Contributions to a History of Photography in

Edited by Monika Faber for Photoinstitut Bonartes · and Walter Moser for the Photographic Collection of the Albertina · Vienna

Volume 16 Walter Moser Translated Architectures

Photographing for Adolf Loos: Martin Gerlach jun.

Translated from the German by Wolfgang Astelbauer

Photoinstitut Bonartes · Vienna Albertina · Vienna

Fotohof edition · Salzburg Preface layout of his books. This rapidly spreading practice inevitably supported “critical reflection on the issue of the visual reception of spatial This book series is dedicated to those friends In the mid-nineteenth century, architects ranked phenomena” (Andreas Nierhaus). Considering whose unending trust and generous engagement have among the pioneers when it came to using this, Adolf Loos drew the frequently quoted accompanied and supported the Photographic Collection photographic images in a professional way. In radical and proud conclusion that a picture from a of the Albertina and Photoinstitut Bonartes Austria, Heinrich von Ferstel, Theophil von camera could never adequately represent his from the beginning. Hansen, ­Friedrich von Schmidt, and others began buildings. Nevertheless, he had to bow to to compile comprehensive collections of pictures necessity and accept photographs for spreading from the 1850s on. These pictures represented knowledge of his work. Walter Moser’s multi- historical or contemporary buildings from at home layered analysis of the documentation of Loos’s and abroad and were studied as models. buildings by Martin Gerlach jun. not only Architects also had their plans reproduced contextualizes the architect’s skeptical attitude photographically and construction sites and but also substantiates the photographer’s complex completed works documented with a camera. The approach to his task right through to retouching photographs served as reminders, illustrative the pictures authorized by Loos for the printing of material for classes and lectures, for the a book. The study undertakes fundamental work in documentation of building progress, and not least a hitherto neglected area of research into Austrian for the propagation of one’s own achievements—a photography—work that also addresses fact of which only little account has been taken so significant holdings of the Albertina: the far in the historiography of both architecture and architectural photographs of the Adolf Loos photography. Archive. Until the 1880s, all of these pictures were Our thanks extend to Wolfgang Astelbauer for engraved prints that were either purchased his circumspect translation of the original text into internationally or exchanged privately between English, Julia Faber’s meticulous image editing, colleagues. Architects, however, soon adjusted to and Michael Ponstingl’s critical commitment to the possibility of seeing photographs printed in the success of the volume. publications and thus disseminated more effectively. Otto Wagner was one of the first to Monika Faber, Photoinstitut Bonartes deliberately crop photographs for reports on his Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Albertina buildings and incorporate them impressively in the

Page 2: Anonymous photographer Moller House (Vienna), garden side, Adolf Loos standing in the terrace doorway (detail), 1927/28 Gelatin silver print, 22.6 × 18 cm

5 1 · Anonymous photographer (From the left) Adolf Loos, Heinrich Kulka, Anny and Hans Moller on the terrace of the Moller House (Vienna), c. 1928 Gelatin silver print, 8.3 × 11.2 cm Contents

10 Introduction 12 Architectural Photography between Documentation and Interpretation 14 Adolf Loos and Architectural Photography 18 “Photo Man” Martin Gerlach jun. and Heinrich Kulka’s Publication 20 The Moller House 26 Monumental Cubes 32 Gerlach and the New Objectivity Photography of New Building 48 Visually Disclosing the Exterior 62 Closed Space Volumes 70 Gerlach’s Pictures as Means for a Criticism of Architectural Photography? 72 Spatial Dynamics 76 The Stairway as an Avant-Garde Puzzle Picture 90 The House as Place

103 Notes 108 Bibliography

111 Photo Credits 111 Acknowledgments 111 The Author Introduction “So photography says nothing, you see. Photogra- phy draws pictures, pretty or not so pretty.”1 It was in this polemical vein typical of him that Adolf Loos (1870–1933) outlined his attitude toward architectural photography in 1924: he regarded it as meaningless, deceptive, ineffective, and even as giving people the wrong upbringing.2 Loos thought that his architectures could not be ade- quately represented in photographs as he had already expressed in a famous statement in 1910: “But I repeat: a true building makes no impression as a picture, reduced to two dimensions. It is my greatest pride that the interiors I have created are completely lacking in effect when photographed.”3 In defiance of his negative view of photography, Loos’s buildings were documented photographi- cally in the monograph Adolf Loos. Das Werk des Architekten,4 edited by his student Heinrich Kulka (1900–1971) in 1931 (ill. 2). On the occasion of Loos’s sixtieth birthday, Kulka and two of Loos’s friends, the art historians Franz Glück and Ludwig Münz, ventured on the experiment of document- ing, and commenting on, the architect’s oeuvre on forty-three pages. It is the only publication author- ized by Loos, published by the Viennese company Schroll as the fourth volume in its series Neues Bauen in der Welt (New Building in the World). The series dealt with other radical proponents of the “New Building” movement aside from Loos.5 The Viennese architectural photographer Martin Gerlach jun. was commissioned with providing the illustrations required for the book.

2 · Dust jacket of “Adolf Loos. Das Werk des Architekten” (ed. Heinrich Kulka; Vienna, 1931), featuring a photograph by Trude Fleischmann

10 11 Architectural Photography between tural whole and transforms it into a photovisual of view usually indicates an independent photog- Documentation and Interpretation reality. If a photographer foregrounds his or her rapher, while a documentary strategy comes up to Relying on a camera rather than on a brush or pen individual attitude, i.e., a pictorial practice that the architect’s expectations rather, although the is a decision suggested by photography’s media- visualizes its compositional means and the pro- latter may also deliberately benefit from the immanent relation to reality. The Canadian archi- cess of visual transformation as such, the archi- “deceptive” interpretation of buildings. This, for tect Phyllis Lambert regards drawings as private tecture will fade into the background, and vice instance, is evidenced by the journalist and settle- sources of information that offer insights into an versa. Subjective pictures are informed by experi- ment adviser Max Ermers’s essay “Der Kampf um architect’s way of thinking, whereas she sees the mental ways of seeing that find their expression in das flache Dach” (The Fight for the Flat Roof), representation in photographs characterized by unusually cropped images, extreme perspectives, published in 1926. Ermers presents photography distanced precision.6 The relation is not as simple or dominant light-dark contrasts. As opposed to as a way out for architects who, as he says, often as suggested by her, however, since photography this, architectural photographs are considered to find themselves “desperately” fighting for a flat may also be used to (roughly) convey the idea of be more documentary when they rely on tradition- roof, yet cannot realize it: “When everything fails, an architectural draft, as will be shown at a later al codes of representation, such as on a normal- the photographer has to step in and help things point in this study. The medium has nevertheless vision approach or central-perspectival construc- along: he will be asked to photograph the building always been predestined for representing archi- tions, which have been valid since Renaissance from such a close point of view that the roof will be tecture because of its alleged objectivity, as Fritz times, to render their subject easier to read. The completely, or almost completely, omitted.”12 Pho- Wentzel and Frank Paech already maintained in dividing line between the two contrary attitudes is tography as a last resort is supposed to create their how-to book on photography in 1909, which difficult to draw, however.11 pictures of buildings that actually do not resemble also includes instructions for architectural photog- The authors of pictures are therefore notice­ what the pictures suggest and can be corrected raphy. Completely in line with the tradition of their able in the results of their work according to their and modified nearly at will—at least in the second time, the authors emphasized that the camera’s artistic professional self-image. A subjective point dimension. “triumphant success” resulted from “its capability to create incontestable documents of life and nature thanks to its objectivity,” which made it “superior to the artist who proceeds subjectively according to his individual talent.”7 By contrast, other articles of that time, under- scoring the photographers’ subjective interven- tions, described the objective character of pho- tography as merely supposed. They pointed out, for example, that a real building presents itself as fundamentally different from its appearance in a photograph and asserted the relevance of the photographer’s point of view and the lighting of the scene for a good picture.8 The implied tension 3 · Anonymous photographer Moller House (Vienna), garden side, between objective documentation and subjective Adolf Loos standing in the terrace interpretation still characterizes today’s architec- doorway, 1927/28 tural photography.9 This is why recent studies Gelatin silver print, 22.6 × 18 cm have defined architectural photography as an intermediary, or as a form of translating architec- ture into a photographic reality.10 Determining point of view, image area, perspective, and light-

12 ing, the photographer chooses from an architec- 13 Adolf Loos and Architectural Photography they know that people are so helpless that they Loos’s criticism of architectural photography is find a graphic, photographic illusion enough to live aimed at the characteristics of its transformation in and even be proud of. And in this way the cli- process outlined above. The architect expounds ents, living a life of self-deception in all these on this in detail in the text “Regarding Economy” drawings and photographs, show so little honesty (1924): “I am against the photographing of interi- towards themselves that they refuse to admit the ors. Something quite different comes out of it. fact.”13 There are designers who make interiors not so Loos’s description of the transformation pro- that people can live well in them, but so that they cess of architectural photography centers on its look good on photographs. These are the so- reductive character that is incapable or only con- called ‘graphic interiors’, whose mechanical tingently capable of representing the subjective assemblies of lines of shadow and light best suit spatial experience. Yet it is exactly the use of another mechanical contrivance: the camera architecture that likewise determines its recep- obscura. My home interiors are impossible to tion, as photographers have repeatedly empha- judge from photographs or reproductions. I am sized.14 Instead of publishing photographs of cer- certain that, if photographed, they would look tain rooms, Loos preferred to offer tours of his wretched and ineffective. apartments and shops, which afforded him the For photography renders insubstantial, where- opportunity to convey the reality of both rooms as what I want in my rooms is for people to feel and interiors.15 Another critical argument is direct- substance all round them, for it to act upon them, ed against the deliberate—for Loos, “delusive”— for them to know the enclosed space, to feel the photographic grooming of buildings by architects. fabric, the wood, above all to perceive it sensually, This attitude was also criticized in Bruno Taut’s with sight and touch, for them to dare to sit com- well-known text “Krisis der Architektur” (Crisis of fortably and feel the chair over a large area of Architecture) of 1929, in which the architect, like their external bodily senses, and to say: this is Loos, attacked colleagues concerned with their what I call sitting! How can I prove this to some- buildings looking good in photographs: “Photog- one by means of a photograph, how can I let the raphy even helps these architects [Taut specifical- person looking at this photograph feel how good ly thinks of Le Corbusier] out: they are pleased to of the numerous magazines that emerged and sold without coquetting with the effects of his absti- my chair is to sit on, no matter how well-photo- get an effective picture instead of resenting it; for well at that time. The four volumes published with- nence: “The honor of seeing my works published graphed it is? the best architecture cannot be photographed. It in the series of “Die Blauen Bücher” (The Blue in the various architectural journals is something I So photography says nothing, you see. Pho- is and remains a formation of space, and you can Books) conceived by the architectural critic Wal- have had to do without. I am denied the satisfac- tography draws pictures, pretty or not so pretty. only show details of a space at best. That which ter Müller-Wulckow for the Langewiesche publish- tion of my vanity. Does this perhaps mean I am Their effect is to distract people from the thing constitutes its special value eludes all forms of ing house, for instance, reached a print run of working in a vacuum? Nothing of mine is known. itself. To give them the wrong upbringing. Photog- visual representation.”16 26,000 to 50,000 copies; the first three were But this is where the power of my ideas and the raphy has on its conscience the fact that people Loos’s and Taut’s (negatively voiced) empha- reprinted in a collective volume as early as 1929.19 rightness of my teachings become apparent. I, the 4 · Anonymous photographs of interiors designed by want to furnish their homes, not so that they are sis on the reception of architecture through pho- The late 1920s also saw the publication of an unpublished architect, I, the man working in a vac- Adolf Loos good to live in, but so that they look pretty. Pho- tography may be understood as a reaction to the increasing number of monographs on individual uum, am the only one among thousands who has Pages 20 and 21 from tography deceives. I have never wanted to deceive demand of appealing pictures for the flourishing architects. The production of architectural photo- real influence.”20 There are, indeed, only a few Wohnungskultur. Monatsschrift für industrielle anybody with my activities. I reject such methods. sector of publications on architecture of the 1920s graphs as advertising media for an interested pub- magazines—such as Das Interieur and Der Kunst, vol. 1 (1924/25), no. 1 But our architects have had their upbringing exclu- and 1930s.17 Never before had so many architec- lic must have been an important concern of both Architekt or the volume Wohnungskultur I. 1924– sively in the deceptive method, and are rooted in tural and art magazines been published.18 Der architects and photographers. 1925, a monthly for industrial art published by the it; they base their reputation on pretty drawings Architekt, Die Baugilde, Moderne Bauformen, or Loos had resisted the production of journalisti- Austrian Museum of Art and Industry (today’s

14 and fine photographs. They do so consciously, for the Werkbund magazine Die Form are only some 15 cally impressive photographs for a long time, not MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contem- porary Art)—containing photographs of Loos’s graph. Loos—and Heinrich Kulka—seem to have works that are not entirely representative of his realized that Loos’s work might actually have no architecture (ill. 4). The early pictures for Das impact without its dissemination in the form of Interieur focus on furniture and interiors; doing photographs. In order to obtain pictures of the without walls and edges, the illustrations convey architect’s work for the publication, the Schroll no idea of the rooms. By contrast, the photo- publishing house had sent out a survey and as graphs Franz Ottmann used for an article on Adolf early as June 1930 received replies and pictorial Loos in Der Architekt published in 1919 comprise a material.23 The questionnaires not only inquired picture of the architect’s living room, pictures of after existing photographs of the respective hous- the Steiner House and the Scheu House, and a es, apartments, and portals but also asked at what frontal view of the jeweler’s store Hugo & Alfred times these could possibly be rephotographed Spitz (all three were to be found in Vienna).21 Ott- (ill. 5). Martin Gerlach jun. was entrusted with mann’s accompanying text points out the long- taking the new pictures, which he did around 1930. time absence of “propaganda” for Adolf Loos’s This decision was not least based on economic ideas. The author addresses the lack of promotion considerations, as is documented by a letter from through photographs, which he attributes to their Loos’s third wife Claire to Franz Glück in which apparent incapacity to represent the architect’s she addresses her husband’s urgent request to rooms—and uses as a metaphor for characterizing send the “photo man” to to take pictures of Loos’s personality: Ottmann considers showing the Müller House, which had been completed in Loos’s architecture by transforming it into a two- 1930: “In brief, my husband very much wants to dimensional picture as impossible as describing see the photo man go to Prague . . . I think that you Loos in an essay.22 Given the scene of architectur- will probably be annoyed, yet there is no way out, al journalism in the 1920s, one will find it under- it is Mister Loos’s absolute wish.—The additional standable that Loos finally “satisfied his vanity” costs for the book will also make it more beautiful despite his criticism of photography and permitted and attractive to buyers . . .”24 the illustration of his buildings in Kulka’s mono-

5 · Questionnaire of the Anton Schroll & Co. publishing house, returned by the Viennese food industrialist Paul Khuner, May 1930

16 17

13 · Martin Gerlach jun. Moller House (Vienna), street façade, c. 1930 Gelatin silver print, brush and airbrush retouches, 23 × 17.1 cm

14 · Back of the photograph “Moller House (Vienna), street façade” 29 15 · Martin Gerlach jun. Moller House (Vienna), view from the street, c. 1930 Gelatin silver print, 16 × 22.8 cm

42 · Martin Gerlach jun. 43 · Martin Gerlach jun. Moller House (Vienna), view from the music room into Moller House (Vienna), view from the dining room into the dining room, c. 1930 the music room, c. 1930 Gelatin silver print, airbrush retouches, 16.5 × 22.6 cm Gelatin silver print, airbrush retouches, 16.7 × 22.5 cm

64 65 Gerlach made two photographs of the dining choice. Walls and ceilings set bounds to the view- room and one of the music room (ills. 42, 43). He er’s gaze—Gerlach excludes the windows and photographed the dining room from the music doors that would offer a limited view. His interior room and the music room from the dining room, views of the Khuner Country House are character- choosing a distance that would show the other ized by a different approach. The photographer room through the square opening. Exhibiting the decided for a position that allowed him to include opening provided Gerlach with an opportunity to the large windows revealing the surrounding land- respond to the Raumplan, since Loos, when nest- scape (ill. 44). While the view of the surroundings ing rooms into one another, frequently abstained was an elementary component of Loos’s architec- from walls as dividing elements and connected the ture in this case,82 the two rooms of the Moller individual cells through openings to form a spatial House are defined by a stage-like spatial effect, continuum or “flowing” space.80 While for one of which results from their framing through open- his photographs Gerlach chose a lateral perspec- ings.83 This perception depends on the viewpoint tive into the corner to capture the volume of the Gerlach adopts by positioning himself in the mid- dining room, the other two pictures present the dle axis, which can be clearly visualized particu- music room and the dining room in strictly sym- larly in a photograph, since the camera perfects metric front views. Having his perspective coin- the required central-perspectival mode of repre- cide with the rooms’ longitudinal axis, Gerlach sentation. With the aid of this mode, Gerlach shows their primary orientation of movement, brings the walls into his pictures as symmetric whereas the secondary axes are merely suggest- composition, which makes them clearly resemble ed through the windows and the brightly lit terrace classical theater photographs.84 Thus, they also doors, which were accentuated by retouching the display an approach completely different from that negatives. In his study of modern living concepts, of the interior views of Ludwig Mies van der Andreas K. Vetter points out that the occupants of Rohe’s Tugendhat House in , built in 1929/30. houses accessing the exterior from the living area The open ground plan does no longer offer pho- may choose whether they feel enclosed in a box or tographers a privileged viewpoint: space is expe- separated from “the outdoors” through nothing rienced as a transparent continuum and not but a thin membrane.81 The photographs of the through its effect as a prospect (ill. 45). music room and the dining room do not imply this

44 · Martin Gerlach jun. Khuner Country House (Payerbach/Lower Austria), sitting room with club chairs toward the terrace, c. 1930 Gelatin silver print, airbrush and brush retouches, 16.8 × 21.2 cm

66 67 45 · Villa Tugendhat (Brno, architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), ground plan and entrance Pages 28 and 29 from Die Bau- und Werkkunst, vol. 8 (1932), no. 1 (January)

68

67 · Martin Gerlach jun. 68, 69 · Martin Gerlach jun. Kniže gentlemen’s outfitters (Vienna), ground floor Kniže gentlemen’s outfitters (Vienna), stairway to the salesroom, c. 1930 upper floor, c. 1930 Gelatin silver print, airbrush retouches, 23.5 × 16.8 cm Gelatin silver print, airbrush and brush retouches, 22.5 × 13.4 cm (left), 23 × 14.6 cm (right)

94 95 70 · Martin Gerlach jun. Kniže gentlemen’s outfitters (Vienna), stairway to the upper floor, c. 1930 Gelatin silver print, 17 × 22.4 cm

71 · Martin Gerlach jun. Kniže gentlemen’s outfitters (Vienna), upper floor salesroom, c. 1930 Gelatin silver print, 22.9 × 17.3 cm

96 97

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Fotohof edition, vol. 262, 2018 Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are ISBN 978-3-902993-62-5 available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

Original German edition: Walter Moser, Übersetzte Photoinstitut Bonartes Architekturen. Martin Gerlach jun. fotografiert für Albert Loos Seilerstätte 22, 1010 Vienna (Salzburg: Fotohof edition, 2018) www.bonartes.org

First English edition Albertina Albertinaplatz 1, 1010 Vienna Project management: Michael Ponstingl www.albertina.at Translation from the German: Wolfgang Astelbauer Proofreading: Brigitte Willinger Fotohof edition Graphic design: Martha Stutteregger Inge-Morath-Platz 1–3, 5020 Salzburg Production: Peter Sachartschenko www.fotohof.at Image editing: Julia Faber (Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna); Pixelstorm, Vienna Printed by Medienfabrik, Graz Front cover: Martin Gerlach jun., Moller House (Vienna), stairway to the first floor, c. 1930, gelatin silver print, airbrush © for this edition with Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna; retouches, 22.9 × 16.7 cm; page 77 shows the whole picture. Albertina, Vienna; Fotohof edition, Salzburg, 2018 © for the text with the author, 2018 © for the pictures still protected by copyright with the respective authors and their legal successors, 2018; for the illustrated works by Lucia Moholy, Albert Renger-Patzsch, and Walter Gropius (Bauhaus Dessau, 1925/26; director’s house/Dessau, 1925/26): © Bildrecht, Vienna 2018; for the photograph by Radovan Boček: © City of Prague Museum; for the drawing by Theo van Doesburg: © Collectie Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam

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