interiors that are decorated by professionals. In such interiors dwelling is not experi-
enced on the basis of personal memories and lived experiences; instead it freezes in
an artificial outward show that has nothing to do with the individuality of the occu-
pants. Loos uses the term “blasphemous” to denounce this stylish freeze. Imagine
a domestic scene, he says, in which a young girl has just committed suicide and lies
stretched out on the floor. If this floor is part of a van de Velde interior, then we are
not dealing just with a tastefully furnished room, but with a “blasphemy of the
dead.”^39 Blasphemy occurs when dwelling is overwhelmed by “style” and “art.”
Style undermines dwelling, robbing it of its individuality. Art, moreover, has much too
high a calling to become involved in the design of something that should be as self-
evident as a house.
Loos’s call for a radical repudiation of ornament is the corollary of this criticism.
The absence of ornaments—the rejection of the deliberate creation of a new
“style”—was in his opinion a correct response to the diagnosis of life as being root-
less and fragmented. Ornament is that which people use to attempt to relate differ-
ent aspects of life and to join inner and outer worlds in a coherent whole. By getting
rid of ornament the illusion is destroyed that a harmonious unity of this sort is still
possible. One can only remain true to tradition if one acknowledges that its continu-
ity is not an unbroken one. Dwelling can only be saved by separating it from other as-
pects of life.
Loos’s concept of modernity is therefore radically antipastoral. He does not
conjure up any vision of a future in which all the different realms of life would merge
in a harmonious unity. The belief in a single ideal uniting industrialists, artists, and
craftsmen is completely foreign to him. In his view, the representatives of these dif-
ferent categories have different roles to fulfill on the stage of world history. He draws
a clear dividing line between art and culture, between private and public, between
dwelling and architecture. This division, he argues, is fundamental to the modern
condition.
Walter Benjamin: The Dream of a Classless Society
In 1969, the year of his own death, Adorno wrote a final comment on the life and
work of his friend Walter Benjamin.^40 The title of this text, “A l’écart de tous les
courants,” puts a finger on a major aspect of Benjamin’s thought—the fact that it
cannot be fitted into any specific philosophical or literary trend. Influenced by diver-
gent currents of thought such as neo-Kantianism, the Jewish Kabbala, and dialecti-
cal materialism, Benjamin’s philosophy preserves a curious individuality, precisely
because it is permeated by different modes of thought.
Born in Berlin in 1892, the son of a Jewish businessman, Walter Benjamin
studied philosophy, psychology, and German literature at various universities. In
1925 his Habilitationsschriftwas rejected by the university of Frankfurt^41 and he re-
solved to earn his living as a freelance writer. After the Nazis came to power he went
3
Reflections in a Mirror