Revolutionary essays on design, aesthetics and materialism - from one of the great masters of modern architecture Adolf Loos, the great Viennese pioneer of modern architecture, was a hater of the fake, the fussy and the lavishly decorated, and a lover of stripped down, clean simplicity. He was also a writer of effervescent, caustic wit, as shown in this selection of essays on all aspects of design and aesthetics, from cities to glassware, furniture to footwear, architectural training to why 'the lack of ornament is a sign of intellectual power'.
Translated by Shaun Whiteside With an epilogue by Joseph Masheck

Ornament and Crime (Penguin Modern Classics)

Arts & Photography

Loos, Adolf

History & Criticism

Penguin Classics

The Vienna Jubilee Exhibition of 1898 provided the occasion for these remarkable essays by the Austrian architect, theorist, and irreverent critic of his own culture, Adolf Loos.

Spoken Into the Void: Collected Essays, 1897-1900

Science & Math

Technology

The Vienna Jubilee Exhibition of 1898 provided the occasion for these remarkable essays by the Austrian architect, theorist, and irreverent critic of his own culture, Adolf Loos. The rational underpinnings of his later accusation that "ornament is crime," first appear in these polemical thrusts at the stylized work of Viennese sucessionists Joseph Hoffmann, Otto Wagner, Hermann Obrist, and Gustav Klimt, among others.

Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays 1897-1900 (English and German Edition)

Architecture

Mit Pr

The architecture of Adolf Loos: An Arts Council exhibition

The Council

Ornament and Crime contains thirty-six original essays by the celebrated Viennese architect, Adolf Loos (1870-1933). Most deal with questions of design in a wide range of areas, from architecture and furniture, to clothes and jewelery, pottery, plumbing, and printing; others are polemics on craft education and training, and on design in general. Loos, the great cultural reformer and moralist in the history of European architecture and design was always a 'revolutionary against the revolutionaries'. With his assault on Viennese arts and crafts and his conflict with bourgeois morality, he managed to offend the whole country. His 1908 essay 'Ornament and Crime', mocked by an age in love with its accessories, has come to be recognized as a seminal work in combating the aesthetic imperialism of the turn of the century. Today Loos is recognized as one of the great masters of modern architecture.

Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays (STUDIES IN AUSTRIAN LITERATURE, CULTURE, AND THOUGHT TRANSLATION SERIES)

Opel, Adolf

Ariadne Pr

Essays on Architecture &amp; Design

On Architecture (STUDIES IN AUSTRIAN LITERATURE, CULTURE, AND THOUGHT)

Opel, Daniel

Ariadne Press

The Villa Muller, built in Prague in 1930, is one of Loos's best designs. Inaccessible for twenty years, this seminal work never received the exposure commensurate with its position in the history of modern architecture - until now. The authors are among the first scholars to have been admitted into the building, and their meticulous research and documentation has yielded an indispensible book for anyone interested in the work of this modern master. Their work reveals Loos's original palette of materials and colors, and a series of design submissions at a local building office in Prague, which disclose new information about Loos's design methods. Illustrated in color and black-and-white, Villa Muller includes a foreword by John Hejduk.

Villa Muller: A Work of Adolf Loos

Kleinman, Kent

Van Duzer, Leslie

Princeton Architectural Pr

The catalogue for the exhibition at the MAK (Austrian Museum for Applied Art/Contemporary Art in Vienna) focuses on two fundamental approaches of the Moderne movement in an antithetic comparison, including the preceding history and after-effects to this day: Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) and Adolf Loos (1870-1933) represent opposing reactions to the basic problems of modern civilization, which were triggered by the process of industrialization and democratization. Two different concepts for a modern way of life were created: Hoffmann promoted a comprehensive aestheticization of all spheres of life, while Loos interpreted architecture and design as the functional background for the development of individual personalities. In 16 essays, well-known European and American experts investigate a wide range of contributing conditions and the highlights and consequences of these two traditions of the Moderne movement, from the 19th century to the present. The key works of Hoffmann and Loos - as well as those of their predecessors such as Otto Wagner, and successors such as Josef Frank - are richly illustrated.

Wege der Moderne und die Folgen / Ways to Modernism And Their Impact (German and English Edition)

Hoffmann, Josef

Birkhäuser Architecture

In 1903, Adolf Loos edited the journal Das Andere – Ein Blatt zur Einführung abendländischer Kunst in Österreich, in which he expressed his thoughts on, and theories of, contemporary architecture, fashion, and design. The publication was born out of Loos’ aversion to a superficial aestheticization of life in Austria, which he saw embodied by the “Wiener Secession” and later on “Wiener Werkstätte” and “Werkbund”. As a counterbalance, in Das Andere he showed his admiration especially for the fashion and culture of England and America. Contemporary advertisements on these subjects were included in the journal, which ran for just two issues. Beatriz Colomina supplements the reprint of Das Andere with an extensive commentary.

The Other: A Magazine for the Introduction of Occidental Culture to Austria (Vienna 1903 / Reprint 2015)

Lars Müller Publishers

Trotzdem, 1900-1930 (German Edition)

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

G. Prachner

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