Adolf Loos (December 10, 1870 in Brno, Moravia–August 8, 1933 in Vienna, Austria) was an early-20th century Viennese architect. December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, 21 days before the next year. ... 1870 (MDCCCLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... Coordinates: Country Czech Republic Region South Moravia Founded 1146 Area    - city 230. ... Flag of Moravia Moravia (Czech and Slovak: Morava; German: ; Hungarian: ; Polish: ) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic. ... August 8 is the 220th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (221st in leap years), with 145 days remaining. ... Year 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Vienna (German: , see also other names) is the capital of Austria, and also one of the nine States of Austria. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... This article includes a list of works cited but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ...

Major works

Looshaus in Michaelerplatz, Vienna.

• Steiner House, Vienna, Austria, 1910
• Looshaus, Vienna, Austria, 1911
• Rufer House, Vienna, Austria, 1922
• A house and studio for Dadaist Tristan Tzara in the Montmartre section of Paris, France, 1926
• Khuner Villa, Kreuzberg, Austria, 1930
• Villa Müller, Prague, Czech Republic, 1930

Image File history File linksMetadata Looshaus. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Looshaus. ... Dadaism or Dada is a post-World War I cultural movement in visual art as well as literature (mainly poetry), theatre and graphic design. ... Tristan Tzara (April 16, 1896 – December 25, 1963) is the assumed name of Sami Rosenstock, born in MoineÅŸti, Bacău, Romania, a poet and essayist who lived for the majority of his life in France. ... Montmartre seen from the centre Georges Pompidou (1897), a painting by Camille Pissarro of the boulevard that led to Montmartre as seen from his hotel room. ... The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Nickname: City of a Hundred Spires Motto: Praga Caput Rei publicae Location within the Czech Republic Coordinates: Country Czech Republic Region Capital City of Prague Founded 9th century  - Mayor Pavel Bém Area    - City 496 km²  (191. ...

Architectural Work

Adolf Loos work, although varied in style, is most known for a period of houses with highly stereometric form and white color. The exteriors were greatly simplified in ornament. The interiors were, constrastingly, highly complex spatially and luxurious materially.

Ornament and Crime

In addition to his built projects, Loos is noted for his essay/manifesto Ornament and Crime written in 1908, but only published in Western Europe in the late 1920s. This essay is a repudiation of the work of the Vienna Secession, the Austrian version of Art Nouveau. Loos' provocative catch phrase was taken up by the Modern Movement in architecture, one of the other famous catch phrases of which is "form follows function". In the years between 1893 and 1896, Loos lived and worked in United States.In it, he expressed the idea that the progress of culture is associated with the deletion of ornament from everyday objects, and that it was a crime to force craftsmen or builders to waste their time on ornamentation that served to hasten the time when an object was obsolete. Accordingly, the most primitive societies use a lot of decoration and the most advanced societies have no superfluous ornament, or at least there is benefit in suppressing ornamentation which serves no useful purpose. In the same essay Loos asserted that "All art is erotic," and that a European man who tattoos himself is either a criminal or a degenerate; if a tattooed man dies out of prison, Loos reasoned, it is only because he did not live long enough to commit his inevitable murder. Such rhetoric is typical of contemporary journalism. In 1898, he wrote a newspaper column on design issues for the Neue Freie Presse, of great interest to Vienna's educated middle classes. An essay is a short work of writing that treats a topic from an authors personal point of view. ... A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. ... Ornament and Crime is an essay written by the influential Austrian architect Adolf Loos in 1908. ... The secession building at Vienna, built in 1897 by Joseph Maria Olbrich for exhibitions of the secession group another view The Vienna Secession or (also known as Secessionsstil, or Sezessionsstil in Austria) was part of that highly varied movement that is now covered by the general term Art Nouveau. ... Poster by Alfons Mucha Vitebsk Railway Station one of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture. ... A catch phrase is a phrase or expression that is popularized, usually through repeated use, by a real person or fictional character. ... Le Corbusiers Villa Savoye, a well known example of modern architecture Modern architecture is a term given to a number of building styles with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament, that first arose around 1900. ... Form follows function is a principle associated with Modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th Century. ... In architecture, ornament is decorative detail on buildings. ... A tattoo is a mark made by inserting pigment into the skin; in technical terms, tattooing is dermal pigmentation. ...

Surprisingly, Loos' own architectural work is often decorative, similar to the prolific fellow Viennese architect (and leader of the Vienna Secession), Otto Wagner. The visual distinction is not between complicated versus plain, but between "organic" and superfluous. American architect Frank Lloyd Wright is a notable example of an advocate of the former, despite some dubious decorative designs among some later projects.

Loos was also interested in the decorative arts, collecting sterling silver and high quality leather goods, which he noted for their plain yet luxurious appeal. He also enjoyed fashion and men's clothing, designing the famed Knize of Vienna, a haberdashery. The decorative arts are traditionally defined as ornamental and functional works in ceramic, wood, glass, metal, or textile. ... Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92. ... Modern leather-working tools Leather is a material created through the tanning of hides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. ... A haberdasher is a person who sells small items via retail, commonly items used in clothing, such as ribbons and buttons, or completed accessories, such as hats or gloves. ...

Loos is also known for his notorious entry to the 1922 Chicago Tribune competition, which took the form of a single colossal Doric column. His submission could well have been designed during the Post-Modernist period of the 1980s. The Tribune Tower is a Gothic building located at 435 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. ... The uncompleted Doric temple at Segesta, Sicily, has been waiting for finishing of its surfaces since 430 - 420 BC The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of Ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Adolf Loos

• Web page about Adolf Loos (archINFORM database)
• Biography and important works
• Biography at WOKA E/D