Adolf Loos was an Austrian architect and writer active in Vienna in the early 20th century. He opposed the ornamentation and historicism prevalent in contemporary architecture and sought to develop a pre-modern style suited for his time. Through writings like "Ornament and Crime" he formulated a literary intervention criticizing ornamentation and arguing for unornamented architecture reflecting utility and modern life. This informed his architectural interventions like the Goldman & Salatsch building which featured a stark, unornamented design focused on function over decoration. Loos' rational approach to design drew from thinkers like Kant and Dewey and had a significant influence on the development of modern architecture.

1. Adolf Loos
Pre-Modern Architectural Interventionist
VS.

2. Pre-Modern Intervention
Adolf Loos

3. Pre-Modern Intervention
Adolf Loos
WRITER - ARCHITECT
• Born 1870 – Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary.
• Opposed to Contemporary Architectural Interventionists
of his time period around 1910.
• Fashion and the Visual Arts interested him.
• Architecture was like dressing to Loos, and one should be
well dressed to reflect their surroundings in a civilized culture.
• Viewed architecture as intimate rather than professional.
• Consider modern life as the foundation of a
new aesthetic interpretation.
• Ornament is a symbol of primitive culture
and a need to abolish it.
• Travelled to United States (1893-1897 )and returned to
Vienna and include himself to the intellectual café society .
• Did not embrace contemporary architecture
and sought to create a Pre-Modern movement.
• Maintained analysis of what architecture was
and what it could do; which was not much.
• valued ethics and importance to the moral role
that architecture has on aesthetics.

4. Intervention Adolf Loos
Pre-Modern
WRITER - ARCHITECT
VIENNA – AUSTRIA, TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE
• Experienced the last decades of the imperial
royal monarchy, multicultural and multilingual
state conglomerate.
• Loos began practicing in the late 1890s when
Art Nouveau was at its peak.
• Did not rely to historicism around 1900 as an
architectural intervention.
• Looked up to functionalism as essential and
the practical in contrast to historicism.• Embrace Industrialism and the new type of
emerging social middle class.
• Understood that historicism is not compatible
with the new emerging social class and
sought to create a new intervention.

5. Intervention
Adolf Loos Pre-Modern
LITERARY – ARCHITECTURAL
VIENNA – AUSTRIA, TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE
ARCHITECT WRITER
• Viewed ornament as superficial and as the
enemy of the truth in his magazine Das Andere.”
His statements shocked Viennese population.
• Rejected ornamentation with an economic
argument that it equated to wasted manpower.
• Viewed architects as a specialist in their craft like
master builders, carpenters, tailors, shoemaker
who properly deals with material and form.
• Against ornamentation
in being utilized as copied
forms in architecture.
• Viewed architects who
utilized ornamentation as
degenerates.
• Viewed architecture to
go forward not backwards.

6. Adolf Loos
Pre-Modern
To come up with an intervention solution
Adolf Loos turned to analyzing the existing conditions of Vienna in 1910,
as a way to figure out an intervention best suited for the time.

7. Adolf Loos – Contemporary Architectural Interventionist
1700 - 1900Baroque
Johann Hildebrandt
Karl von Hasenauer
Neo-Baroque
Palais Kinsky - 1716 Belvédère Palace - 1723 Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Peter’s Church - 1733 Parish Church - 1748
Neue Hofburg - 1881
Hermesvilla - 1888
Burgtheater Wien - 1889
Semper Gottfried
Neo-Renaissance
Semperoper Dresen - 1877Semper Depot- 1878Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien - 1891
Otto Wagner
Art Nouveau
Karlsplatz Station - 1898
Wienzeilenhäuser - 1899
Austrian Postal Savings Bank - 1906

8. Johann Hildebrandt
Semper Gottfried
Karl von Hasenauer
Otto Wagner Karlsplatz Station - 1898 Wienzeilenhäuser - 1899 Austrian Postal Savings Bank - 1906
- Roman & Renaissance influence.
- Counter-reformation conscious
- Emit prestige wealth & power.
- Opulent use color & ornaments.
- External Façade dramatization.
- Sculptures and Painting façade.
- Explorations of form, light.
Art Nouveau Style
- Blending painting & architecture.
- Strong curves, rich decoration.
- Continuation of Baroque ideals.
- Excessive use of ornament.
- Monumental construction.
- Proportion orientation.
- High-cultural Idealism.
- Sculpted surfaces
Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien - 1891Semper Depot- 1878Neo-Renaissance style
Burgtheater Wien - 1889Neue Hofburg - 1881 Hermesvilla - 1888Neo-Baroque
Belvédère Palace - 1723 Peter's Church - 1733Auerspeg Palace - 1732Palais Kinsky - 1716 Parish Church - 1748Baroque
- Propagate as Austrian national style.
- Renaissance construction principles.
- Regard itself to epitome of culture.
- Pillars & Pilasters in classical form.
- Utilization of expensive materials.
- Influence to culture & Individual.
- Revert to Renaissance Idealism.
- Cohesive harmony rhythmic.
- Regal perception to scale.
- Historicism influenced.
- Rebel against formal, classical design.
- Wide use of arches & curved forms.
- Stained Glass application to façade.
- Beauty found in nature principles.
- Curved Glass experimentation.
- Mosaics application to façade.
- Embrace of curvilinear shapes.
- Decorative in square forms.
- Free from organic rhythm.
- Asymmetrical shapes.

9. Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Neue Hofburg - 1881 Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Karlsplatz Station - 1898
Art NouveauNeo-RenaissanceNeo-BaroqueBaroque
Johann Hildebrandt Semper GottfriedKarl von Hasenauer Otto Wagner Adolf Loos
Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Auerspeg Palace - 1732
Pre-Modern
Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Karlsplatz Station - 1898
Viennese – Cultural Agents Analysis
1700 - 1900
PRODUCTION COST
PRODUCTION TYPE
ORNAMENTATION INFLUENCE
0%

10. Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Neue Hofburg - 1881 Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Karlsplatz Station - 1898
Art NouveauNeo-RenaissanceNeo-BaroqueBaroque
Johann Hildebrandt Semper GottfriedKarl von Hasenauer Otto Wagner Adolf Loos
Auerspeg Palace - 1732 Auerspeg Palace - 1732
Pre-Modern
Semperoper Dresen - 1877 Karlsplatz Station - 1898
Viennese – Cultural Analysis
1700 - 1900
SOCIAL STATUS
GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE
POPULATION INFLUENCE

11. Adolf Loos - Data & Influence ConclusionJohannHildebrandt
KarlvonHasenauer
SemperGottfried
AdolfLoos
Pre-Modern
OttoWagner
0%
Art NouveauNeo-RenaissanceNeo-BaroqueBaroque Pre-Modern
Vienna 1700 - 1900
Vienna 1910
Reduction of
Ornamentation
Utilization
Utility
Functional
Cost-Efficient
Governance
Labor-Efficient
Emerging Society
Production Efficient
Learn from
Past interventions
Artistic Moment

12. Adolf Loos
0% Ornamentation
Production
Cost
Government
Population
Social Status
Data Influence
Art Nouveau
Neo-Renaissance
Neo-Baroque
Baroque
Not Compatible
for Pre-Modern
society
Viewed that “Every age had its style…by style, people meant
ornament. Then I said: See, therein lies the greatness of our age, that
it’s incapable of producing a new ornament. We have outgrown
ornament; we have fought our way through to freedom from
ornament. soon the streets of our city will glisten like white walls.”
Adolf Loos: “The evolution of culture is synonymous with the
removal of ornament from utilitarian objects.”
What he really sought was truthful design, pure architecture that
served and expressed function, nothing more, nothing less. He
admired old fashioned objects that were sensible and workable
Became a radical thinker and an outspoken critic of Austrian society
of how it embraced ornamentation.
Developed a Radical-pragmatic attitude towards architecture as
service in the sense of the tradition towards craftsmanship.
Labeled ‘ornament’ as a disease whose symptoms plagued
historicist architecture is in the past.
Loos infantilized, orientalized, feminized and criminalized specific
Austrian and German architects and designers who employed
ornament. While he considered himself to be a thoroughly modern
man, these ornament-makers he viewed belonged to a different era

13. Pre-Modern
0% Ornamentation
Production
Cost
Government
Population
Social Status
Machine
Low
Constitutional
monarch
Working Class
Multi-National
Very low
Art Nouveau
Neo-Renaissance
Neo-Baroque
Baroque
Pre-Modern
Interventions Trend
Too Costly
Too Labor Intensive
Too Construction Intensive
Too Organic
Pre-Modern
Solves emerging
societal needs
Adolf Loos: “Every age had its style…by style, people meant ornament. Then I said:
…See, therein lies the greatness of our age, that it is incapable of producing a new
ornament.
We have outgrown ornament; we have fought our way through to freedom from
ornament… soon the streets of our city will glisten like white walls.”
It was affected by the backwards orientated governance of the emperor Franz Joseph I.
That society looked back to the previous era and was not able to deal with the problems and
possibilities of the new civil society.
Viennese architectural mainstream was the use of historism.
Its use imitated the design mediums of the ancient eras.
It was not possible for Loos to establish himself immediately as an architect in Vienna. Due to
this, he started to write essays for Viennese newspapers like the Neue Freie Presse, Die Zeit and
Die Waage. In this process he was able to develop his writing and thinking towards Pre-
Modernism.
By 1900 Vienna had evolved into the cultural focus of Central Europe, not least thanks to its rapid
urban development compared to other great European cities – London, Paris and Berlin. With the
arrival of new immigrants and two major development projects,

14. Adolf Loos Pre-Modern
Analyzing the existing conditions
contemporary interventionists,
and current social state of Vienna
led to the creation of a Literary Intervention.
Pre-Modern
0%
Pre-Modern
Literary Intervention

15. Literary Intervention
Contemporary
Ornamentation
Reduction of
Ornamentation
VS.
Craftsmanship Mechanization
Steady Production Fast Production
Cost-Significant Cost-Conscious
Collective Universal
Specialization Automatization
Resourceful Fast Pace
Independent Dependent
Individualism Programmatic
Plural Singular
Adolf Loos: “If there were no ornament at all… man would
only have to work four hours instead of eight, because half
the work done today is devoted to ornament. Ornament is
wasted labor power and hence wasted health.”
Found much inspiration in his luxurious use of materials, and non-
commercial ones wonder at his ingenious use of space, and in both
cases Loos can become far more practically useful.
Adolf Loos’s famous essay, ‘Ornament and Crime’, decisively linked
unornamented architecture with the culture of modernity and, in so
doing, became one of the key formulations of modern architecture.
Thinking in this wide spectrum he developed his theory of an
unornamented way of design. His theoretical work culminated in his
main work “Ornament and Crime” (1908)
Loos harshly criticised the decorative works of the Art Nouveau
movement in Vienna and what he considered the cultural
backwardness of his native Austria for its adherence to past styles of
architecture (particularly the lavish Baroque style with its superfluous
ornament) which he believed had no relation to modern life.
In his publications Loos wanted to awaken his fellow Austrians and
shake them out of their cultural backwardness. Upon his return to
Austria from America in 1898 he started a magazine entitled The
Other. A journal for the introduction of Western Culture into Austria.

16. Adolf Loos Pre-Modern
Once a Literary Intervention was formulated
Adolf Loos translated his thinking and writings into
physical form as an Architectural Intervention.
Pre-Modern
0%
Literary
Intervention
Architectural
Intervention

17. A 1911 cartoonist's comment on the facade. Built building. Architectural InterventionPublic Opinion
Emerging
Social Working Class
Upper Class
Monarch-Constitutionalist
Disagree
Disagree &Prefer
Neo-Renaissance Style
Agree
Adolf Loos: “I don’t accept the objection that ornament heightens a cultivated person’s joy in
life, I don’t accept the objection contained in the words “But if the ornament is beautiful!”
Ornament does not heighten my joy in life or the joy in life of any cultivated person…”
Loos was one of the most significant prophets of modernism. His buildings are stark, abstract and
rational in appearance and his ‘raumplan’ concept revolutionized the spatial design of buildings. His
buildings and ideas had a significant influence on the emerging International Style architects in Europe
and America.
Loos designed an apartment and business building whose façade was free from any ornamentation
and which was more oriented towards historicism.
Loos' respect for antiquity was of a functionalistic nature: he always considered the question, what
would the ancients have accomplished under the present conditions? In any event Loos' writings and
architectural works provided great inspiration to the architects of the following generation who brought
about the International Style of 1925-1950.

18. John Dewey Antonio GramsciImmanuel Kant
Organic intellectuals have more to do
with class division than with
professional fields.
Taste is associated
with faculty of taste as
special mental
faculty, possessed by
people with a special
sensitivity
KantLoos
Modern
man’s Taste
is compatible
with the
reduction of
ornamentation
What is the
difference between
taste, judgment,
and beauty in
Kantian terms? Are
they subjective or
universal?
What determines the
judgment between
beauty or ugliness?
In respect to
aesthetic judgment
KantLoos
The judgment
to not utilize
ornamentation
is to go forward
not backwards
Beauty is limited
whereas sublime is
limitless
KantLoos
Beauty is
appreciated thru
its
craftsmanship, but
the absence of
ornamentation is
limitless, therefore
sublime. Sublime.
Historicism.
Historicism.
Historicism.
Historicism.
Beauty in Craftsmanship
Adolf Loos Pre-Modern
Intervention is
universal, because it has
accepted
worldwide as an architectural
solution to our environments.
Historicism.
In order to
understand the
esthetic in its
ultimate and
approved
forms, one must
begin with it in the
raw
DeweyLoos
To understand
natural colors, is
to value it as
part of the
human
experience
Vs.
Natural
Colors
Artificial
Colors
Painting and
sculpture were
organically one
with
architecture, as
that was one with
the social purpose
that buildings
served.
DeweyLoos
The Social
Purpose that
Pre-Modern
architecture has
is to serve the
emerging needs
in the 1910’s.
High Society = Historicism
Working Class = Pre-Modern
Art is not something
exceptional in the
human experience.
Why is the absence
of color is relevant?
Parthenon is a great work
of art. Yet it has esthetic
standing only as the work
becomes an experience for
a human being.
Dewey
The building is to
be experience in
its purest form, in
essence “naked”
Loos

20. The Raiffeisen bank is Loos' most
famous building, One of the first
modern office buildings in Vienna, the
steel concrete construction provides
wide structural spans with flexible
space use.
Sought to design practical buildings for his
clients. He designed buildings without a pre-
conceived notion of their form.
Goldman and Salatsch haberdashery shop in
Vienna. This interior, entirely straightlined and
without any ornament, already showed his
design principles and especially his mastery in
the creation of articulate space effects.