Fashioning Vienna: Adolf Loos's Cultural Criticism

246 Pages·2000·12.26 MB·English

by  Janet Stewart

Fashioning Vienna
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 nineteenth century. Focusing on the sense of paradox
which structures 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-siècle Vienna.
Fashioning Vienna is based on original research and informed by an
interdisciplinary approach. 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
himself operated in an interdisciplinary fashion.
Janet Stewart is Lecturer in German at the University of Aberdeen, where
she also contributes to the teaching of Cultural History. In association with the
University of Edinburgh, she is involved in establishing a Centre for Austrian
Studies in Aberdeen.
Fashioning Vienna
Adolf Loos’s cultural criticism
Janet Stewart
London and New York
First published 2000 by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
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©2000 Janet Stewart
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Stewart, Janet
Fashioning Vienna: Adolf Loos’s cultural criticism/Janet Stewart
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. Loos, Adolf, 1870–1933—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Loos, Adolf
1870–1933—Written works. 3. Criticism—Austria—Vienna—
History—19th century. 4. Criticism—Austria—Vienna—History
—20th century. 5. Vienna (Austria)—Civilization—19th century. 6.
Vienna (Austria)—Civilization—20th century. I. Title.
NA1011.5.L6 S74 2000
720'.92–dc21 99–088062
ISBN 0-203-36113-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-37369-3 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-22176-5 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-22177-3 (pbk)
For my parents
Contents
List of illustrations vi
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction(s) 1
1 Investigating and excavating 11
2 The Other: national cultural mythologies 45
3 The Self: social difference in Loos’s Vienna 77
4 The display and disguise of difference 105
5 Locating the narrative: the city, its artefacts and its attractions 139
Conclusion: the non-contemporaneity of Loos’s critique 177
Notes 181
Bibliography 205
Index 223
Illustrations
i.l Adolf Loos, interior view of the Café Museum 3
1.1 Front cover of the 1931 edition of Ins leere gesprochen 14
1.2 Front cover of the 1931 edition of Trotzdem 14
1.3 Poster advertising Loos’s 1913 lecture ‘Ornament and crime’ 23
1.4 Poster advertising Loos’s 1925 lectures in Prague and Brno 27
1.5 Poster advertising Loos’s 1910 lecture ‘My building on the 29
Michaelerplatz’
1.6 ‘Potemkin City’ as it appeared in Ver Sacrum (1900) 30
1.7 Front covers of issues 1 and 2 of The Other (1903) 31
1.8 Festival hall of the Lower Austrian Chamber of Commerce (Festsaal 32
des niederösterreichischen Gewerbevereins)
1.9 Interior view of the Musikverein’s large hall 36
1.10 Adolf Loos, manuscript fragment showing a draft of the title page for 39
The Other
2.1 Chicago World’s Fair (1893), grand basin from the administration 46
tower
2.2 Adolf Loos, entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition (1925) 61
2.3 Poster advertising Loos’s 1927 lecture ‘Viennese woes’ 67
2.4 Poster for the VIth Secession Exhibition in Ver Sacrum (1902) 72
2.5 Front cover of Peter Altenberg’s Ashantee (1897) 75
3.1 ‘Vienna, an example of big city regulation’ from Otto Wagner’s Die 78
Großstadt (1911)
3.2 Handmade copy of a Chippendale chair by Josef Veillich with price 101
details in Veillich’s hand
4.1 Theodor Zaschke: parade on the Ringstraß (Ringstraßenkorso) 106
4.2 Goldman & Salatsch: interior view of the main shop floor taken from 108
the stairway
4.3 Caricature of Loos by B.Doblin advertising his 1927 lecture on men’s 110
fashion given in Berlin
4.4 Woman in cycling costume, fashion plate from Wiener Chic (1903) 126
4.5 Dress designed by Henry Van de Velde, from Deutsche Kunst und 128
Dekoration (1902)
4.6 Adolf Loos, interior view of the Viennese Women’s Association 130
(Frauenclub)
4.7 Advertisements for Goldman & Salatsch from The Other (1903) 133
vii
5.1 View of the living room of Loos’s flat in Giselastraße (now 141
Bösendorferstraße)
5.2 Postcards commemorating the Imperial Jubilee Exhibition of 1898 147
5.3 Poster for the Imperial Jubilee Exhibition of 1898 151
5.4 Josephine Baker (undated) 154
5.5 View of Venice in Vienna showing the place of departure for a gondola 156
ride
5.6 Loos’s Haus am Michaelerplatz and surroundings (1931) 165
5.7 Terraced settlement houses designed by Loos in the Viennese 171
Werkbundsiedlung (1931)
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, my warmest thanks to David Frisby, whose advice,
encouragement, patience and library have proven invaluable. For advice and
encouragement, I should also like to thank in particular Mark Ward, Roger
Stephenson, Andrew Barker and Harvie Ferguson, while I am grateful to Paul
Bishop, Karl Leydecker and Simon Ward for reading and commenting on
sections of the book, and Mike Mitchell for making his translations of Loos’s texts
available to me before they were published. Advice and assistance was
forthcoming from Adolf Opel, Burkhardt Rukschcio and Anton Schweighofer in
Vienna. Staff and fellow students in the departments of German and Sociology at
the University of Glasgow provided moral support and the same is true of my
new colleagues at the University of Aberdeen. Finally, many thanks to Christoph
Weritsch, without whose patience, not to mention proof-reading and translation
skills, this project would never have been completed.
My research was supported by a studentship from the SAAS and a University
of Glasgow Faculty of Arts Teaching Scholarship. I am also grateful for a Junior
Fellowship from the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften in
Vienna, which allowed me to carry out research in Vienna, for generous
financial support from the German and Sociology Departments at the University
of Glasgow, which funded further study trips to Vienna, and for assistance with
the cost of illustrations provided by the Faculty of Arts at the University of
Aberdeen. Finally, I would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for allowing me to
devote part of my time as a Study Abroad Scholar in Tübingen to this project.
This book is the product of library and archival work, and I owe gratitude to
the staff of the following institutions: the Albertina in Vienna (especially Markus
Kristan), the Arbeiterkammerbibliothek in Vienna (especially Eckhardt Früh),
the Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek, the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv,
the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Historisches Museum der Stadt
Wien, the Deutsches Literatur-Archiv in Marbach, the Sturm-Archiv in Berlin,
the Universitätsbibliothek in Tübingen, the Czech Literary Archive in Prague.
For permission to reproduce illustrations, I am indebted to Adolf Opel, the
Albertina, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Historisches Museum der
Stadt Wien, S.Fischer Verlag, the University of Glasgow Library, the
Kunsthistorisches Institut at the University of Vienna and the V&A’s Picture
ix
Library. I am grateful to the Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek for permission
to quote from an unpublished poem by Peter Altenberg and from Loos’s
correspondence with Lina Loos, and to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin for
permission to quote from his correspondence with Herwarth Walden. For reasons
of space, I have not included appendices containing exhaustive biblio-graphical
information detailing Loos’s lectures and essays. These are contained in the
original thesis which formed the basis for this book and which is available at the
University of Glasgow. Since this book is primarily aimed at an English-
speaking audience, I have used standard translations where available. This
includes Loos’s texts, for which I have made use of Mike Mitchell’s translations.
Unless otherwise indicated, translations are my own.