Adolf Loos
Subtitle: the art of architecture
By: Joseph Masheck
Series: International library of architecture -- 1
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London; New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
ISBN-13: 9781780764221; 9781780764238
Subjects: Criticism and interpretation; Art and architecture
Description: Widely regarded as one of the most significant prophets of modern architecture, Adolf Loos was a celebrity in his own day. His work was emblematic of the turn-of-the-century generation that was torn between the traditional culture of the nineteenth century and the innovative modernism of the twentieth. His essay 'Ornament and Crime' equated superfluous ornament and 'decorative arts' with tattooing in an attempt to tell modern Europeans that they should know better. But the negation of ornament was supposed to reveal, not negate, good style; and an incorrigible ironist has been taken too literally in denying architecture as a fine art. Without normalizing his edgy radicality, Masheck argues that Loos' masterful "astylistic architecture" was an appreciation of tradition and utility and not, as most architectural historians have argued, a mere repudiation of the florid style of the Vienna Secession. Masheck reads Loos as a witty, ironic rhetorician who has all too often been taken at face value.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-284) and index.
Table of contents: title: Loos and fine art; title: Loosian vernacular : an American case; title: Loos and imperial New York; title: Critique of ornament; title: Architecture and ornament in fact; title: Everybody's doric; title: Architecturelessness and sustainable art; title: The Wittgenstein house as Loosian; title: Loos and minimalism.