Adolf Loos
Adolf Loos
Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Looswas an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect and influential European theorist of Modern architecture. His essay Ornament and Crime advocated smooth and clear surfaces in contrast to the lavish decorations of the Fin de siècle and also to the more modern aesthetic principles of the Vienna Secession. Loos became a pioneer of modern architecture and contributed a body of theory and criticism of Modernism in architecture and design...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth10 December 1870
CountryAustria
If nothing were left of an extinct race but a single button, I would be able to infer, form the shape of that button, how these people dressed, built their houses, how they lived, what was their religion, their art, their mentality.
I have emerged victorious from my thirty years of struggle. I have freed mankind from superfluous ornament.
The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative.
Be truthful. Nature only sides with truth.
Lack of ornamentation is a sign of spiritual strength.
The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art which does not. The work is a private matter for the artist. The house is not.
Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise.
Be not afraid of being called un-fashionable.