In recent years there has been a surge of interest in the Viennese architect, essayist, lecturer, and sometime art patron, Adolf Loos. This book seeks, through an examination of the form and content of his texts, to extend our understanding of Adolf Loos and his role in the struggle to define the nature of modernity in Vienna at the turn of the century. Focusing on the sense of paradox which structured Loos's thought allows this book to introduce a new Loos, simultaneously modern and traditional, who functioned as a sensitive barometer of conflicts played out in fin-de-siecle Vienna.

This book seeks, through an examination of the form and content of his texts, to extend our understanding of Adolf Loos and his role in the struggle to define the nature of modernity in Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth century. It makes extensive use of primary sources including archive material and newspaper reports, which serve to shed new light on the way in which Loos's writings are embedded in their socio-cultural context. Drawing on insights from German and Austrian studies, sociology and cultural history, this book offers a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to a figure who...