LECTURE MARKING THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF BRNO NATIVE ADOLF LOOS

LECTURE MARKING THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF BRNO NATIVE ADOLF LOOS

The person and work of one of the most famous native sons of Brno, the architect Adolf Loos (10th December 1870 Brno – 23rd August 1933 Kalksburg, Vienna), has been of interest to several generations of art historians and architecture theoreticians. Loos’s explorations outside the branch of architecture, his friendly contacts with  the Viennese intellectual and artistic Bohemian circles, his interesting clientèle and first and foremost his unceasing exploration of “a culture of everydayness” continue to fascinate scholars in the areas of sociology, literary criticism, theatre studies, German studies, etc. 

Adolf Loos is generally considered to have been an Austrian, in light of the fact that the majority of his life and work is linked with Vienna. His crowning work, however, Villa Müller was created in Prague in the capital of Czechoslovakia whose citizen he became after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Adolf Loos executed a number of designs in the Czech Lands and these over the course of two stages (1907–1908 and1928–1933) working out of Pilsen where he mainly designed interiors for flats. In-between there followed a number of designs and realisations in Brno, Prague as well as elsewhere in Moravian and Bohemia. The crowing work of his career became the house for the family of Dr. František Müller in Prague. Loos fully made use of the concept of arrangement of the living space in the spirit of the so-called ‘Raumplan’ with Villa Müller. This was based on space and height differences for the particular functional zones mutually connected by short staircases.

The lecture will mainly focus on Loos’ works in the Czech Republic and will be delivered by Maria Szadkowska, curator of the Villa Müller in Prague and its Adolf Loos Study and Documentation Centre.

The lecture will be held on Monday 18 November 2013 at 5 p.m. in the technical basement of Villa Tugendhat(a tour of the villa is not included in the lecture).

Entrance fee is 100 CZK, students and seniors 50 CZK.