Product Description

The Vienna Jubilee Exhibition of 1898 provided the occasion for these remarkable essays by the Austrian architect, theorist, and irreverent critic of his own culture, Adolf Loos. The rational underpinnings of his later accusation that "ornament is crime," first appear in these polemical thrusts at the stylized work of Viennese sucessionists Joseph Hoffmann, Otto Wagner, Hermann Obrist, and Gustav Klimt, among others.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2873442 in Books
• Published on: 1987-04-07
• Original language: German
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 159 pages

Review


"What Opposition Books has given us is a collection of essays - impudent, incisive, critical - about the failures of applied design in fin de siecle Vienna. Topics ranging from plumbing, furniture, and hygiene to men's shoes, undergarments, carriages, and printing are attacked by Adolf Loos, the architect, teacher, dandy, and artistic radical.... Taken together, they tell us a lot about the forgotten roots of the Modern Movement, and remind us how shallow and warped our collective memory of Modernism has recently become."
- Jane Thompson, ID

Language Notes
Text: English, German (translation)