Page 30 - Studio International - July August 1973

office tried to stop construction. Loos was Loos had foreseen, turned quite black, and a colonnade, a large piano-nobile salon; a
permanently attacked by word of mouth and in which Loos had to defend. semi-circular stairway leads to a foyer, from
the press (even if he had powerful defenders, The concern in his polemic is almost always which, through more columns, the dining-
such as Otto Wagner) and the acrimony caused with the symbolic reading of his buildings, room opens and the suite of bedrooms. Both
him a period of illness. Now the building looks whether built or unbuilt, sometimes in a quite have access to the swimming-pool. But at the
unremarkable, even tame. crude way, sometimes more subtly. In the lower level, that of the salon, a narrow passage is
But at the time, objection was violent on the description of his project for the new ministry provided round the volume of water, leading to a
very grounds which now seem inoffensive. The of war, he emphasizes that the building was to boudoir and a tiny 'café' in the circular turret.
building stood opposite the Hof burg, facing be sheathed with black granite and framed with The passage and the boudoir, moreover, have
on to a square that had recently been enlarged, yellow terracotta mouldings, so displaying the safety glass windows into the pool through
and which carried memories of the feudal past. Habsburg colours. He reasons rather differently which you might see the people bathing in the
Its lower storeys therefore, as Loos carefully about one of his most famous projects, the house water.
explained, the storeys which housed the store, for Josephine Baker in Paris. Of all Loos's A naughty extravaganza you might say. Of
were faced in marble. The façade, in houses, it is perhaps that which is nearest to his course. But Loos was convinced, secure enough,
consideration of the context, was decked out ideal, since his evocative intention is manifest. to allow himself that also. He had imagined a
with Roman Doric columns. Tectonic columns, The sharply contrasted geometry of the volumes, way of life in the house. The felicities of the plan
stone monoliths, their ornament finished by the flat roofs, the large expanses of windowless all exult in the way the house was to be occupied,
craftsmen. The windows above display level wall are all deliberately exotic, almost African. to be lived in. And does everything to ennoble it
were 'English-type' bay windows, to give the As is the extraordinary facing of white and black formally by a quiet unassertive wit. It is at this
façade the requisite plastic quality. alternating stripes of marble slabs. Above a plain scale that Loos was at his happiest. The private
The upper level was quite different. Above podium, the windowless walls surround a houses are his masterpieces : they, the bars, the
the marble cornice the traditional Viennese swimming-pool, lit from a lantern in the roof: clothes shops, all buildings on a small scale, for
finish, stucco. Not moulded ornamentally, but the water surface is on the top floor, just below the greater dimensions of public urban
treated for what it is in material terms, a skin, the floor level of the bedrooms. The visitor building he could not quite master. Though
therefore quite unmoulded. Above the stucco, a comes in under the circular turret - a favourite perhaps this is not entirely fair to him. In 192o
final cornice, a heavy copper roof, which as device of Loos's - up a grand staircase. Through he was appointed chief architect for the

Project for a house for Josephine Baker in Paris, 1928.
Plans and sections
20