All of us, since February 24, 2022, have found ourselves in the face of advancing barbarity, violence and lies. In this situation, it is extremely important to preserve at least the remnants of culture and support the values of humanism – including for the sake of the future of Russia. Therefore, the editors of Gorky will continue to talk about books, reminding our readers that there is still a place for thought and fiction in the world.
Adolf Loos is a Viennese architect born in 1870, so he managed to work both before and after the First World War – in two completely different eras. At the same time, he rather harshly criticized the contemporary architecture of Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century.
After the Austrian Revolution of 1918-1919. Loos became Vienna’s chief architect and briefly worked in social housing, but after 1924 he returned to the design and construction of private villas and interior design. Thanks to his work (and theoretical work), Loos earned the nickname of the father of modern design.
When starting the book “Ornament and Crime”, it’s first worth understanding what we’re talking about. This provocative title refers to a short article by Adolf Loos, in which there is not a word about architecture. But collections of his articles on architecture were also published under the same title. The composition of these collections depended on the publisher and editor, that is, there is no separate, unchanging book with this title*The publication was published in Russian: Adolf Loos. Ornament and crime / Translation from German by Ella Vengerova. M.: Strelka press, 2018.. Loos’s literary activity is rather fragmentary, but certainly very interesting. We will talk about a specific article about ornament and about Loos’s thoughts on architecture in general, which he outlines in one way or another in various articles.
All his articles are quite unexpected, provocative and angry, he sharply criticizes his colleagues, which is why it is believed that Loos had a bad character, because in the architectural environment there is an unspoken rule: do not criticize your own, we already have enough critics.
The very name “Ornament and Crime” is a provocation. The combination of such different concepts in one title is so striking that the reader jumps to the conclusion: Loos wants to say that ornament is a crime, making ornaments is a crime; I personally know people who are sure that Loos’ article is called “Ornament is a Crime.” No, no and NO! The article talks about the fact that the ornament corresponds to a certain phase of human development. There is nothing wrong with going through certain stages of development, problems only arise when you return to previous stages and do not understand the meaning of what you are doing.
A baby crawling around the room is the norm, but an adult who starts crawling on the floor will raise questions. Loos gives a cruel example with cannibals, for whom killing and eating an enemy is the norm, this does not make them criminals. For the conditional Middle Ages, killing is the norm, but eating is no longer the norm. Nowadays, murder is considered savagery and a crime. Ancient people applied ornamental tattoos to themselves, taking their first steps in the field of art, but in the modern Loos world, a tattoo is a sign of a marginal, criminal world, like a step back.
Loos’s idea is that at a certain stage of technological development, which, in his opinion, humanity had reached by the beginning of the 20th century, applying ornaments by hand is also a similar regression, a crime both against the artist, whose time is wasted so pointlessly, and against the customer – Such decoration increases the cost of the item, but does not make it functionally better. The article “Ornament and Crime” deals mainly with clothing and household items, to which additional “beauty” does not add functionality, but requires disproportionate expenses, and therefore is meaningless.
“Ornament, having lost all organic connection with our culture, has ceased to be a means of its expression. The ornament that is created today is no longer the work of the living creativity of a certain society and certain traditions; that plant without roots is not capable of growing and reproducing”*Translation by V. G. Kalish.
Loos had nothing against ornaments where they were appropriate; he was not against painstaking manual work in works of art; the point was that household items should not be works of art worthy of expensive handicraft, but simply functional and convenient things. Moreover, Loos believed that machine-applied patterns on plaster were much better than imitation cladding. In the article “The Principle of Cladding” (1898), Loos writes about the inadmissibility of imitation of one material by another and argues that the ornament on plaster is much more honest than painted brickwork.
But Loos’s provocation was a success!
Many read his article as a call to abandon both hand-made and machine-made ornaments, to abandon architectural details in general, and to strive for the complete absence of any external signs of production technology. Indeed, in his other articles, Loos criticized the over-reliance on facade decorations that are not related to architecture; He said, and in a rather harsh tone, that such facades “pasted” onto the structure are, in fact, Potemkin villages (see his article “Potemkin City”, 1898). Both these articles by Loos and the buildings he built were perceived as an outrageous violation of the fundamentals of architecture.
However, after the First World War, the pendulum swung in the other direction – and Adolf Loos’s article “Ornament and Crime” was raised on the shield as an argument in favor of the rejection of any excesses, manual or machine production, functional and non-functional details, appropriate and inappropriate decorations. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater – modernist architecture abandoned any decoration (although ornament implies a repeating pattern, and not just any image) and, moreover, tried to abandon architectural details in general. And Loos’s articles played an important role in this.
However, Loos nowhere calls for the abandonment of functional architectural details; he only opposes that which is not related to the function of architecture, its design and meaning.
Let’s take a look at Loos’s most famous and controversial building – the house on Michaelerplatz in Vienna, built in 1911, which is now known as Looshaus.
This is a seven-story building, the first three floors of which are finished in green-gray marble, and the upper four are plastered and practically devoid of detail. From the residents of Vienna it received the nickname “House without Eyebrows” – because its windows lack the usual platbands. There are indeed no plaster decorations on the façade, much less ornaments.
However, the exterior of the house contains many architectural details: the upper entablature, the intermediate entablature between the two parts, the plinth, and in addition, the facade facing the square is decorated with Doric columns – with bases, entasis and capitals. The windows of the second and third floors are also decorated with columns.
It turns out that Loos uses logical and functional architectural details, as well as the possibilities of natural materials – in this case, marble. Refusing artificial and repetitive patterns, he offers the viewer the richest textures of natural stone.
Moreover, Loos considers himself a continuator of the Viennese house-building tradition, in which all ornaments and decorations were made by hand, and therefore were available only to very wealthy customers.
“I chose real marble, because I hate any imitation, and I tried to simplify the plastered surface as much as possible, because the people of Vienna also built simply. Only a feudal lord could afford strong architectural elements for the palace.”*Our translation. — A.G..
(From “Letter about the House on Michaelerplatz”, 1910)
But for some reason, the public did not at all see here either the tradition, the logic of the architectural details, or the beauty of the textures. Both the bourgeois inhabitants of Vienna in 1911 and those who subsequently, hiding behind the distorted slogan “Ornament is a crime,” continued to realize their ambitions in creating new styles, equally agreed on this.
Much more important than the idea that humanity has long outgrown ornament, I see another idea of Loos, which has remained unnoticed by the general public: he proposes to treat architecture as a household item, and not as art.
What is art in the classical sense? This is something from contact with which we change – we experience catharsis, become a slightly different person, understand something new about ourselves or about the structure of the world. We specifically go to the theater, or to a concert, or to a museum for this – in order to come into contact with art. Architecture surrounds us on all sides. It cannot be art – we simply do not have the mental strength to perceive it all the time as contact with the spiritual principle.
“A work of art is offered to the world, although it may not be needed. A house satisfies a specific need. A work of art is not responsible to anyone, but a house is responsible to anyone and everyone. A work of art seeks to tear a person out of his usual comfort. The house should serve this comfort. The work of art is revolutionary, the house is conservative.”
“The artist must serve only himself, the architect – the common good. But the confusion of art and craft has caused endless harm to humanity. Because of this confusion, humanity has ceased to understand what art is. With senseless fury it pursues the artist, and thereby prevents him from creating.”*Translation by Ella Vengerova..
(From the article “Architecture”, 1910)
Loos criticizes the architects of early 20th century Vienna and their predecessors for their pride. For trying to turn every building into a work of art and become famous, instead of thinking about those who will use this building. His rather harsh texts towards architects clearly show his concern for people; for example, Loos wrote that good design cannot include the same chairs – people are different, some are taller, some are shorter, some have back pain, some have leg pain, so chairs should be of different heights , with different backs, and the same chairs are beauty for beauty’s sake, but not a concern for convenience.
If we look at the interiors designed by Loos in the 1910s, we will see very cozy spaces – small, warm thanks to a large amount of natural wood, with the use of textiles: carpets, tablecloths, furniture upholstery with patterns woven on them (because the pattern itself is assumed fabric production process). The interiors made by Loos after the First World War are a little simpler, but also include cornices, panels, plinths, natural wood and stone decoration.
The less attention the architecture attracts, the more inconspicuously it blends into the background, the more space people will have for other thoughts and feelings. It was this idea of Loos that in the middle of the 20th century would be picked up by minimalists and turned into a slogan less is more. However, this idea will also be brought to the point of absurdity quite quickly – after all, Loos was talking about background buildings that do not attract attention, and not about large uniform surfaces of concrete or glass, which not only attract attention, but also cannot provide food for the eyes, no reason – unlike wood texture.
Adolf Loos sometimes writes amazing things, as if looking into the future and trying to anticipate the problems we face in the modern world. Thus, he warns against moving towards a consumer society and writes that the main criterion for furniture (and architecture in general) should be good quality and durability.
“Material and labor have the right to retain their value always, despite any newfangled trends”*Translation by Ella Vengerova.
(From the article “Hands off!”, 1917)
Anticipating some processes in architecture, he nevertheless was not at all the revolutionary that they try to portray him as. The problems of architecture and design that Loos wrote about have not gone away, many of his articles are still relevant, manual labor is still little valued, architects and designers work for the sake of a beautiful picture in a magazine, and not for the convenience of the consumer, and technologies are XX and XXI centuries have given us many new materials that can imitate the texture of stone or wood, creating not just an obsessive repeating pattern, impossible in nature, but also a deceptive habitat. This is precisely what Loos opposed in his articles.
