by Liang Cheng Hong 1001540005
The words of “Ornament and Crime” has become a part of people’s living in nowadays. But ornament and crime, Adolf Loos, was not accepted by Bauhaus and Le Corbusier in his lifetime. One of his representative idea, Raumplan, It also attaches importance to the flexibility of spatial arrangement, but it is characterized by the flexible combination of closed space in the case of flexible layer height, and the qualitative difference between the flow space pursued by mainstream modernism. His work pursues a static and stable sense of order. In order that, it is similar to the pursuit of classical architecture and far from the mainstream modernism.
How does Adolf Loos define " Ornament and Crime"? What is amazing about his justifiable arguments, besides some common reasons from economics, technology, aesthetics, etc., are more striking because of Freud's psychoanalysis and anthropological reasons. One of the basic logics of Adolf Loos is: According to Freud's theory, the earliest decoration of mankind is the way of venting desire. Just as uncultivated people can speak swearing and civilized people can't say the same, civilized people can't use "decoration" to vent, otherwise it is a crime.
This is a typical seemingly rigorous but incomprehensible sophistry, and full of prejudice and superiority of Western civilization. Luis’s representative work in the textbook Steiner’s residence seems to have only white walls and square windows, which is very close to the “modern” image in the past when he understood the modernism, but it’s also visible behind the back. The arched roof, and the building is only effective as an illustration of " Ornament and Crime ", far from being a representative work of Loos.
Besides, because of the reason that the mass production makes the decoration cheaper, all the blood and sweat and the joy of creation that condenses the decoration are all gone. The unrestricted copying and spreading of the decoration lost its attractive characteristic and becomes a symbol of vulgarity and exaggeration. This is also the idea of the British "Art and Craft movement" half a century earlier than Adolf Loos. It was totally opposite against Loos. The "Art and Craft movement" advocates the restoration of manual opposition to mass production. Vienna has torn down the old city wall construction loop, and the new building next to the loop is the style of the traditional decoration. For the Vienna Ring Road, there were many criticisms at the time, and it was from this issue that Loos further reflected his theory of “Ornament and Crime”.
In my opinion, “Ornament and Crime” seems was a strong and fabulous thought in the existing architecture design. Even quality of the material, colour tone and crafting were just totally become the leader of the decoration. But as Adolf Loss said, it is contrary to the function, temperament and spirit of the building itself, the useless decoration and the decoration of waste materials can be regarded as "Crime".
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