Christopher Long. Der Fall Loos. Wien: Amalthea Signum, 2015. 188 S., 30 Abb. gebunden, ISBN 978-3-85002-908-7.

Christopher Long. The Looshouse. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. 256 S. $60.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-300-17453-3.

Reviewed by Larry Wolf

Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (November, 2015)

In September 2015 Carl Schorske died at the Loos does fnd a place, however, in Schorske’s age of 100; when he was born in New York in fascinating article on „The Explosion in the Gar‐ 1915, Emperor Franz Joseph still reigned in Vien‐ den,” which addressed particularly Kokoschka na. For many of us in the Anglo-American world and Schoenberg, but also noted the radically ex‐ of Habsburg studies, Schorske provided our frst plosive criticism of Karl Kraus and Adolf Loos: „As thrilling glimpse of the cultural complications of Kraus sought to restore the purity of the linguistic fn-de-siècle Vienna, and his arguments and expli‐ environment of man by removing all aesthetic cations have inspired much of the work in this pretensions from expository prose, so Loos tried feld over the course of the last ffty years. Re‐ to purify the visual environment – city, housing, viewing new work about Adolf Loos, by architec‐ dress, furniture – by abolishing all embellish‐ tural historian Christopher Long, one naturally ment.” Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna. Poli‐ turns to Schorske – only to discover that Loos re‐ tics and Culture, New Xork 1980, p. 339. This puri‐ ceives no mention in the famous article on archi‐ fying analogy between Kraus and Loos – which al‐ tectural reaction to Ringstrasse historicism, as luded to Loos’s provocative juxtaposition of „Or‐ Schorske focused on Camillo Sitte and, above all, nament and Crime” („Ornament und Ver‐ Otto Wagner. brechen”) – was also addressed by Allan Janik and H-Net Reviews

Stephen Toulmin in „Wittgenstein’s Vienna” Allan the public, so their detailed narratives remain un‐ Janik / Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna, known. Loos received a suspended sentence, New York 1973. . Schorske himself returned to the though Long feels that he paid a heavy price, subject of Loos in an essay on „Architecture as emerging from the trial „visibly older and physi‐ Culture Criticism” which frst appeared under the cally and spiritually broken” (Der Fall Loos, p. title „Revolt in Vienna” in the New York Review of 149). Loos rushed into a disastrous new marriage Books in 1986 Carl E. Schorske, Revolt in Vienna, (with a much younger woman), followed by physi‐ in: New York Review of Books 93,9 (1986), pp. 24– cal collapse and early death in 1933 at the age of 28. , the year that fn-de-siècle Vienna became a 63. public sensation in New York with the Museum of Long’s ingenious Schorskean strategy is to Modern Art’s exhibit „Vienna 1900: Art, Architec‐ show how the charges against Loos played out in ture, and Design” – itself, to a considerable extent, the context of deeply rooted cultural connections inspired by Schorske’s historical writings. and antagonisms dating all the way back to fn-de- The denunciation of ornament as crime has siècle Vienna. Schorske famously made the been sufcient in itself to make Loos appear as a „Gefühlskultur” of artistic aestheticism into a prophet and ideologist of architectural mod‐ principal interpretive key to intellectual life in Vi‐ ernism. Yet, Long’s new book, „Der Fall Loos” enna, and in 1928 the „Neue Freie Presse” – still (The Loos Case), published in 2015, concerns an the liberal „grande dame” of the Viennese press, entirely diferent kind of criminality, as it ex‐ ever celebrated for its sensibility-infused feuil‐ plores the not very well known episode of Loos letons – summed up the arrest of Loos as „The facing criminal charges for the alleged sexual Tragedy of an Aesthete.” Indeed, Loos insisted abuse of young girls in Vienna in 1928. There was that his sketching of the girls was an innocently a complaint that he was sketching young girls, aesthetic exercise, but more than half a century with rumors that he wanted them to go to France had passed since Charles Dodgson photographed with him, that he had touched them indecently, little Alice Liddell at Oxford, and the 1920s was that he had posed them in immoral positions. It not a decade of innocence. was further recounted that he made his sketches Long traces the Viennese artistic cult of young while wearing his pajamas – or even, according to girls in the sketches of Klimt and Schiele (who one report published in the „Neue Freie Presse” – spent time in prison in 1912); in the pornographic while completely naked. A medical examination fction of 1906 about a very young prostitute, established that the girls had not been sexually vi‐ „Josephine Mutzenbacher” (probably authored by olated, but the police discovered in Loos’s apart‐ Felix Salten, also the creator of young Bambi); and ment a cache of pornographic photos of young in the exclamations of Loos’s friend, the writer Pe‐ girls, and the famous architect was arrested. ter Altenberg, who declared: „A woman is always In charges concerning three girls – ages eight, too old, never to young.” Loos himself, in an essay nine, and ten – Loos was acquitted of having „sex‐ from the 1890s on women’s fashion, was on ually abused [the girls] to satisfy his lusts” („zur record as an admirer of „das Weibkind” („the Befriedigung seiner Lüste geschlechtlich miss‐ woman child”), observing that „one thirsted for brauchte”) but convicted of „seduction to indecen‐ the unripe” („nach Unreife”; Der Fall Loos, pp. 85– cy” („Verführung zur Unzucht”) for having posed 86). He was, of course, an apostle of artistic purity, the girls indecently in his sketches (Der Fall Loos, but this was the sort of aestheticism of the 1890s S. 123). The testimony of the girls was considered that might have seemed more suspect after the unreliable, though the courtroom was closed to criminal charges of the 1920s.

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The legal and judicial personnel were all im‐ designs of Fischer von Erlach. Following contro‐ plicated in Viennese culture, with both of Loos’s versy in the press and menacing interventions by attorneys (perhaps predictably) men who had the municipal authorities (who imposed a large commissioned modernist houses from Loos him‐ deposit on the tailoring company, to be forfeited if self. The judge was the son of the sculptor who the architectural outcome did not give satisfac‐ created the gilt commemorative statue of Johann tion), Loos eventually won approval by adorning Strauss in the Vienna Stadtpark. The communist some of the bare windows with boxes of fowers. journal „Die Rote Fahne” claimed that Loos was The controversy, however, was such that, accord‐ only being prosecuted in 1928 because of his long‐ ing to Long, Loos ended up sufering from terrible standing friendship with Karl Kraus, who had stomach ulcers that destroyed his health – parallel fercely ofended the director of police (and some‐ to the aging and embittering efect of the criminal time chancellor of Austria) Johann Schober for fr‐ trial in 1928. ing on leftist protesters in 1927. Loos himself saw Karl Kraus believed that Loos had outraged the case against him in 1928, not as a matter of the Viennese, because „he had built them an idea” pedophilia, or even police harassment, but rather – the idea of a „tabula rasa,” a building without – as he suggested in an interview with the press – ornament – and Long cites another Viennese ar‐ a continuation of the attacks and controversies chitect who called the Looshaus a „built idea,” the that had attended him ever since the construction pure expression of Loos’s „architectural princi‐ of the house on the Michaelerplatz in 1910 and ples” (The Looshaus, pp. 2, 115). Yet, Long’s re‐ 1911 (Der Fall Loos, p. 48). search on the planning of the house suggests that It is in this regard that Long’s new book on the process was not particularly principled, as the criminal case of 1928 may be read with great one early design showed some of the windows interest alongside his 2011 (centennial) study of with ornamental pediments, and another showed the Looshaus on the Michaelerplatz – though the the upper facade elaborated by horizontal bands. former has been published only in German and Even when the windows of the upper façade were the latter only in English. Both books, with their presented bare and unornamented, the lower ostensibly very diferent subjects – a modernist façade was always intended to make a lavish aes‐ building with an unornamented facade and a thetic impression with green Cipollino marble. court case concerning sexual indecency with (Loos toured the Mediterranean looking for mar‐ young girls – are, in fact, studies of Viennese pub‐ ble, fnding the particular style he wanted on the lic controversy which Long elucidates with great Greek island of Evia.) Not altogether unornamen‐ subtlety and a particular skill for observing the tal, the building furthermore concealed its own Schorskean network of connections between art concrete structure, violating a basic principle of and politics, culture and society. modernism, while presenting a lower façade of Commissioned as the business establishment marble „columns” that did not actually support of a Viennese gentlemen’s tailoring company, anything. In fact, Long suggests that the most Goldman & Salatsch, the Looshaus presented up‐ modern aspect of the Looshaus was not its famous per stories with a lime plaster façade of un‐ façade, but its less well appreciated organization adorned windows – which seemed particularly of interior space – the Raumplan – for the multi‐ shocking on a square that included the neo-classi‐ ple aspects of the tailoring business. Though the cal façade of the church of St. Michael from the Looshaus remains an essential sight on any archi‐ 1790s and the Hofburg palace wing completed in tectural tour of Vienna, Long notes that it is curi‐ the 1890s according to the much older baroque ously absent from most histories of architectural modernism, and even Schorske, in the essay on

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„architecture as cultural criticism,” pays tribute to One, for instance, shows Fischer von Erlach in Loos’s principles, but does not mention the early 18th-century costume, looking anxiously at Looshaus. the modern façade of the Looshaus and wishing While Long suggests that the controversy sur‐ he had known about Loos’s style so as not to have rounding the Looshaus destroyed the architect’s ruined the Michaelerplatz with baroque orna‐ health (he had to carry a piece of ham in his pock‐ mentation. Another cartoon, from the time of the et, to nibble cautiously, so as not to aggravate the sexual abuse scandal of 1928, refected upon stomach ulcers), there is also considerable reason Loos’s publicized hostility to Viennese food: two to suppose that Loos purposefully stoked the con‐ Viennese gentlemen, considering the sexual alle‐ troversy himself (The Looshaus, p. 146). The gations against Loos, remarked that his criticism building of the Looshaus in 1910 and 1911 coin‐ of Viennese plum dumplings (Zwetschkenknödel) cided with a series of public lectures in Berlin, Vi‐ seemed comparatively less ofensive (Der Fall enna, Munich, and Prague, introducing the Loos, p. 94). In both books Long ofers a careful provocative title „Ornament is Crime” in order to and detailed account of the cultural forces in play, create controversy and attract a crowd. Loos surrounding the Looshaus and the Loos case re‐ needed the income from the lectures in order to spectively, but remains restrained in his theoreti‐ pay the sanatorium costs (eventually at Davos) for cal and interpretive approaches. He writes in a his tubercular lover Bessie Bruce. Thus the cost of clear and direct style (in English for the Looshaus healthcare encouraged the radical lectures which and in Eva Martina Strobl’s fne German transla‐ partly refected and partly conditioned his ideas tion for the Loos case) – a style that, in the spirit of about the house under construction. Loos, might be called „unornamented.” Altenberg (who also harbored feelings for The cultural complications of the Looshaus Bessie Bruce) claimed to fnd Loos’s self-advertise‐ moment in 1910–1911 are charted with reference ment in the period of controversy to be distaste‐ to several momentous events, full of Schorskean fully „Jewish” – though it was Altenberg who was signifcance for intellectual history – as 1911 wit‐ Jewish, not Loos (The Looshaus, p. 172). In fact, nessed not only the conversion of Kraus (with Loos participated as godfather at the baptism of Loos as godfather), but also the death of Mahler Karl Kraus when the latter converted to Catholi‐ and his funeral in Grinzing (with Loos in atten‐ cism in 1911 at the height of the architectural con‐ dance), and the seventieth birthday of Otto Wagn‐ troversy. Though Loos was Catholic himself, his er in 1911 (with Loos unable to resist making neg‐ clients, the tailors Goldman & Salatsch, were Jew‐ ative comments about Sezession aesthetics in his ish, and recent architectural criticism has suggest‐ „tribute” to Wagner; The Looshaus, p. 133). Politi‐ ed that the modernism of the Looshaus might be cally, 1910 was the year of the death and massive understood as the tailored „suit” of assimilated Ju‐ public funeral procession of Karl Lueger, the daism expressed as architecture (The Looshaus, p. hugely popular, viciously anti-semitic, Christian 190). One disturbing photograph shows the Socialist mayor of Vienna, one of the protagonists „Aryanized” Looshaus in the Nazi period, with the of Schorske’s famous article on „Politics in a New famous façade now „ornamented” with Nazi slo‐ Key”. Carl E. Schorske, Politics in a New Key, in: gans and swastikas. Journal of Modern History 39 (1967), pp. 343–386. Long suggests that it was, in fact, the Christian So‐ Long’s study is as much intellectual history as cialist transition in leadership, following Lueger’s architectural history, for he traces the details of long sway, which created some of the political ob‐ the controversy, illustrated with some of the ex‐ stacles to the Looshaus. The party sought new mo‐ traordinary cartoons that appeared in the press. tivating issues and contemplated the demagogic

4 H-Net Reviews possibilities of agitating against modernist archi‐ tecture. Both books emphasize Loos’s sense of himself as an outsider in Vienna, and the controversies over his house on the Michaelerplatz and his criminal charges only intensifed his antagonism toward the Viennese. „Can you imagine […] a world without any Viennese?” he wrote in 1911, from the Mediterranean, to Karl Kraus in Vienna. „No Viennese, no Viennese, absolutely no Vien‐ nese!” (The Looshaus, p. 116) Kraus, born in Brno, chose to become a citizen of Czechoslovakia, not Austria, after the war. Long suggests that the three years he spent in America as a young man were formative for his sense of a modern „West” in contrast to the eastern Habsburg world. The controversies surrounding the Looshaus in 1910– 1911 and the criminal case against Loos in 1928 were heightened by his own alienation from Vien‐ na. Yet, as Long clearly demonstrates with the ele‐ gant methodology of Schorskean cultural history, those controversies can only be properly under‐ stood by exploring the intersecting intellectual strands of Viennese modernism.

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Citation: Larry Wolf. Review of Long, Christopher. Der Fall Loos. ; Long, Christopher. The Looshouse. H- Soz-u-Kult, H-Net Reviews. November, 2015.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45705

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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