Adolf Loos

Adolf Loos (10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933). Born in Brno in the then Austro-Hungarian Empire, Loos was an architect and writer, his most famous essay Ornament and Crime. He credited for his major influence on the modernist movement. Amongst his buildings of note are the Steiner House in Vienna and Prague’s Villa Winternitz and Villa Muller. In all three homes  he developed his idea about the use of space and shape,  raumplan, much thought was given to how a living space was divided and arranged both vertically and horizontally to maximise the free flowing movement from room to room and floor to floor.

‘Does it follow that the house has nothing in common with art and is architecture not to be included in the arts? Only a very small part of architecture belongs to art: the tomb and the monument. Everything else that fulfils a function is to be excluded from the domain of art.’

 

Villa Winternitz Image Palickap CC BY SA 4.0

Photo of Loo’s gravestone in Zentralfriedhof, Vienna’s central cemetery: Duncan Gibbs ©