:: twothirdsterm ::

:: apertures ::

:: in context ::

:: interior screenshot - shop ::

:: interior screenshot - growing ::

:: fattening and landscaping ::

:: figure / figurine workshop ::

:: test model ::

:: pre-midterm review plot ::

:: taking a look inside ::

... the fungi growing room:

:: faceting ::

:: 2nd layer of poche ::

:: re-programming ::

:: site plan ::

:: section study ::

:: elevation study ::

:: mass operation - geometry ::

:: mass operations - plan ::

:: achieving precision ::

The first measure to achieve more precision, is reducing to the basics of the mass-study strategy: surfaces folding in on themselves to create volumes and a central void.

:: site and program ::

Arc-et-senans in France, next to the axis of Le Doux's royale saline.

relalion of program to site in square meters, scale 1:1000

:: tessellation strategies research ::

:: mass study - final presentation ::

this is FLOOS - a faceted BLOOS:

:: mass study - nested shells newly tessellated ::

:: mass study - test model ::

:: mass study - tessellation study ::

outside quadrangulated, inside triangulated zigzag

:: mass study - nested shells before tessellation ::

:: loos - the books ::

To conclude my Loos research - after reading from and about Loos for the last three weeks I've decided on my two favourites:

"Raumplan versus Plan Libre" by Max Risselada, 2008
The Book is a collection of essays that compare the two architects Loos and Corbusier in their design philosophies and processes. Categories like structure, section, form, typology, colors and of course the plan are analysed and compared. The book ends with 2 texts by Loos ("The Principle of Cladding" and "Regarding the Economy") and Corbu ("The Decorative Art of Today" and "20th Century Building and 20th Century Living").
A brilliant read, it was especially helpfull to me to understand the techniques behind the Raumplan.

"Das Schöne, das Wahre, und das Richtige. Adolf Loos und das Haus Müller in Prag" by Christian Kühn, 2001
Where Risselada analysed the design strategies, Kühn focuses on the theoretical placement of Loos in the modern movement. First he analyses the Haus Müller in terms of interior sequencing, exterior-interior and room-material and mood relationships. He concludes with defining Loos as modern architect, who created moods and atmospheres, focused always on the human needs primary to construction and technology and understood architecture as the stage for life, using terms as play (Spiel), interpretation, orchestration (Inszenierung) and statement (Aussage) in his design theories.
Second he compares Loos' theoretical work and his philosophical standpoints to Corbu, Mies, the Bauhaus and de Stijl. He analyses their understanding of the architect, form, aesthetics, architecture as art versus industry, their understanding of truthfulness in architecture and construction and their ideas of collectivity versus individuality. Kühn argues that because art historians in the 60s and 70s reduced the modern movement to functionalism, the international style and industrial aesthetics - Loos tended to be misunderstood and reduced to a reading of "Ornament and Crime" as a radical text against historsism. Whereas he was a much more complex thinker, having almost contemporary standpoints in terms of taste, pop culture, city planing and unlike Corbu, Mies or Gropius he didn't ask for a break with tradition, but on the contrary always accepted it as a strong part of cultural evolution.
Kühn concludes in the book that Loos was an architect that had "the paradox as a principle", on the one hand he didn't want to be a moralist as the other modernists and try to drill humans with architecture to live modern, on the other hand he was constantly fighting for a modern lifestyle and even founded his own architecture school in Vienna. Nevertheless - Kühn argues - Loos was consistent in his contradictions in his architecture as well as his theory and even his biography always keeping his ideas on the individual, ethics and modernity self-evident.
A great read, not just about Loos but about architecture in general.

:: mass study - new void ::

:: loos - the movie ::

I finally got hold of the Loos-movie DVD: the name "Loos Ornamental" sounded so promising, sadly the movie is just plain crap. Not enough it's sexist too, the only information we get about Loos is his dad's job - his mum is obviously absolutely unimportant. The movie is boring and bieder. The shots of the buildings look arbitrary and are not well selected, the few good shots seem to be not more than lucky accidents. The angle of the camera is almost never straight, making it often hard to understand the orientation of the spaces - again just giving the feeling of an amateur taking pictures of architecture for the first time.

The only good part is the in extra section of the DVD menu - a professional voice reads "Ornament and Crime" from 1908 to a picture of some random floor painting out of some random renaissance church. Besides Loos' pseudo scientific augmentations the text is very surprising and offers some clear insights that seem to reflect the time very well.

:: loos excursions 3 - werkbundsiedlung ::

In Vienna's 13th district is the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung with buildings from Neutra, Hoffmann, Frank, Breuer, Schütte Lihotzky, some more and of course by Loos.
A nice lady living in one of the three Loos houses was home and let us in and have a look around. The layout of the building was very convincing. Really enjoyed the central living space, with it's big studio like window front (characteristic for his work after he moved to Paris), as well as the corridor leading slightly down into the kitchen with a view on the back yard. One day we will have our office here *lol*

:: mass study - interior draft presentation ::

:: loos excursions 2 - landhaus khuner ::

Yesterday I went to Payerbach, one and a half hours by train away from Vienna's city centre:

Built as a holiday house in 1929/30 the Landhaus Khuner it is now a Hotel: www.looshaus.at
The owner is mildly friendly but after some persuasion he allowed me to look at two of the unbooked rooms (4 and 5). In the process of renovation and adaption to it's new function as a hotel, they added an astonishingly ugly new addition to the building and replaced the original windows with standardised windows, destroying the original rhythm of the facades. Also the former dining niche was closed off from the main space to become a bar, losing one of the more interesting spacial moments of the building.


Never the less, it was a revelation to see the building and experience it. It's not an example of a 100% radical Raumplan design. Still there are interesting effects you would get in the typical Raumplan like the narrow and small entrance, the splitting stairs, stepped front terrace, indoor windows, mirrors placed into specific view axis, and some minor split levels. All four facades work differently and are solved according to the interior development. Additionally Loos designed the shutters of the windows in an minimalist way out of green colored metal, adding to the modernist look of the facade. The house is wrappted into a traditional Landhaus or mountain hut typology - from far it blends in neatly with the surrounding architecture, from close the details of the facades, the placement and rhythm of the windows as well as the small roof terrace give a hint to Loos' genially designed interiors and interior sequencing. My favourite room is the Library. It is split leveled down below the living room, and has the house's biggest window to the outside, making up for it's relative narrowness. It is this room were one can experience the Raumplan the most, especially in terms of it's visual relationships to the living room. It's also the only room I found so far, were Loos allowed it to be photographed with the window not closed by curtains, underlining the importance of the windows dimensions and Loos' strategy of inside-outside relationships.
Loos' play with colors and material cladding is very convincing and adds to the spacial experience, when moving from one room to another. I was surprised by the intimate and "gemütliche" atmosphere the building immediately embraced me in, at the same time it was very light, bright and strikingly modern. In terms of mood and interior sequencing this Loos was more convincing than the Le Corbusier houses I visited so far.

:: loos excursions 1 - vienna ::

It turns out that there is no real Loos museum in Vienna. Even more problematic is that all his buildings are still privately owned plus inhabited and most are thus not open to the public. That means I will have to do a trip to Prague at some point to look at the Haus Müller. Visiting the website I just saw it's only open April till October....

The Loos buildings I managed to visit on the inside so far:

Kärntner Bar (still a bar)
Café Museum (still a café)
Haus am Michaelerplatz (now a private bank)

Sadly only from the outside:

Haus Moller (now the residence of the ambassador of Israel)
Haus Steiner (still a residence, I just had a look around in the garden, because no one was home)

:: mass study - exterior mass ::