Fresh insights into the thought and work of the modernist architect,
from Loos expert Christopher Long
In this collection of essays, noted architectural historian and
University of Texas professor Christopher Long (author of Adolf Loos on
Trial) examines some of the many influences that shaped the work of the
great architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933). Long's finely tuned essays on
subjects such as Loos' time in America, his famous essay Ornament and
Crime and other subjects, are at once brief excursions into Loos' rich
and complex intellectual world, and an attempt to shed light on an
important time in the history of architecture and design.
Long is deeply interested in Loos as an architect, but he is even more
drawn to his profound and unique intellect, and to the clarity of mind
with which Loos managed to probe and understand the realities of modern
life. Loos, as Long writes, saw that "the problem of modernism was not
the problem of style, but the problem of understanding how the world was
changing."