Adolf Loos
Frank Lloyd Wright
ornament&crime
raumplan
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usonian
prairie style
organic architecture
hemicycle designs
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Adolf Loos (1870-1933) criticised Viennese Secession for its overabundant ornamentation, advocating simplicity as a sign of spiritual strength, maturity and advanced culture. From his Ornament&Crime, 1908:
"... the evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects."
Loos buildings' facades do not give out what is going inside. Neither his 'woman with no eyebrows', Goldman and Salatsch building announced that it was a tailoring shop back in 1912, nor (never built) Josephine Baker's house reveals intimacy of actresses private life.
Josephine Baker's house, 1927
The interior spaces of his buildings were composed according to Raumplan - architectural thought, embodying Loos' understanding of economy and functionality. It rests on the stepped heights of the individual rooms according to their function and symbolic importance. As Loos explains it himself:
"My architecture is not conceived in plans, but in spaces (cubes). I do not design floor plans, facades, sections. I design spaces. For me, there is no ground floor, first floor etc.... For me, there are only contiguous, continual spaces, rooms, anterooms, terraces etc. Storeys merge and spaces relate to each other. Every space requires a different height: the dining room is surely higher than the pantry, thus the ceilings are set at different levels. To join these spaces in such a way that the rise and fall are not only unobservable but also practical."
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Adolf Loos was greatly influenced by American architect Louis Sullivan. Sullivan in his essay Ornament in Architecture (1892) was talking about very similar ideas to what Loos later did:
"I shall say that it would be greatly for our esthetic good if we should refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years, in order that our thought might concentrate acutely upon the production of buildings well formed and comely in the nude."
Sullivan's National Farmers' Bank, 1908
Brief as it was, Louis Sullivan's career profoundly influenced another great architect - Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).
"It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things super-human, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law."
This Sullivan's thought also widely reflects in Wrights practice.
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Characteristics of F.L.Wright's architecture:
> Prairie style - houses with low horizontal lines and open interior spaces, low-pitched roof, overhanging eaves, central chimney and clerestory windows.
> Usonian style - (abbrev. for United States of North America) grew out of prairie style. Democratic, distinctly American style that was affordable for the "common people". Houses had no attics, no basements, and little ornamentation; usually were small, one-story structures set on concrete slabs with piping for radiant heat beneath.
> Organic architecture - every building should grow naturally from its environment, and spaces be integrated into a unified whole. From An Organic Architecture, 1939, by Frank Lloyd Wright:
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Characteristics of F.L.Wright's architecture:
> Prairie style - houses with low horizontal lines and open interior spaces, low-pitched roof, overhanging eaves, central chimney and clerestory windows.
The Frederic C. Robie House in Chicago, 1909
> Usonian style - (abbrev. for United States of North America) grew out of prairie style. Democratic, distinctly American style that was affordable for the "common people". Houses had no attics, no basements, and little ornamentation; usually were small, one-story structures set on concrete slabs with piping for radiant heat beneath.
Zimmerman House, 1950s
> Organic architecture - every building should grow naturally from its environment, and spaces be integrated into a unified whole. From An Organic Architecture, 1939, by Frank Lloyd Wright:
"So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no 'traditions' essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but - instead - exalting the simple laws of common sense - or of super-sense if you prefer - determining form by way of the nature of materials..."
Taliesan West school, Arizona, 1937
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I find my current project to reverberate Wright's thoughts about organic building - architecture fit into its environment, using materials that are characteristic to the site. My installation will be made out of black liquid latex, blending into car park full of car wheels dressed in black vulcanized rubber tyres. The skin of the object will grow on plastic bags and bin liners, that are so often thrown away and lie about in the car park as well Hyde park above.
I find my current project to reverberate Wright's thoughts about organic building - architecture fit into its environment, using materials that are characteristic to the site. My installation will be made out of black liquid latex, blending into car park full of car wheels dressed in black vulcanized rubber tyres. The skin of the object will grow on plastic bags and bin liners, that are so often thrown away and lie about in the car park as well Hyde park above.
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