Adolf Loos
G. Prachner, Vienna, 1982; originally published 1931, German
Nonfiction, Architecture
ISBN: 9783853670378

Collected essays by pioneering Viennese architect and theorist Adolf Loos (1870–1933), spanning the years 1900 to 1930 and first published in 1931.

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Kent Kleinman

The crime is that the entire corpus of Loos’s essays has not been translated into English. This volume (the title translates as “Nevertheless”)  contains gems such as “Keramika,” in which Loos embraces accident as an aesthetic principle; “Hands Off,” banishing the architect from touching anything that is supposed to have lasting value; and the obituary to Josef Veillich, with the observation celebrated by Aldo Rossi: “Man weiss, dass das ganze kunstgetue im wohnungswesen … keinen hund vom warmen ofen lockt” (roughly: “It is well known that all the artful novelties in housing . . . do not tempt the dog away from the warm stove”). As a discipline, we should get organized and get the entire opus translated and published.

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