Adolf Loos

Loos, Adolf 

Born Dec. 10, 1870, in Brünn (now Brno, Czechoslovakia); died Aug. 22, 1933, in Vienna. Austrian architect.

Loos graduated from the Technische Hochschule in Dresden in 1893. Although he worked in the United States from 1893 to 1896 and in Paris from 1923 to 1928, his major efforts were in Vienna, where he was the principal architect from 1920 to 1922.

Influenced by L. Sullivan, Loos voiced his opposition to the art nouveau style in architecture in the 1890’s, contrasting its picturesqueness and rich ornamentation with the rationalism and accentuated asceticism of his own buildings, as well as with his exploitation of the specific qualities of construction materials. This rejection of art nouveau is expressed in the artist’s article “Ornament and Crime” (1908) and in a number of his architectural works in Vienna (the interior of the Kärntner-Bar, 1907; the office building in the Michaelplatz and the Steiner House, 1910; and the design of the Hoyberg Block, 1922).

Loos’ works, particularly those designed after 1925, reflect neoclassical tendencies, the influence of cubism (the house for T. Tzara in Paris, mid-1920’s), and an interest in folk architecture (the Khuner house in Payerbach, 1930).

WORKS

Die Schriften, vols. 1–2. Innsbruck, 1931.

REFERENCES

Mastera arkhitektury ob arkhitekture. Moscow, 1972. Pages 138–58. Münz, L. A. Loos. Milan, 1956.