Adolf Loos and the Werkbund

         During the time of Adolf Loos and the Werkbund movement, German, Austria, and Hungary were different nations that were on the edge of establishment as independent nations. These nations were all of which looking for a unifying identity. This is when the work of Adolf Loos and the Werkbund movement were able to capture that identity. I examined the characteristics that are common to Adolf Loos’ work, and found connections within the some of the projects of the Weissenhof Project.

         Adolf Loos strongly believed that ornament was unimportant, and coincidentally he was not the only person to perfect this idea in his work. While examining House 13 of the Weissenhof project, a popular example of Werkbund architecture, I found characteristics reminiscent of Loos’ ideas. The works of LeCorbusier and Pierre Jeanneret can be seen as almost a direct play on the paintings of Piet Mondrian, an influential artist of that time period. Related patterns and alternated modules are commonplace in the plans and elevations of this project, as are seen in Mondrian's paintings. 

Piet Mondrian's Work

         Adolf Loos tried to convey a sense of 2 dimensional appreciations in his 3 dimensional spaces, as seen in the lobby of the Michaelerplatz in Vienna. His space, while three-dimensional, engaged the viewer to see the lobby as a linear composition, much like the work of Piet Mondrian. House 13 on the other hand was almost construed as a three dimensional depiction of the work of Piet Mondrian. Its façade is a placed, albeit unorganized, collage of different elements that make a building plane. Its fenestration appears to the naked eye as an abstraction, much like its 2 dimensional painted counterpart.

Diagram Depicting the module design of House 13.

         When examining the work of Adolf Loos and the Werkbund, one must also remember the connection they have to other modern movements, such as Art Nouveau. While Loos despised the Art Nouveau movement, some of the ideas still translate into his work. For instance, many of Victor Horta’s works were devoted to creating an inwardly looking world. This is similar to the interior spaces of the Weissenhor and Adolf Loos’s projects. This idea can again be translated into LeCorbusier’s later work on Villa Savoye. The idea of an unornamented building is best displayed in the works of Mies Van Der Rohe’s Seagram building. So one can see the progression of modernist ideas spread across time. 

The Werkbund architects were focused on machine design, a new concept after Art Nouveau and Art's and Craft's aim to restore a level of craft within architecture. This can be represented in their modular designs which seem to be a very functional based design. One can start to see that spaces are taking on a minimalist approach, something that reflective of the earlier words of Semper, and the later designs of Mies Van Der Rohe. This seems an approapriate approach given the context under which they designed, trying for the first time to create a uniform industrial architecture that glorified progress and technology.