Thursday, May 5, 2011

ADOLF LOOS

his BIOGRAPHY
Adolf Loos (1870-1933) ranks as one of the most important pioneers of the modern movement in architecture. Ironically, his influence was based largely on a few interior designs and a body of controversial essays. Adolf Loos 's buildings were rigorous examples of austere beauty, ranging from conventional country cottages to planar compositions for storefronts and residences. His built compositions were little known outside his native Austria during his early years of practice.
Adolf Loos was born in Brno (Bruenn), Moravia, now Czech republic, on December 10, 1870. Adolf Loos was introduced to the craft of building at an early age while working in his father's stone masonry shop. At the age of seventeen. Adolf Loos attended the Royal and Imperial State College at Reichenberg in Bohemia. In 1889 Adolf Loos was drafted for one year of service in the Austrian army. From 1890 to 1893, Adolf Loos studied architecture at the Technical College in Dres den. As a student, Adolf Loos was particularly interested in the works of the classicist Schinkel and, above all, the works of Vitruvius. Adolf Loos 's developing tastes were considerably broadened during a three-year stay in the United States, which began in 1893. The 23-year-old architect was particularly impressed by what Adolf Loos regarded as the innovative efficiency of U.S. industrial buildings, clothing, and household furnishings. In 1896, Adolf Loos returned to Vienna where Adolf Loos began working in the building firm of Carl Mayreder.

In 1897, in the pages of The Neue Freie Presse of Vienna, Adolf Loos initiated a series of polemic articles that later established his international reputation. Adolf Loos did not directly address architecture in his writings. Instead, Adolf Loos examined a wide range of social ills, which Adolf Loos identified as the motivating factors behind the struggle for a transformation of everyday life. Adolf Loos 's writings focused increasingly on what Adolf Loos regarded as the excess of decoration in both traditional Viennese design and in the more recent products of the Vienna Secession and the Wiener Werkstatte. In 1898, in the pages of the review Ver Sacrum, which was an organ of the Wiener Secession, Adolf Loos published an essay that marked the beginning of a long theoretical opposition to the then popular art noveau movement.

His theories culminated in a short essay entitled, "Ornament And Crime," published in 1908. To Adolf Loos, the lack of ornament in architecture was a sign of spiritual strength. Adolf Loos referred to the opposite, excessive ornamentation, as criminal - not for abstract moral reasons, but because of the economics of labor and wasted materials in modern industrial civilization. Adolf Loos argued that because ornament was no longer an important manifestation of culture, the worker dedicated to its production could not be paid a fair price for his labor. The essay rapidly became a theoretical manifesto and a key document in modernist literature and was widely circulated abroad. Le Corbusier later attributed "an Homeric cleansing" of architecture to the work.

Another point of contention decried by Adolf Loos was the masking of the true nature and beauty of materials by useless and indecent ornament. In his 1898 essay entitled "Principles of Building," Adolf Loos wrote that the true vocabulary of architecture lies in the materials themselves, and that a building should remain "dumb" on the outside. In his own work, Adolf Loos contrasted austere facades with lavish interiors. Much like Mies van der Rohe, Adolf Loos arrived at the reduction of architecture to a purely technical tautology that emphasized the simple assemblage of materials.

This article was followed by the 1910 essay entitled "Architecture," in which Adolf Loos explained important contradictions in design: between the interior and the exterior, the monument and the house, and art works and objects of function. To Adolf Loos, the house did not belong to art because the house must please everyone, unlike a work of art, which does not need to please anyone. The only exception, that is, the only constructions that belong both to art and architecture, were the monument and the tombstone. Adolf Loos felt that the rest of architecture, which by necessity must serve a specific end, must be excluded from the realm of art.
 
In 1899, Adolf Loos designed the Cafe Museum, which proved to be one of the most notable projects of his early work. The austere interior was a mature architectural embodiment of his theorized renunciation of stylish ornamentation. The starkness of the "untattooed" facade that inspired the popular name Cafe Nihilismus asserted Adolf Loos 's developing theory of the predominance of technique over decoration. The cafe also affirms his aesthetic equation of beauty and utility by bringing every object back to its purely utilitarian value. To Adolf Loos, that which is beautiful must also be useful. Thus, the only elements Adolf Loos used to pattern the vaulted ceiling of the cafe interior were strips of brass, which also served as electrical conductors.

A more refined work, the tiny Karntner Bar Vienna (1907), reveals in microcosm the architect's great sensitivity to spatial manipulation. Once again, Adolf Loos showed his fondness for the expressive use of natural materials as Adolf Loos skillfully manipulated classical materials including marble, onyx, wood, and mirror, into a careful composition of visual patterns.
 
Between 1909 and 1911, Adolf Loos designed and constructed one of his best known works, the controversial Looshaus in the Michaelerplatz, in the heart of old Vienna. This complex design enunciated theorems on the relationship between the memory of the historic past of a great city and the invention of the new city based on the modern work of architecture. The design was characterized by a mute facade from which all ornamental plastic shapes were absent. For Adolf Loos, the language of the environment of the metropolis was centered in the absence of all ornament.

In 1910, a public furor spawned by the simplicity of the modernistic design resulted in a municipal order to suspend work; construction ceased and building permits were denied. Adolf Loos responded to the attacks in a public meeting attended by more than 2000 angry residents. The controversy ended with an agreement to add window boxes in an attempt to countrify and familiarize the unpopular design.

Adolf Loos 's private residential works were characterized by unembellished white facades. As a result, these buildings have routinely been associated with the work of Le Corbusier, J. J. Oud, and others. Among the more famous were the much published Steiner House (1910) and Scheu House (1912), both in Vienna. One of Adolf Loos 's best known projects was the entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition of 1922. Adolf Loos 's surprising combination of Doric columns at ground level with modern skyscraper technology indicated that Adolf Loos was less doctrinaire about ornament than his modernist colleagues believed. To Adolf Loos, the polished black granite columns, durable classical symbols in a building, were altogether useful and therefore beautiful.
 
Also in 1922, Adolf Loos was appointed to the post of Chief Architect of the Housing Department of the Commune of Vienna. His projects during this time were primarily con structions modulated around simply-composed layouts utilizing basic construction technology. Flexible interior arrangements were achieved through the use of movable partitions. Exteriors were typical of suburban housing Vegetable gardens, which were considered essential extensions of the dwellings, were assigned high priorities. Adolf Loos soon grew disillusioned with his work as chief architect. As a result of his opposition to the then current ideology of Austrian Marxism, Adolf Loos resigned from his post the same year Adolf Loos was appointed.
 
Adolf Loos moved to France in 1922. Adolf Loos lived there until 1927, dividing his time between Paris and the Rivier with frequent journeys to Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia. Adolf Loos was received enthusiastically by the French avantgarde. His work entitled "Ornament and Crime" was translated in 1920 in Esprit Nouveau, a publication edited by Le Corbusier, Paul Dermee, and Ozenfant.

Adolf Loos also exhibited regularly at d'Automne, and became the first foreigner to be elected to its jury. Adolf Loos built some of his most significant works during this period. These included The Tzara House in Paris (1926-1927), Villa Moller in Vienna (1928), Villa Muller (1930), Villa Winternitz in Prague (1931-1932) and the Khuner Country House at Payerbach in lower Austria. Monolithic in nature, these works contrasted greatly with the glass architecture that dominated rationalist styles of the 1920s. Once again, Adolf Loos as in a posture of contentious indifference to fluctuations in current taste.

In 1930, on his sixtieth birthday, Adolf Loos was officially recognized as a master of architecture. Adolf Loos was bestowed with an annual honorific income by the president of the Czechoslovakian Republic. His collected essays were published the following year. Adolf Loos died on August 23, 1933 and was buried beneath a simple tombstone of his own design. His most significant contribution to architecture remains his literary discourse.


HIS work list (chronological)
Before 1900
1897 Sastrería Ebenstein, Vienna, Austria.
1898 Project of a theater of 4,000 places, Vienna, Austria.
1898 Diseño of a tomb.                               
1898 Tent of masculine clothes Goldman & Salatsch, Vienna, Austria.
1899 Coffee Museum, Vienna, Austria. 
1899 Floor of Hugo Haberfeld, Vienna, Austria.        
1899 Floor of Eugen Stoessler, Vienna, Austria.
1899 Bocetos of interiors.
1899 Project of commemorative church of the jubileo of káiser Francisco Jose, Vienna, Austria.

1900 to 1905 
1900 House of the Turnowsky, Vienna, Austria.
1900 Boceto of a theater with eardrum.
1900 Reframing of the facade of a building, Brno, Czech Republic.
1900 Decoration of the rooms of the Frauenklub, Vienna, Austria.
1900 Floor of Otto Stoessl, Vienna, Austria.
1900 Floor of Hugo Steiner, Vienna, Austria.
1901-1903 Floor of Leopold Langer, Vienna, Austria.
1902 Floor of Alfred Sobotka, Vienna, Austria.
1903 Floor of Ferdinand Reiner, Vienna, Austria.
1903 House of exchange of Leopold Langer, Vienna, Austria.
1903 House of Adolf Loos, Vienna, Austria.
1903 Floor of Gustav Rosenberg, Vienna, Austria.
1903 Floor of Jakob Langer, Vienna, Austria.
1903 Floor of Reitler, Vienna, Austria.
1903 Floor of Clothilde Brill, Hinterbrühl, Austria.
1903 Floor of Michael Leiss, Vienna, Austria.
1903-1906 Villa Karma, Clarens, Switzerland.
1904 Floor of Wagner-Wünsch, Vienna, Austria.
1904 Floor of Georg Weiss, Vienna, Austria.
1904 Bank in the Mariahilferstrasse, Vienna, Austria.
1904 Tent Steiner, Vienna, Austria.
1904 Floor of Elsa Gall, Vienna, Austria.
1904-1905 Floor of Emmanuel Aufricht, Vienna, Austria.
1905 Floor of Hedwig Kanner, Vienna, Austria.
1905 Floor of Alfred Kraus, Vienna, Austria.
1905 Floor of Josef Wertheimer, Vienna, Austria.
1905 Floor of Carl Reininghaus, Vienna, Austria.
1905 Floor of Hermann Schwarzwald, Vienna, Austria.
1905 Floor of Ludwig Schweiger, Vienna, Austria.

1906 to 1910
1906 Floor of V. Groser, Vienna, Austria.
1906 Floor of Emmy Piringer, Vienna, Austria.
1906 Floor of Rudolf Türkel, Vienna, Austria.
1906 Office of Arthur Friedmann, Vienna, Austria.
1906 Flag of exhibitions of the company Siemens, Reichenberg, Germany.
1906-1907 Floor of Arthur Friedmann, Vienna, Austria.
1907 Tent of feathers and adornments Sigmund Steiner, Vienna, Austria.
1907 Bocetos of a building with turret, Vienna, Austria.
1907 Project for the Ministry of the War, Vienna, Austria.
1907 Floor for Willy Hirsch, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1907 Floor for Rudolf Kraus, Vienna, Austria.
1907 Floor for Paul Khuner, Vienna, Austria.
1908 Kärntner Bar, Vienna, Austria.
1908 Floor of Arthur Friedmann, Mähren, Germany.
1908-1909 Floor of R. Fischl, Vienna, Austria.
1908-1909 Bocetos for the Technical Museum, Vienna, Austria.
1908-1909 Floor of Otto Beck, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1909 Project for a hotel, Vienna, Austria.
1909 Project of a district of houses with terraces, Vienna, Austria.
1909 Bocetos for the remodeling of the Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria.
1909-1911 House in Michaelerplatz (Looshaus), Vienna, Austria.
1909-1913 Sastrería Knize, Vienna, Austria.
1909-1913 Floor of Julius Bellak, Vienna, Austria.
1910 House Steiner, Vienna, Austria.
1910 Project of department store, Alexandria, Egypt.
1910 the Reformation of the house Epstein, Vienna, Austria.
1910 Floor of Armin Horowitz, Vienna, Austria.
1910-1911 the Reformation of the house Goldman, Vienna, Austria.

1911 to 1914
1911-1912 Reformation of the town Stoessl, Vienna, Austria.
1912 Bookstore Manz, Vienna, Austria.
1912 Floor of Valentin Rosenfeld, Vienna, Austria.
1912 Projects of villas in the mountain.
1912 Project of the school Schwarzwald, Vienna, Austria.
1912 Boceto of a theater, Vienna, Austria.
1912 Project of action on the historic city, Vienna, Austria.
1912-1913 House Scheu, Vienna, Austria.
1913 Floor of Robert Stein, Vienna, Austria.
1913 Project of reform of Anglian Bank, Vienna, Austria.
1913 Floor of Josef Halban-Selma Kurz, Vienna, Austria.
1913 Project of the house of the guard of the school Schwarzwald, Semmering, Austria.
1913 Project for a Great Hotel, Semmering, Austria.
1913 Coffee Capua, Vienna, Austria.
1913 House Horner, Vienna, Austria.
1913 Project of the school Schwarzwald, Semmering, Austria.
1914 Remodeling of the Zentralsparkasse, Vienna, Austria.
1914 Floor of Paul Mayer, Vienna, Austria.
1914 Floor and obrador of sastrería G. Hentschel, Vienna, Austria.
1914 Floor of Emil Löwenbach, Vienna, Austria.

1915 to 1920
1915 Gymnasium of the school Schwarzwald, Vienna, Austria.
1915-1916 Reformation of the town Duschnitz, Vienna, Austria.
1916 Reformation of the town Mandl, Vienna, Austria.
1916-1919 sugar Refinery, Rohrbach, Czech Republic.
1917 Project of the monument to Francisco Jose, Vienna, Austria.
1918 Bar of the Alt-Brünner Zuckerfabrik, Brno, Czech Republic.
1918 Project of adaptation and reform of the palace Krasicyn, Przemysl, Poland.
1918 Facade of the commerce of Hugo & Alfred Spitz, Vienna, Austria.
1918 Project of a house of field for I read Sapieha.
1918-1919 Villa of the director of the sugar refinery, Rohrbach, Czech Republic.
1919 Reformation of town Strasser, Vienna, Austria.
1919 Tumba de Peter Altenberg, Vienna, Austria.
1919 Diseño for a reform of the National Bank, Vienna, Austria.
1919 Project of town Konstandt, Olomuc, Czech Republic.
1920 communitarian Kitchen of the Lainzer-Siedlung.

1921 to 1925
1921 Houses of the colony Lainz, Vienna, Austria.
1921 Project of the mausoleum of Max Dvorák, Vienna, Austria.
1921 Project of town Bronner, Vienna, Austria.
1921 Patent of a Scheme of construction.
1922 Reformation of town Reitler, Vienna, Austria.
1922 Project of town Stross, Vienna, Austria.
1922 Reformation of the Arbeiterbank, Vienna, Austria.
1922 Reformation of the Merkurbank, Vienna, Austria.
1922 Floor of Hugo Kallberg, Vienna, Austria.
1922 Reformation of house Steiner, Vienna, Austria.
1922 Project of the house of field Haberfeld, Gastein, Austria.
1922 Project of buildings with patio next to the Modena-Gründe, Vienna, Austria.
1922 Project Column of the Chicago Tribune, Chicago, the USA.
1922 Villa Rufer, Vienna, Austria.
1922 Diseño of a multifunctional building.
1922-1923 Project of the Siedlung Südost, Vienna, Austria.
1923 Project of a core of twenty villas with terraces, Blue Coast, France.
1923 Project of the town Moissi, Venice, Italy.
1923 Project of one marries with patio.
1923 Project of the Sport Hotel, Paris, France.
1923 Project of the Verdier town, Him Lavandou, France.
1923 Decoration of the company Erich Mandl, Vienna, Austria.
1923 Project of the town Simon, Vienna, Austria.
1923 Project of the Grand Hotel Babylon, Nize, France.
1923 Unit of houses, Vienna, Austria.
1923 House of field Spanner, Gumpoldskirchen, Austria.
1923 Project of a municipal building, City of Mexico, Mexico.
1923-1924 fashionable Hall masculine P.C. Leschka & C., Vienna, Austria.
1924 Tent Knize, Berlin, Germany.
1924 Project of house Rubinstein, Paris, France.
1924 Project of Flesch town, Seine-et-Marne, France.
1924 Project of a hotel, Paris, France.
1924 Otto Haas-Hof, Vienna, Austria.
1924 Project of a flag of exhibitions, Paris, France.
1924 Project of the pictures of the count of SanguskoSudáfrica.
1925 Project of a palace of exhibitions, Tientsin, China.
1925 Project of a building of offices, Paris, France.
1925 Decoration of the dining room of von Bauer, Brno, Czech Republic.
1925-1926 Project of a floor of Adolf Loos, Paris, France.

1926 to 1933
1926 Assembly of an opera for Arnold Schönberg, Paris, France.
1926-1927 House of Tristan Tzara, Paris, France.
1927 Tent Knize, Paris, France.
1927 Project House of Josephine Baker, Paris, France.
1927-1928 House Moller, Vienna, Austria.
1928 House Hans Brummel, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1928 Reformation of the commercial house Zelenka, Vienna, Austria.
1928-1930 Villa Müller, the Prague, Czech Republic.
1929 Floor for Josef Vogl, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1929 The Reformation of the town Kapsa, the Prague, Czech Republic.
1929 Floor of Willy Hirsch, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1929 Floor of Leopold Eisner, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1929 Floor of I read Brummel, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1929-1930 Entrance of the textile industry Albert Matzner, Vienna, Austria.
1929-1930 House of field Khuner, Kreuzberg, Austria.
1930 Floor of Victor von Bauer, Brno, Czech Republic.
1930 Project of reform of department store.
1930 Project of the dance hall of the Automobile Club, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1930 Project of single-family house, Paris, France.
1930 House of the guard of the house Khuner, Kreuzberg, Austria.
1930 Floor of Willy Kraus, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1930 Decoration of the consultation of doctor Teichner, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1931 pilot Floors of the Werkbund, Vienna, Austria.
1931 Siedlung Babí, Náchod, Czech Republic.
1931 Diseño of its own tomb, Vienna, Austria.
1931 Project of town Fleischner, Haifa, Israel.
1931 Game of casings.
1931 Project of a hotel, Juan-them-Pins, France.
1931 Project of reform of house Jordan, Brno, Czech Republic.
1931 Reformation of the clinic Esplanade, Karlsbad, Germany.
1931 Dining room in the exhibition of Colony, Colony, Germany.
1931 Project of a building of minihouses, the Prague, Czech Republic.
1931 Project of adaptation of the town Mercedes-Jellinek, Nize, France.
1931-1932 Floor of Olly Naschauer, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1931-1932 Floor of Hugo Semmler, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
1931-1932 Villa Winternitz, the Prague, Czech Republic.
1931-1933 single-family House of Mitzi Schnabl, Vienna, Austria.
1932 Project of the field house Klein, Marienbad, Germany.
1933 the last house, the Prague, Czech Republic.

1 komentar:

Anonymous said...

Where is the irony espoused in your second sentence?

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