meaning.
14
MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928. DINING
ROOM SEEN FROM LIVING ROOM (1930)

The floor spaces are linked up, with each one communicating with the other. The
floor of the dining room is connected with that of the music room by a large sliding
door, and it is raised some seventy centimetres above the other; there is no visible
way of getting from the music room to the dining room. The only way, in fact, is to
take out folding steps hidden in the base. The lack of visible connection establishes
and reinforces the difference between the two rooms, which are interrelated only
visually. In the same way, the materials used to line them are distinct, although
similar.
15
MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928. STAIRS UP

FROM DINING ROOM (1981)
The dining room is lined with panels of Okoume plywood interrupted at the corners
by projecting pillars faced with Travertine stone. The only moveable objects are the
table and the Thonet chairs, which are ready-made objects. Loos explained that 'the
act of designing a new chair for the dining room seems a joke to me, and a pointless
one at that, involving a waste of time and money.
16
MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928. MUSIC

ROOM SEEN FROM DINING ROOM (1930)
In the music room the dark tints of the wall panels predominate. Polished ebony
helps to create a suitable atmosphere for listening to music. As in the dining room,
here, too, the furnishings are built into the walls, including the glass- encased space
designed to contain a musical instrument (originally a cello). This house represents
the first fully realised cubic house containing within it Loos' spatial plan, whereas the
next house, the Moller House, is not only cubic but also has sheer façades on all four
sides in view of its more dominant position, and its spatial plan occupies a larger scale
as well as a greater complexity.
17
MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. STREET

FAÇADE (1930)
Like the Moller House, (built only the previous year), the Muller House is cubic,
although it incorporates a receding terrace structure, an element which reoccurs in
Loos' work. Both houses have bay windows, windows cut directly into the wall,
extended walls and certain other structural devices, but unlike the Moller House, the
Muller House - situated well above the city of Prague - has a screen-like façade on all
four sides. This façade not only marks the border between public and private
spheres but also provides the shell, the 'mute expression'. within this Loos developed
his most comprehensive and most beautiful spatial plan. The external symmetry
contains a complex internal scheme of the private, single family house. There is not
only a separation between levels which corresponds to day and night but also a
complex spatial sequence which guides movement from the outside to the inside,
complemented by a scenic sequence which interpenetrates separate spaces. A
narrow entrance leads to a short spiral staircase which suddenly reveals a view of
the living room...
18
MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. DINING

ROOM RAISED ABOVE LIVING ROOM (1970)
...with a view of the dining room seen eight steps higher. The previous year Loos had
written: 'the only great revolution in the field of architecture is the freeing of the
ground plan in space ... Before Immanuel Kant, humanity could not yet think in space
and architects were compelled to make the toilet as high as the hall. Only by dividing
everything in two could they obtain lower rooms'. Together with the differentiation
of levels and discrete places, the basic principle of this 'game' is the spatial
interpenetration which brings together and links discrete spaces into close visual
contact.
19
MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. LADIES'

CORNER WITH WINDOW OVERLOOKING LIVING
ROOM (1970)
The lady's room (Damenzimmer), the library, the reading room, the writing area and
the conversation area are differentiated from one another by the type of wood -
'glazed' wood or dark mahogany - contrasting with the white wall, separated by steps
and sometimes connected by an internal window.
20
MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. SECTION

The central void in the upper level uses light from above and illuminates the
innermost sections, such as the area separating the library and the reading room.
Similarly, the void creates a centre around which runs the gallery giving access to the
bedrooms on the floor above. Within the library, the fireplace lined with majolica, the
open beams on the ceiling and the shelves built into the walls echo Loos' earlier
intentions inspired by Anglo-Saxon examples, just as the long mirrors divided into
squares reflecting the light from the side window correspond to some of Loos'
earlier interiors. Loos' associate Heinrich Kulka assessed the Muller House as the
most complete expression of Loos' conception of architecture.
21
MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. VIEW FROM

LIVING ROOM UP TO DINING ROOM ON LEFT
(1970)
If this is so, then it is particularly true of the marvellous space created by joining the
living and dining rooms. Loos had done the same in the Moller House, but here the
complex form of spatial interpenetration evolved around the visual centre, with the
dining room projecting further out along the symmetrical axis of the house. The
green Cipollino marble mounted in panels creates with its pattern of veining a ready-
made design over the entire wall of the staircase. The block of stone stands out
against the white walls, allowing one to perceive the interior at a glance. The extreme
variety of colour - yellow curtains and red brick fireplace, green curtains and granite
slab used as a dining room table - intensify the links effected by contrasts and
similarities.
22
TRISTAN TZARA RESIDENCE, PARIS, 1925 - 1926.

STREET ELEVATION (1926)
Loos' residence in Paris culminated in a house commissioned by the Dadaist poet

Tristan Tzara. The design contrasts an extreme abstraction with a concrete language
of materials. Indeed, in his architecture Loos seemed to subscribe to Tzara's well-
known statement that 'art is a continual procession of differences'. The street
elevation shows two deep double-storey recesses. The large central void of the
balcony overlooks the Avenue Junot, in contrast to the close rhythm of the three
minor openings of the floor below, arranged according to bilateral symmetry about a
vertical axis. The separation denotes two different intended purposes, distinguishing
the house for rent on the first three levels and the poet's house on the upper floors.
More importantly, it traces two different geometries and permits Loos both to
outline an almost perfect square - a pure geometric figure - and to present simplicity
of design. The radical use of symmetry emphasises the contrast between the
autonomous upper part and the lower part which functions as both pedestal and
terraced ground. The rubble stone of the façade of the lower part preserves the
treatment found in the street itself, just as the shape of the façade continues the
curve both of the gentle slope of the terrain and of the Avenue Junot. The entrance,
sheltered by a wide balcony is made by a diagonal cut, as it were carved out of the
stone. The emphasis given to the open concrete beam-architrave harks back to a
more archaic technique. The language of the concrete material contrasts with
abstract form. As Loos explained, 'plaster is a skin and stone is a structure'.
23

STUDY (1931)
Internally, in the spatial plan of displaced levels, Loos carried out his work of
excavation, fitting rooms of different heights within a single volume; rooms which,
like Chinese boxes, become yet more secretive (and private) as they grow smaller.
24

SALON WITH RAISED DINING ROOM ON LEFT
(1931)
In the living room Loos set out the shape of his work in front of, and in some measure
by means of, mirrors. The façade in turn contrasts with the other faces of the
building. The garden side has three terraces: one each for the living room, the
bedroom and the roof-terraces. The atelier and the study display asymmetric
projections. Each element has its own value, its own functional clarity. The result is a
dissonance - almost musical in its force - but it is a kind of dissonance which produces
a series of deliberate surprises. At the moment we no doubt experience a period of
re-examination. The thread which has been developing ever since Wagner has
definitely been severed during the Second World War. What was the Modern
movement, what were the ideas of pioneers of Modern architecture certainly were
obscured by subsequent events; political events, political interventions have
overshadowed any architectural preoccupations. In the period of the aftermath of
the Second World War certainly priorities were conceived differently and much
which was done in that period add to the obscurity of the original preoccupation, the
pre-war preoccupation. It seems that only now we are capable of connecting these
threads again, only now we can read Adolf Loos' critical essays without finding them
obscure or inaccessible. It is only now that we are free from the immediate pressure
of reconstruction and therefore able to re-examine some of his insights. It seems,
similarly, that in a period of relative abundance, the issues which are so characteristic
of Loos come to the fore again. What is the appropriate style? What is the
appropriate manner in which one should approach the task of building? These
questions can be asked and asked again and Loos seems to offer us a fresh way of
examining these questions. In his critical attitude, his reliance on language, on the
critique of language exemplified by his friends Karl Kraus and Wittgenstein, he
certainly remains an exemplary figure.
Related talks:
Sylvia Crowe Preben Jakobsen Walter Bor

Wood & Water Order In The Landscape In Step With Planning In China An Intern
1988 1988 1988
Site design & build by Spork Digital Ltd • © World Microfilms Publications Limited 2018 • Get in touch

The Architecture of Adolf Loos - Yehuda Safran - Pidgeon Digital

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Architecture of Adolf Loos - Yehuda Safran - Pidgeon Digital

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Architecture Of Adolf Loos | Yehuda Safran | Pidgeon Digital 14/05/20, 15:42

HOME ABOUT EXPLORE SUBSCRIBE FAQ CONTACT

YEHUDA SAFRAN, 1987

ADOLF LOOS. PORTRAIT BY OSKAR KOKOSCHKA,

KÄRNTNER BAR, VIENNA, 1908. ENTRANCE

KÄRNTNER BAR, VIENNA, 1908. VIEW TO REAR

MICHAELERHAUS, VIENNA, 1909 - 1911. VIEW

MICHAELERHAUS, VIENNA, 1909 - 1911. HAUS

MICHAELERHAUS, VIENNA, 1909 - 1911.

SCHEU HAUS, VIENNA, 1912. STREET FAÇADE

SCHEU HAUS, VIENNA, 1912. LIVING ROOM &

TOP: TWENTY VILLAS, 1921. PERSPECTIVE.

MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928. STREET

MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928. DINING

ROOM SEEN FROM LIVING ROOM (1930)

MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928. STAIRS UP

MOLLER HAUS, VIENNA, 1927 - 1928. MUSIC

MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. STREET

MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. DINING

MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. LADIES'

MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. SECTION

MULLER HAUS, PRAGUE, 1929 - 1930. VIEW FROM

TRISTAN TZARA RESIDENCE, PARIS, 1925 - 1926.

Loos' residence in Paris culminated in a house commissioned by the Dadaist poet

TRISTAN TZARA RESIDENCE, PARIS, 1925 - 1926.

TRISTAN TZARA RESIDENCE, PARIS, 1925 - 1926.

Sylvia Crowe Preben Jakobsen Walter Bor

You might also like