Adolf Loos Pre-Modern Architectural Interventionist

VS.

Pre-Modern Intervention

Adolf Loos

Pre-Modern Intervention

Adolf Loos

WRITER - ARCHITECT

• Born 1870 – Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary.

• Opposed to Contemporary Architectural Interventionists of his time period around 1910.

• Fashion and the Visual Arts interested him.

• Architecture was like dressing to Loos, and one should be well dressed to reflect their surroundings in a civilized culture.

• Viewed architecture as intimate rather than professional.

• Consider modern life as the foundation of a new aesthetic interpretation.• Ornament is a symbol of primitive culture and a need to abolish it.

• Travelled to United States (1893-1897 )and returned to Vienna and include himself to the intellectual café society .

• Did not embrace contemporary architecture and sought to create a Pre-Modern movement.

• Maintained analysis of what architecture was and what it could do; which was not much.

• valued ethics and importance to the moral role that architecture has on aesthetics.

Intervention Adolf Loos

Pre-Modern

WRITER - ARCHITECT

VIENNA – AUSTRIA, TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE

• Experienced the last decades of the imperial royal monarchy, multicultural and multilingual state conglomerate.

• Loos began practicing in the late 1890s when Art Nouveau was at its peak.

• Did not rely to historicism around 1900 as an architectural intervention.• Looked up to functionalism as essential and the practical in contrast to historicism.• Embrace Industrialism and the new type of

emerging social middle class. • Understood that historicism is not compatible with the new emerging social class and sought to create a new intervention.

Intervention

Adolf Loos Pre-Modern

LITERARY – ARCHITECTURAL

VIENNA – AUSTRIA, TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE

ARCHITECT WRITER

• Viewed ornament as superficial and as the enemy of the truth in his magazine Das Andere.” His statements shocked Viennese population.

• Rejected ornamentation with an economic argument that it equated to wasted manpower.

• Viewed architects as a specialist in their craft like master builders, carpenters, tailors, shoemaker who properly deals with material and form.

• Against ornamentation in being utilized as copied forms in architecture.• Viewed architects who utilized ornamentation as degenerates.

• Viewed architecture to go forward not backwards.

Adolf LoosPre-Modern

To come up with an intervention solutionAdolf Loos turned to analyzing the existing conditions of Vienna in 1910,

as a way to figure out an intervention best suited for the time.

Adolf Loos – Contemporary Architectural Interventionist 1700 - 1900Baroque

Johann Hildebrandt

Karl von Hasenauer

Neo-Baroque

Palais Kinsky - 1716 Belvédère Palace - 1723 Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Peter’s Church - 1733 Parish Church - 1748

Neue Hofburg - 1881

Hermesvilla - 1888

Burgtheater Wien - 1889

Semper Gottfried

Neo-Renaissance

Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Semper Depot- 1878 Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien - 1891

Otto Wagner

Art Nouveau

Karlsplatz Station - 1898

Wienzeilenhäuser - 1899

Austrian Postal Savings Bank - 1906

Johann Hildebrandt

Semper Gottfried

Karl von Hasenauer

Otto Wagner Karlsplatz Station - 1898 Wienzeilenhäuser - 1899 Austrian Postal Savings Bank - 1906

- Roman & Renaissance influence.- Counter-reformation conscious- Emit prestige wealth & power.- Opulent use color & ornaments.- External Façade dramatization.- Sculptures and Painting façade.- Explorations of form, light.

Art Nouveau Style

- Blending painting & architecture.- Strong curves, rich decoration. - Continuation of Baroque ideals.- Excessive use of ornament.- Monumental construction.- Proportion orientation.- High-cultural Idealism.- Sculpted surfaces

Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien - 1891 Semper Depot- 1878 Neo-Renaissance style

Burgtheater Wien - 1889 Neue Hofburg - 1881 Hermesvilla - 1888 Neo-Baroque

Belvédère Palace - 1723 Peter's Church - 1733 Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Palais Kinsky - 1716 Parish Church - 1748 Baroque

- Propagate as Austrian national style.- Renaissance construction principles.- Regard itself to epitome of culture.- Pillars & Pilasters in classical form.- Utilization of expensive materials.- Influence to culture & Individual.- Revert to Renaissance Idealism.- Cohesive harmony rhythmic.- Regal perception to scale.- Historicism influenced.

- Rebel against formal, classical design.- Wide use of arches & curved forms.- Stained Glass application to façade.- Beauty found in nature principles.- Curved Glass experimentation.- Mosaics application to façade.- Embrace of curvilinear shapes.- Decorative in square forms.- Free from organic rhythm.- Asymmetrical shapes.

Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Neue Hofburg - 1881 Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Karlsplatz Station - 1898

Art NouveauNeo-RenaissanceNeo-BaroqueBaroque

Johann Hildebrandt Semper Gottfried Karl von Hasenauer Otto Wagner Adolf Loos

Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Auerspeg Palace - 1732

Pre-Modern

Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Karlsplatz Station - 1898

Viennese – Cultural Agents Analysis1700 - 1900

PRODUCTION COST

PRODUCTION TYPE

ORNAMENTATION INFLUENCE

0%

Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Neue Hofburg - 1881 Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Karlsplatz Station - 1898

Art NouveauNeo-RenaissanceNeo-BaroqueBaroque

Johann Hildebrandt Semper Gottfried Karl von Hasenauer Otto Wagner Adolf Loos

Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Auerspeg Palace - 1732

Pre-Modern

Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Karlsplatz Station - 1898

Viennese – Cultural Analysis1700 - 1900

SOCIAL STATUS

GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE

POPULATION INFLUENCE

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Art NouveauNeo-RenaissanceNeo-BaroqueBaroque Pre-Modern

Vienna 1700 - 1900

Vienna 1910

Reduction of Ornamentation

Utilization

UtilityFunctional

Cost-EfficientGovernance

Labor-EfficientEmerging Society

Production Efficient

Learn fromPast interventions

Artistic Moment

Adolf Loos

0% Ornamentation

Production

Cost

Government

Population

Social Status

Data Influence

Art Nouveau

Neo-Renaissance

Neo-Baroque

Baroque

Not Compatiblefor Pre-Modern

societyViewed that “Every age had its style…by style, people meant ornament. Then I said: See, therein lies the greatness of our age, that it’s incapable of producing a new ornament. We have outgrown ornament; we have fought our way through to freedom from ornament. soon the streets of our city will glisten like white walls.”

Adolf Loos: “The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from utilitarian objects.”

What he really sought was truthful design, pure architecture that served and expressed function, nothing more, nothing less. He admired old fashioned objects that were sensible and workable

Became a radical thinker and an outspoken critic of Austrian society of how it embraced ornamentation.

Developed a Radical-pragmatic attitude towards architecture as service in the sense of the tradition towards craftsmanship.

Labeled ‘ornament’ as a disease whose symptoms plagued historicist architecture is in the past.

Loos infantilized, orientalized, feminized and criminalized specific Austrian and German architects and designers who employed ornament. While he considered himself to be a thoroughly modern man, these ornament-makers he viewed belonged to a different era

Pre-Modern

0% Ornamentation

Production

Cost

Government

Population

Social Status

Machine

Low

Constitutionalmonarch

Working Class

Multi-National

Very low

Art Nouveau

Neo-Renaissance

Neo-Baroque

Baroque

Pre-Modern

Interventions Trend

Too Costly

Too Labor Intensive

Too Construction Intensive

Too Organic

Pre-ModernSolves emerging societal needs

Adolf Loos: “Every age had its style…by style, people meant ornament. Then I said: …See, therein lies the greatness of our age, that it is incapable of producing a new ornament.

We have outgrown ornament; we have fought our way through to freedom from ornament… soon the streets of our city will glisten like white walls.”

It was affected by the backwards orientated governance of the emperor Franz Joseph I. That society looked back to the previous era and was not able to deal with the problems and

possibilities of the new civil society.

Viennese architectural mainstream was the use of historism. Its use imitated the design mediums of the ancient eras.

It was not possible for Loos to establish himself immediately as an architect in Vienna. Due to this, he started to write essays for Viennese newspapers like the Neue Freie Presse, Die Zeit and Die Waage. In this process he was able to develop his writing and thinking towards Pre-Modernism.

By 1900 Vienna had evolved into the cultural focus of Central Europe, not least thanks to its rapid urban development compared to other great European cities – London, Paris and Berlin. With the

arrival of new immigrants and two major development projects,

Adolf Loos Pre-Modern

Analyzing the existing conditionscontemporary interventionists,

and current social state of Vienna led to the creation of a Literary Intervention.

Pre-Modern

0%

Pre-Modern

Literary Intervention

Literary Intervention

Contemporary Ornamentation

Reduction of Ornamentation

VS.

Craftsmanship Mechanization

Steady Production Fast ProductionCost-Significant Cost-Conscious

Collective UniversalSpecialization Automatization

Resourceful Fast PaceIndependent Dependent

Individualism ProgrammaticPlural Singular

Adolf Loos: “If there were no ornament at all… man would only have to work four hours instead of eight, because half the work done today is devoted to ornament. Ornament is

wasted labor power and hence wasted health.”

Found much inspiration in his luxurious use of materials, and non-commercial ones wonder at his ingenious use of space, and in both

cases Loos can become far more practically useful.

Adolf Loos’s famous essay, ‘Ornament and Crime’, decisively linked unornamented architecture with the culture of modernity and, in so doing, became one of the key formulations of modern architecture.

Thinking in this wide spectrum he developed his theory of an unornamented way of design. His theoretical work culminated in his

main work “Ornament and Crime” (1908)

Loos harshly criticised the decorative works of the Art Nouveau movement in Vienna and what he considered the cultural

backwardness of his native Austria for its adherence to past styles of architecture (particularly the lavish Baroque style with its superfluous

ornament) which he believed had no relation to modern life.

In his publications Loos wanted to awaken his fellow Austrians and shake them out of their cultural backwardness. Upon his return to Austria from America in 1898 he started a magazine entitled The

Other. A journal for the introduction of Western Culture into Austria.

Adolf Loos Pre-Modern

Once a Literary Intervention was formulatedAdolf Loos translated his thinking and writings into

physical form as an Architectural Intervention.

Pre-Modern

0%

Literary Intervention

Architectural Intervention

A 1911 cartoonist's comment on the facade. Built building. Architectural InterventionPublic Opinion

Emerging Social Working Class

Upper Class

Monarch-Constitutionalist

Disagree

Disagree &PreferNeo-Renaissance Style

Agree

Adolf Loos: “I don’t accept the objection that ornament heightens a cultivated person’s joy in life, I don’t accept the objection contained in the words “But if the ornament is beautiful!”

Ornament does not heighten my joy in life or the joy in life of any cultivated person…”

Loos was one of the most significant prophets of modernism. His buildings are stark, abstract and rational in appearance and his ‘raumplan’ concept revolutionized the spatial design of buildings. His

buildings and ideas had a significant influence on the emerging International Style architects in Europe and America.

Loos designed an apartment and business building whose façade was free from any ornamentation and which was more oriented towards historicism.

Loos' respect for antiquity was of a functionalistic nature: he always considered the question, what would the ancients have accomplished under the present conditions? In any event Loos' writings and

architectural works provided great inspiration to the architects of the following generation who brought about the International Style of 1925-1950.

John Dewey Antonio GramsciImmanuel Kant

Organic intellectuals have more to do with class division than with professional fields.

Taste is associated with faculty of taste as special mental faculty, possessed by people

with a special sensitivity

KantLoos

Modern man’s Taste

is compatible with the

reduction of ornamentation

What is the difference between taste, judgment, and beauty in Kantian terms? Are they subjective or universal?

What determines the judgment between beauty or ugliness?

In respect to aesthetic judgment

KantLoos

The judgment to not utilize

ornamentation is to go forward not backwards

Beauty is limited whereas sublime is

limitless

KantLoos

Beauty is appreciated thru its craftsmanship, but

the absence of ornamentation is

limitless, therefore sublime.

Sublime.

Historicism.

Historicism.

Historicism.

Historicism.

Beauty in Craftsmanship

Adolf Loos Pre-Modern Intervention is universal, because it has accepted worldwide as an architectural solution to our environments.

Historicism.

In order to understand the

esthetic in its ultimate and

approved forms, one must begin

with it in the raw

DeweyLoos

To understand natural colors, is

to value it as part of the

human experience

Vs.Natural Colors

Artificial Colors

Painting and sculpture were

organically one with architecture, as that

was one with the social purpose that

buildings served.

DeweyLoos

The Social Purpose that Pre-Modern

architecture has is to serve the

emerging needs in the 1910’s.

High Society = Historicism

Working Class = Pre-Modern

Art is not something exceptional in the human experience. Why is the absence of color is relevant?

Parthenon is a great work of art. Yet it has esthetic

standing only as the work becomes an experience for

a human being.

DeweyThe building is to be experience in its purest form, in essence “naked”

Loos

• Partially or wholly mirrored ceilings orwall surfaces that visually extend space.

• Oriental rugs on the floors.

• Wooden paneling on the walls.

• Marble veneer on walls or floors.

• Wooden parquet floors.

• Severe, geometric, austere architectural forms softened with comfortable furnishings, often varied in style.

• In-built fixtures and furnishings(eg. bookcases, seating, shelves, heaters).

The Raiffeisen bank is Loos' most famous building, One of the first modern office buildings in Vienna, the steel concrete construction provides wide structural spans with flexible space use.

Sought to design practical buildings for his clients. He designed buildings without a pre-

conceived notion of their form.

Goldman and Salatsch haberdashery shop in Vienna. This interior, entirely straightlined and without any ornament, already showed his design principles and especially his mastery in the creation of articulate space effects.