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In this introduction to Adolf Loos’ (Austrian, 1870–1933) colorful and inspiring career, we get to explore the writings, achievements, and legacy which continued to resound down the decades, influencing successive styles and generations in the architectural conversation between elaborate and elemental aesthetics.
Adolf Loos was a flamboyant character, whose presence in the cultural hotbed of early 1900s Vienna galvanized the country’s architectural landscape. An early, impassioned advocate of modernism, he all-out rejected the grand Secessionist aesthetic prevalent in contemporary Viennese architecture, as well as any hallmarks of the European fin de siècle.
He advocated that architectural ornamentation was, by its nature, ephemeral–locked into current trends and styles, and therefore, quickly dated. In doing so, it would drag the building it decorated, into obsolescence. Loos, himself a Classicist at heart, argued instead for simple, timeless designs with time-honored aesthetic and structural qualities.
Adolf Loos was a flamboyant character, whose presence in the cultural hotbed of early 1900s Vienna galvanized the country’s architectural landscape. An early, impassioned advocate of modernism, he all-out rejected the grand Secessionist aesthetic prevalent in contemporary Viennese architecture, as well as any hallmarks of the European fin de siècle.
He advocated that architectural ornamentation was, by its nature, ephemeral–locked into current trends and styles, and therefore, quickly dated. In doing so, it would drag the building it decorated, into obsolescence. Loos, himself a Classicist at heart, argued instead for simple, timeless designs with time-honored aesthetic and structural qualities.
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