Adolf Loos

Revolutionary essays on design, aesthetics and materialism - from one of the great masters of modern architectureAdolf Loos, the great Viennese pioneer of modern architecture, was a hater of the fake, the fussy and the lavishly decorated, and a lover of stripped down, clean simplicity. He was also a writer of effervescent, caustic wit, as shown in this selection of essays on all aspects of design and aesthetics, from cities to glassware, furniture to footwear, architectural training to why 'the lack of ornament is a sign of intellectual power'.Translated by Shaun WhitesideWith an epilogue by Joseph Masheck

In 1903, Adolf Loos edited the journal Das Andere - Ein Blatt zur Einfuhrung abendlandischer Kunst inOsterreich, in which he expressed his thoughts on, and theories of, contemporary architecture, fashion, anddesign. The publication was born out of Loos' aversion to a superficial aestheticization of life in Austria, whichhe saw embodied by the "Wiener Secession" and later on "Wiener Werkstatte" and "Werkbund." As acounterbalance, in Das Andere he showed his admiration especially for the fashion and culture of England andAmerica. Contemporary advertisements on these subjects were included in the journal, which ran for just twoissues.Beatriz Colomina supplements the reprint of Das Andere with an extensive commentary."

Contains thirty-six original essays by the celebrated Viennese architect, Adolf Loos (1870-1933). Most deal with questions of design in a wide range of areas, from architecture and furniture, to clothes and jewellery, pottery, plumbing, and printing; others are polemics on craft education and training, and on design in general. Loos, the great cultural reformer and moralist in the history of European architecture and design was always a 'revolutionary against the revolutionaries'. With his assault on Viennese arts and crafts and his conflict with bourgeois morality, he managed to offend the whole country. His 1908 essay 'Ornament and Crime', mocked by an age in love with its accessories, has come to be recognised as a seminal work in combating the aesthetic imperialism of the turn of the century. Today Loos is recognised as one of the great masters of modern architecture.