of demarcation and transitions was handled, in the structuring of the different areas,
and in defining their relationship. The filling-in of the different areas was something
to be decided by the occupants of the house and not by the architect.
Loos regarded cladding as the foundation of architecture. One’s experience of
a space is primarily determined by the way that ceiling, floor, and walls are clad—in
other words, by the sensuous impact of the materials. An architect begins designing
a space by visualizing it. Only in the second instance is any attention paid to the frame
that will support the cladding. The architectural construction of the whole is there-
fore of secondary importance. For Loos the crucial requirement of authenticity had
nothing to do with the structure being visible in the architectural design (as the dom-
inant tendency in the modern movement would argue), but rather with the cladding
being clearly visible as cladding. A material should not leave one in doubt as to its
character or function—cladding cannot be substituted for the material that it clads;
plastering should not be disguised as marble, nor should brickwork be treated with
the pretensions of stone. “The law goes like this: we must work in such a way that
a confusion of the material clad with its cladding is impossible.”^16 Seen in this light,
authenticity does not mean a strict correspondence between inner and outer; on the
contrary, it consists of the deliberate construction of a mask that is recognizable as a
mask.
Loos went on to apply the principle of cladding at another level. He stated re-
peatedly that modern human beings need masks: their public images do not coincide
39
Josef Hoffmann, Palais Stoclet,
Brussels, 1905–1911.
(Photo from Moderne
Bauformen 13, 1914.)
3
Reflections in a Mirror