Adolf Loos Quotes & Sayings

Man loves everything that satisfies his comfort. He hates everything that wants to draw him out of his acquired and secured position and that disturbs him. Thus he loves the house and hates art. — Adolf Loos

The Potemkin city of which I wish to speak here is none other than our dear Vienna herself. — Adolf Loos

Be not afraid of being called un-fashionable. — Adolf Loos

I have emerged victorious from my thirty years of struggle. I have freed mankind from superfluous ornament. — Adolf Loos

It is ridiculous to lay down to people where a thing should stand, design everything for them from the lavatory pan to the ashtray. On the contrary, I like people to move their furniture so that it suits them (not me!), and it's quite natural (and I approve) when they bring the old pictures and mementos they have come to love into a new interior, irrespective of whether they are good taste or bad. — Adolf Loos

Does it follow that the house has nothing in common with art and is architecture not to be included in the arts? Only a very small part of architecture belongs to art: the tomb and the monument. Everything else that fulfils a function is to be excluded from the domain of art. — Adolf Loos

Be truthful, nature only sides with truth. — Adolf Loos

If nothing were left of an extinct race but a single button, I would be able to infer, form the shape of that button, how these people dressed, built their houses, how they lived, what was their religion, their art, their mentality. — Adolf Loos

The work of art is brought into the world without there being a need for it. The house satisfies a requirement. The work of art is responsible to none; the house is responsible to everyone. The work of art wants to draw people out of their state of comfort. — Adolf Loos

Supply and demand regulate architectural form. — Adolf Loos

It does not do to use it with forms whose origin is intimately bound up with a specific material simply because no technical difficulties stand in the way. — Adolf Loos

I will not subscribe to the argument that ornament increases the pleasure of the life of a cultivated person, or the argument which covers itself with the words: "But if the ornament is beautiful! ... " To me, and to all the cultivated people, ornament does not increase the pleasures of life. If I want to eat a piece of gingerbread I will choose one that is completely plain and not a piece which represents a baby in arms of a horserider, a piece which is covered over and over with decoration. The man of the fifteenth century would not understand me. But modern people will. The supporter of ornament believes that the urge for simplicity is equivalent to self-denial. No, dear professor from the College of Applied Arts, I am not denying myself! To me, it tastes better this way. — Adolf Loos

Changes in the traditional way of building are only permitted if they are an improvement. Otherwise stay with what is traditional, for truth, even if it be hundreds of years old has a stronger inner bond with us than the lie that walks by our side. — Adolf Loos

The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art which does not. The work is a private matter for the artist. The house is not. — Adolf Loos

Tattooed men who are not behind bars are either latent criminals or degenerate aristocrats. If someone who is tattooed dies in freedom, then he does so a few years before he would have committed murder. — Adolf Loos

The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative. — Adolf Loos

All art is erotic. The first ornament to have been invented, the cross, was of erotic origin. It was the first work of art. A horizontal stroke: the woman lying down. A vertical stroke: the male who penetrates her. — Adolf Loos

The room has to be comfortable; the house has to look habitable. — Adolf Loos

the development of culture is concurrent with the removal of ornaments from objects of daily use — Adolf Loos

Lack of ornamentation is a sign of spiritual strength. — Adolf Loos

The unadorned gentleman's suit was the product of the change from rigid status to social structures constantly shifting in response to the forces of modern capitalism, becoming ever more egalitarian in both appearance and reality. — Adolf Loos

The law courts must appear as a threatening gesture toward secret vice. The bank must declare: here your money is secure and well looked after by honest people. — Adolf Loos

The work of art shows people new directions and thinks of the future. The house thinks of the present. — Adolf Loos

Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise. — Adolf Loos

Every period had its style: why was it that our period was the only one to be denied a style? By "style" was meant ornament. I said, "weep not. Behold! What makes our period so important is that it is incapable of producing new ornament. We have out-grown ornament, we have struggled through to a state without ornament. Behold, the time is at hand, fulfilment awaits us. Soon the streets of the cities will glow like white walls! Like Zion, the Holy City, the capital of heaven. It is then that fulfilment will have come. — Adolf Loos

At the beginning of the nineteenth century we abandoned tradition, it's at that point that I intend to renew it because the present is built on the past just as the past was built on the times that went before it. — Adolf Loos