Loos, Adolf

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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b. 10 December 1870 Brno, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic)

d. 23 August 1933 Vienna, Austria

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Austrian architect who was one of the earliest pioneers of the modern school in Europe.

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Loos was the son of a sculptor and trained as a mason before studying architecture at Dresden College of Technology between 1890 and 1893. He then spent three years in America in such diverse areas as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and St Louis. He became a devotee of America and of building there, and he was particularly impressed by the work of Louis Sullivan. He returned to Austria in 1896 and set up practice in Vienna. His early work there was in line with the current Sezessionist mode, but he quickly came to disassociate himself from this trend and increasingly insisted upon very plain and functionalist designs: by 1908 he is quoted as saying that "the evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects". By this time Loos had become the pace-setter for modern ideas and was designing houses constructed from modern materials in as severe and cubic a style as Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) was soon to do. Adolf Loos made many designs, but only a small proportion were translated into building. Of his notable interiors the Kartner Bau (1907) in Vienna had pride of place, while his Steiner Haus (1910) there is regarded as the earliest truly modern house in Europe. Cubic in form and with simplified fenestration, this was the forerunner of inter-war architecture. In 1920 Loos was appointed Chief Housing Architect for Vienna, but he resigned two years later. He spent some time in Paris mixing with avant-garde artists and architects and lectured for a time at the Sorbonne. His last commissions, after he had returned to Vienna in 1928, included some of his best work, notably the Muller House (1930) in Prague.

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Further Reading

Benedetto Gravagnuolo, 1982, Adolf Loos: Theory and Works, Milan: Idea Books.

——1986, The Architecture of Adolf Loos, Arts Council Exhibition Book (with a Foreword by Sir John Summerson).

L.Munz and G.Kunstet, 1964, Der Architekt Adolf Loos, Vienna and Munich: Anton Schroll.

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