Loos, Adolf( 1870 – 1933 )
Modena park verbauung, Albertina, ALA 343 C 4 , Graphite on paperThe work of Adolf Loos exemplifies the contrasts and contradictions of the years leading toward
modernism and the international style. Loos, who respected traditional architecture but experi-
mented with sleek volumes, was actually better known for his writing. In his poignant and often
ironic essays, Loos appraised contemporary culture and modern architecture, assuming the role of
conscience for architects on the brink of a new modern style. He admonished the overly radical
modernists in his article ‘Poor Little Rich Man’ and sarcastically entered Doric Column in the
Chicago Tribune Competition.
Adolf Loos was born in Brünn (Brno), now the Czech Republic, in 1870. He was educated in
architecture both at the State Technical School in Bohemia and later at the Dresden Polytechnic. He
traveled throughout the United States between 1893 and 1896 , attending the Columbia Exposition in
Chicago and visiting New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. Upon his return, he wrote for the Neue
Freie Presseuntil opening a practice in Vienna. Influenced by the architects Wagner, Semper,
Schinkel, and Vitruvius, he felt a place in the evolution of architecture, which was based in tradition
considering responsibility to contemporary functions.
Loos further critiqued the state of contemporary architecture through his built work. His belief
that buildings should be plain on the exterior and reveal their complexity on the interior was seen
with the Goldman and Salatsch store on Michaelerplatz ( 1910 ) (Gravagnuolo, 1982 ). Loos’ relatively
limited repertoire of building projects was primarily domestic, including the villas Steiner, Rufer, and
Scheu, designed in the years before World War I.
Loos employed a formal approach to his design process initially drawing with ruled lines. On this
page (Figure 5. 5 ) it appears that he was attempting a final drawing and, during the process, became
dissatisfied with its direction. Although begun with hard lines, the critique has been rendered free-
hand, and shows numerous lines that have been crossed out where they were deemed incorrect or
unnecessary. Loos eliminated a stairway and in several instances added doors through the single line
of walls. The diagrammatic layout of hard lines has been thickened with poché to better comprehend
the positive space. The top left portion of the plan has been poorly erased, leaving a dark smudge.
This entire area seems worked over with heavier marks and many alterations.
The elevation near the bottom of the page shows a formal and symmetrical façade flanked by
oversized and exaggerated towers. The towers appear to be later additions, rendered freehand, in
contrast to the limited articulation of the façade. They have been left unfinished to the ground,
where the exaggeration in scale becomes obvious. When his attention shifted to the problem of the
spires; he may have ignored their relationship to their context. Because of his satirical essays, Loos
was familiar with the concept of caricature, and thus he may not have been disturbed by the vari-
ation in scale. The visual use of caricature often employs exaggeration to reveal a truth beneath out-
ward appearances. The distortion is not meant to arbitrarily deform but rather to express a specific
poignant feature (Gombrich and Kris, 1940 ; Kris, 1934 ). This caricature, not unlike the procedure of
criticism, may not be intended to ridicule the look of the façade, but rather to more easily view the
tower construction or to study the elements in isolation. Beginning the sketch with ruled lines may
have reflected his interest to study simple geometries, but he may have also seen the definitive lines as
a base for subsequent evaluation practiced in verbal criticism and irony, he may have purposefully
put forth a visual hypothesis, expecting it to be altered through critical dialogue.H5719-Ch05.qxd 7/15/05 3:39 PM Page 125