 Ornament
and Crime : Selected Essays (Studies in Austrian Literature, Culture,
and Thought. Translation Series) by Adolf Loos, Adolf
Opel, Michael Mitchell (Translator)
Ornament
and Crime contains thirty-six original
essays by the celebrated Viennese architect, Adolf Loos (1870-1933).
Most deal with questions of design in a wide range of areas, from
architecture and furniture, to clothes and jewelry, pottery, plumbing,
and printing; others are polemics on craft education and training,
and on design in general.
Loos, the great cultural reformer and moralist in the history
of European architecture and design was always a "revolutionary
against the revolutionaries." With his assault on Viennese
arts and crafts and his conflict with bourgeois morality, he managed
to offend the whole country. His 1908 essay "Ornament and
Crime," mocked by an age in love with its accessories, has
come to be recognized as a seminal work in combating the aesthetic
imperialism of the turn of the century. Today Loos is recognized
as one of the great masters of modern architecture.
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