The man, The icon, The Legend. Adolf Loos The man, The icon, The Legend.

“Architecture arouses sentiments in man “Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise.” -Adolf Loos

Adolf (da man) Loos Adolf Loos, (born December 10, 1870, Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now in Czech Republic]—died August 23, 1933, Kalksburg, near Vienna, Austria), Austrian architect whose planning of private residences strongly influenced European Modernist architects after World War I. Frank Lloyd Wright credited Loos with doing for European architecture what Wright was doing in the United States. He is the son of a stonemason which influences his disinterest in decoration - he appreciated the work that is required for ornamentation and sees it as a waste of craftsmen's time.

Adolf's Architecture As an architect, his influence is primarily limited to major works in his home country of Austria, but as a writer he had a major impact on the development of 20th century architecture, producing a series of controversial essays that elaborated on his own architectural style by decrying ornament and a range of social ills. Adolf Loos’s minimalist attitudes are reflected in the works of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and many other modernists and led to a fundamental shift in the way architects perceived ornamentation.

Loos' Legacy During the time of Art Nouveau, decorative and ornamental architecture is incredibly popular. Loos rejects this as unnecessary to the function of the building and focuses on geometric design. His architecture is an ode to simplicity.

Steiner House It looks modern, even today, as though it had been built many years later than 1910. There is nothing superfluous in the design. The curved roof at the front of the house was Loos' method of circumventing building regulations which allowed only one storey to be visible from the side of the street.

Key works: Villa Muller Steiner House Rufer House Khuner Villa

Loos' fame in the history books rests largely on these two contributions: Ornament and Crime and Steiner House. In fact they are both symptoms of something much more fundamental. His real contribution to the Modern Movement lies at a deeper level than the merely negative virtue of omitting ornaments.

His view of human life, fully expressed in his architecture, led him to aim at and finally achieve an architectural structure in which human beings could come freely together and move freely apart and which made the most efficient and economical use of space.

The trouble, as Loos saw it, was not simply ornament but the unhealthy concern with 'applied art'. Why apply art to the product of craftsmen who know better than the artist how to shape the materials into sensible, workable objects?

In summary Adolf Loos' minimalist style stemmed from his ideas around the unnecessary use of ornamentation. He used minimalist styling to convey his message that the craftsman, not the artist, knew how best to use material. His pioneering approach to minimalist architecture inspired many, including Mies Van Rohe and Le Cor Busier.

“Evolution of culture is equivalent to the removal of ornaments from utilitarian objects.” -Adolf Loos