To comprehend all the idiosyncrasies we might glean from Loos' philosophizing, we must first capture the essence of what is art, and what is architecture; what sets each apart from the other and whether they might intersect. To establish the role of each also requires an understanding of their respective purposes: what do we label as art or architecture, and what goal does the artist have in mind, as opposed to an architect?

  Loos created an almost exclusive division between art and architecture. The field of art is comprised of nonfunctional creations born to arouse the emotions of the viewer. Art attempts to disturb the viewer, to cause an emotional response. Good art is not required to be aesthetically pleasing, although it may be; rather, if it causes discomfort or supplementary emotional reactions by the viewer, it has also successfully attained its goal of emotional arousal. Like the work of Viennese artist Kokoschka, art remains art even as it disturbs us, by its very ability to arouse within us this feeling of disgust.

  Architecture, in contrast, is an enclosure of space attempting to comfortably accommodate a structural need in the most efficiently functional manner possible. ¹ Art must therefore be exclusive from architecture for a multitude of reasons: art is responsible to no one, and fulfills neither function nor requirement. Drawing people away from comfort, it is often hated by man and aimed towards something futuristic. As Panayotis Tournikiotis said of Loos' views in Adolf Loos: "He defined art as the personal affair of the artist-oriented to the future, distracting man from his daily comforts: art is by its essence revolutionary." ² Architecture, therefore, cannot be art, since it accommodates the clients' requirements that it be functional and emotionally comforting, a more public structure responsible to the collective.

  We may ask if it is feasible for the conservative aspect of architecture to meld with the revolutionary drive of art; might there be exceptions to the exclusion of architecture from the artistic realm? In the following quote, we see the entirety of Loos' beliefs on the above definitions of art and architecture, and why exceptions are indeed plausible:

The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art which does not. The work is a private matter for the artist. The house is not. The work of art is brought into the world without there being a need for it. The house satisfies a requirement. The work of art is responsible to none; the house is responsible to everyone. The work of art wants to draw people out of their state of comfort. The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative. The work of art shows people new directions and thinks of the future. The house thinks of the present. Man loves everything that satisfies his comfort. He hates everything that wants to draw him out of his acquired and secured position and that disturbs him. Thus he loves the house and hates art. Does it follow that the house has nothing in common with art and is architecture not to be included in the arts? That is so. Only a very small part of architecture belongs to art: the tomb and the monument. Everything else that fulfils a function is to be excluded from the domain of art. ³

  Both tombs and monuments are constructed in order to evoke various emotions through respective external appearances, and it is this functional purpose, existing solely on the visual plane, which permits each to qualify as both art and architecture, since the terms are satisfied on an aesthetic front and lack an additional internal functionality.

  We now understand Loos' definition of art and its isolation from the architectural sphere within which he functions. How then does Loos mold the structures created in this latter arena to satisfy architectural requirements without lapsing into the useless but provocative field of art?

  There are four recognizable elements of composition, first compiled by Paul Frankl in his 1914 essay "Die Entwicklungsphasen der neuren Baukunst," which combine to achieve the perfect Loosian architectural structure.⁴

1. Visible Surface. This first element conveys the building's image, and concerns elements of the visible realm, such as light, color, or its facades, which clad the structure's interior and exterior walls like membranes.
2. Material Structure. The skeletal structure of the building, it might be comprised of beams, columns, brick, steel, stone, and so on; occasionally the technical underpinnings of the material structure, usually concealed, are revealed as well.
3. Space-Volume. The form circumscribed by the material structure on both the outside and inside of buildings; the placement of the elements of the material structure which allocates space within the defined volume.
4. Finality. This designates the emotional or functional component of the building, and involves its social or psychological purpose. ⁵

These four architectural and compositional elements combine to emphasize the importance of art or architecture through the notions of perception or conception, in accordance with the desired artistic sentiment or architectural objective. With the former, the focus remains on the perception of the completed building, since the purpose is to evoke specific emotions. How we perceive art is more important than the manner by which the work of art was realized; the visual supercedes the process of creation. Therefore, the order of the above themes follows its numerical order: we search for an appropriate visible surface, interpret the appropriate material structure, define the required space-volume to evoke the appropriate emotions, and then identify the finality required. ⁶

  Because the requirement for functionality occasions the use of architecture over art, the target is found in the conception of the structure, rather than our attained perception from the result. Art is created to serve a purpose so we act from conception upwards, applying the four elements in reverse order: we look for the finality, the functional component required of the building, progress to the space-volume best suited to the task, select the material structure, and finally establish what would best convey the building's image via an appropriate visible surface. ⁷ The end result is conception with consideration given to perception, creating a dichotomy between public and private, the monument against the house, and the exterior in contrast to the building's interior. The monument is not a house because the former is a sign, on the side of perception, whereas the latter requires the architect to familiarize himself with the needs and habits of the occupants, developing space according to lifestyles, and conceive the proper accommodation from finality down to visible surface.

  It follows that we must investigate the spectrum of function to ornamentation in Loos' ideology, for we must locate the balance of conception utilized to reach the target of functionality and to cause the consumer to perceive the appropriateness of the occasioned structure. Architecture must meet a physical need and create the appropriate atmosphere in accordance with the purpose the structure aims to serve. In his essay "Architecture," Loos explained "When we find a mound in the woods, six feet long and three feet wide, raised to a pyramidal form by means of a spade, we become serious and something in us says: someone was buried here. That is architecture." ⁸ Architecture must be not only efficiently functional, but recognizable as itself. When Loos lauds the functional, he is not clamoring for the removal of architecture to the realm of the bland or ugly, nor does he wish it to be a large "functional" space whose enclosed volume is plain and thereby functional. Rather, a functional building is customized according to the preferred end result, a concept eventually emerging as Loos' Raumplan, which Schezen defined as "a system of proportional relationships specific to each spatial condition." ⁹

  Once the physical need of appropriate functionality is met, the functional object must also create the appropriate atmosphere, fulfilling perceptual ideas through a successful conceptual-order construction.

Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise. The room has to be comfortable; the house has to look habitable. The law courts must appear as a threatening gesture toward secret vice. The bank must declare: here your money is secure and well looked after by honest people. The architect can only achieve this if he establishes a relationship with those buildings which have hitherto created this sentiment in man. ¹⁰

Architecture arouses a sentiment appropriate to the function a given structure wishes to fulfill. It must therefore be precise in construction in order to evoke the proper feeling from the psyche, each according its designed intent. Loos' Zentralsparkasse bank in Vienna seems to epitomize the bank mentioned above, and even Loos' friend Karl Kraus seemed to recognize Loos' ability in this field by his comment regarding the architect's Michaelerhaus: " There he built them a thought." ¹¹ As was stated above, such arousal of sentiment can only be achieved by forming architectural relationships with structures which have previously succeeded in invoking sentiment pertinent to the building's intended role. Dietmar Steiner explains, "Every house is to be brought into an adequate linguistic relationship with a message for every profession, for each social role," ¹² and it seems certain that Loos was indeed successful at joining the two into an equal partnership.

  Now that functionality is firmly established as being vitally important to the proper construction of architectural structures, we must swing to the opposing side of the function-ornamentation spectrum and address Loos' views on ornamentation. Excess decoration, merely a negative supplementation to the purity of functional designs, is both pointless and worthless when added for its own sake. However, ornamentation in and of itself is not, by nature, at fault. Loos railed against those who wished to categorically exclude ornament, speaking against "...the purists who pushed this reasoning to the absurd, that ornament should be systematically abolished. It is only where the passage of time makes it disappear that it can not be reborn." ¹³ Excessive decoration, denoted here as ornamentation, rather than decoration per se, is not conducive to converting an object from that which is useful to an appropriately implemented customized design. Rather, any included decoration serves to fill the latter of the two qualifications of functionality, that of the invoked perception best suited to the final objective. Ornamentation should not be wiped out of all created works, but allowed to slowly filter out of its own accord through the passage of time. Since the function of ornamentation lies only in its approach of perfection, any ornamentation left behind by time is no longer needed, and will also, therefore, no longer be desired.

  Having defined the outer boundaries through the preceding spectrum analysis, we must then approach the concept of beauty, both within and separate from function, and how the evil of ornamentation might be avoided while preserving the attractive components of a design satisfying the physical need and creating the targeted perceptual environment. Beauty is found in that which is essentially functional, but function alone does not guarantee that an object will be beautiful, as Loos himself stated: "Of course, the functional object by itself is not beautiful.... There is more to it than that." ¹⁴ However, functionality does supercede beauty and ornamentation. Additionally, Safran quotes Loos, saying "Rich material and good workmanship should not only be considered as making up for lack of decoration, but as far surpassing it in sumptuousness," ¹⁵ whereby we reaffirm the importance of the aesthetic plane and quality material and workmanship, which exceed any perceived void resulting from absent decoration.

  A satisfactory median point must be defined where we might locate a more cojent, ideal structural scheme. Our initial goals are to locate perfection in and clarify our definition of beauty in objects. Where does the label "plain" cease to be applicable, and on the opposing side, when is an object designated as frivolous? Loos quotes Leon Battista Alberti while in search of a viable answer: "An object that is so perfect that one can neither add to it nor take away from it without harming it is beautiful." ¹⁶ If, with any supplementation or subtraction, an object's perfection would be destroyed, then the object in its present state is beautiful, and has realized the proper balance of function and decoration.

  How do we achieve this balance, after establishing a definition? Which set of guidelines should we use to shape our building to simultaneously manifest the ideas of function, beauty and a proper environment? The answer is to give preference to building what is true and best over building for the sake of change, fashion, or modernity.

Be truthful, nature only sides with truth. ... Be not afraid of being called un-fashionable. Changes in the traditional way of building are only permitted if they are an improvement. Otherwise stay with what is traditional, for truth, even if it be hundreds of years old has a stronger inner bond with us than the lie that walks by our side. ¹⁷

Any alterations in traditional building should only occur to improve the existing structure. Fashion should be a negligible issue, overcome by previously established truths. Our present is built on the residue of the past, and each ensuing present is comprised of the pasts preceding.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century we abandoned tradition, it's at that point that I intend to renew it...[because] the present is built on the past just as the past was built on the times that went before it. ¹⁸

Loos wishes to revert to a style of architecture structured on the tradition of previous eras, a time where truth in architecture reigned supreme and additions were not merely altering but improving established design. Loos was often scornful of historic works, an attitude which bred confusion when placed in contrast to his encouragement of traditional architectural examples. He had no objection to tradition; indeed, he praised it, as seen above. Loos was more concerned with the tainted use of tradition by his peer counterparts.

Loos.... took aim at the false-seeming, the act of hiding materiality behind an appearance of truth. He did not challenge historical references in contemporary architecture, merely the false usage common to the age. ¹⁹

Rather than decrying the modern use of historical references, Loos rejected the fin-de-siecle Viennese trend towards the inclusion of false historical references, for he considered such work a farcical attempt to hide truth behind an illusory mask of itself.

  This mask providing the appearance of truth is the starting point for Adolf Loos' critique of fin-de-siecle Vienna's implementation of function and ornamentation, in comparison to their societal application in the United States and elsewhere. Excluding Loos himself, members operating within Vienna had a favorable impression of the surrounding social structure, quite distinct from Loos' negative perception of his encompassing city and contrastingly agreeable American counterexample.

  Robert Musil, in the following commentary regarding Viennese society, lauded the copious ethical and aesthetic activity present in her citizens' search for new creativity:

It was a time of great ethical and aesthetic activity. We believed in the future, a social future and a new art. We gave the impression of morbidity and decadence: but these two negative determinants were only the occasional expression of a desire to be different and to act differently from the man of the past. We believed in the future, we wanted to master it. ²⁰

Musil professed that this seemingly morbid and decadent artistic drive was merely, in sharp contrast to the given impression, a misinterpreted movement away from the past, aimed at mastering the future using a more original form of art. Loos rejected Musil's argument. He also railed against local architects like Hoffmann for their historistic architectural styles, and wrote the following critique of any society demanding the corruption of perfectly functional objects:

Supply and demand regulate architectural form.... The building speculator would most dearly like to have his facades entirely plastered from top to bottom. it costs the least. And at the same time, he would be acting in the truest, most correct, and most artistic way. But people would not want to move into the building. And so, in the interest of rentability, the landlord is forced to nail on a particular kind of facade, and only this kind. Yes, literally nail on! For these Renaissance and Baroque palaces are not actually made out of the material of which they seem....Their ornamental details...are nailed-on poured cement. Of course, this technique too, which comes into use for the first time in this century, is perfectly legitimate. But it does not do to use it with forms whose origin is intimately bound up with a specific material simply because no technical difficulties stand in the way. It would have been the artist's task to find a new formal language for new materials. Everything else is imitation. ²¹

It is the nature of the builder to build in the most efficient, cheap, artistic and true manner possible. Unfortunately, the masses dislike such plain structures, and demand nonfunctional ornamentation. Loos seized upon the themes of morbidity so vehemently refuted by Musil,^A affirming their existence and condemning the use of historistic style and ornament for modern creativity. "Ornament," Loos said, "is wasted manpower and therefore wasted health." ²² The pursuit of the aesthetic cannot be ethical, since by virtue of its wastefulness in regards to human resources and health it complies with the themes identified by Loos. Such desire for ornamentation is indicative of the sickness in Viennese society.

  Tournikiotis wrote the following regarding Loos' views on the transparency of Musil-like adherence to ethical and aesthetic drives:

They set out on a search for "authenticity" and their criticism was characterized by a fusion of the ethical and the aesthetic. Loos believed that a society which, by various deceptions, intended to mask its emptiness and spiritual poverty, was a miserable society. Loos also considered loyalty to out-moded construction and anachronistic ornamentation to be immoral....functional objects need no ornamentation. ....he conceived his houses based on functional interiors, leaving the facades rigorously simple. As for his public buildings, he professed that they need "expressive" facades which would not tear at the urban fabric. ²³

Loos believed only an empty, spiritually devoid society would attempt to veil inherent truth. Additionally, although utilizing previously successful architectural references is permissible in order to invoke the proper psychological environment, it is immoral to remain loyal to inferior, dated examples of architectural design solely for the sake of adhering to tradition. The preferential methodology involves structures with unornamented functional interiors and a simple yet expressive exterior facade, according to the surrounding environs.

  Loos used Potemkin's shoddily constructed fake villages as an example of Vienna's shallow culture.

Who does not know of Potemkin's villages, the ones that Catherine's cunning favorite built in the Ukraine? They were villages of canvas and pasteboard, villages intended to transform a visual desert into a flowering landscape for the eyes of Her Imperial Majesty....Surely such things are only possible in Russia! But the Potemkin city of which I wish to speak here is none other than our dear Vienna herself. ²⁴

Created for aesthetic beautification of the Russian landscape prior to Czarina Catherine's passage through the Ukraine, Potemkin's villages aptly illustrate the extent of the substantive gap between the appearance presented as truth and the veiled reality of a Vienna beneath, empty of purpose. Ornament should make architecture more palatable, allowing it to achieve that even balance of function and decoration we term beauty. Decoration has its own grammar, which when used properly aids in conveying the desired identity to a structure. Decoration should only be used to attain this point, since any superfluous supplementation would only be detrimental to the achievement of the objective.

...interest ...today relies on his conception of ornament as the sign of an uncultured state. It is what underlines his startling comparison between the tattooing of Papuans, the beginning of art, and the tattooing of modern man, the mark of criminal degeneracy. Loos accused his contemporaries of using ornament...as a way of masking the mediocrity of their culture and their social condition. ....But if he criticized ornament,...he approved, on the contrary, of decoration considered as a set of rules (issuing from properly worked materials and from the "grammar" of classical language) that he agreed to observe so as to render architecture more palatable. He also saw this classical grammar as capable of conveying... the identity-ministry, monument of a structure. ²⁵

It is difficult to comprehend why Loos might uphold the tattooing of Papuans while declaring tattooing as a modern-day practice to be degenerate. The determining factor lies in the objective behind the act of tattooing. For the Papuans, it was the beginning of art itself; today, it is an attempt to use ornamentation to obscure underlying mediocrity.

  Unfortunately, attempts to veil truth have an additional side effect: an ensuing confusion. Ornamentation causes the masses to mistake one object for another, and function becomes ambiguous.

Adolf Loos and I, he in reality, I verbally, have nothing else to do but to show that there is a difference between an urn and a chamber pot and that this difference is necessary because it guarantees the game of culture. The others, on the other hand, the defenders of 'positive' values, divide themselves between those who take an urn for a chamber pot and those who take the chamber pot for an urn. ²⁶

Karl Kraus volunteered himself and Loos as two craftsmen (one as author, the other as architect) willing to maintain the distinctions which individualize every object, in order to prevent the loss of functionality and the ability to recognize the unique aspects of each.

  Loos, clearly contemptuous of Vienna's hypocritical facades, was in contrast full of praise for America and England. Having spent three years in New York during his youth, he perceived American and English society to be much more ideal than Vienna's comparatively corrupt culture, since the former had no desire to taint perfectly functional objects with pointless modification:

It was useless, according to Loos, to modify the forms of objects already adapted to their function. He altogether admired the Americans and the English-the first for their simplicity, the second for their discretion.^{27 B}

He admired the fusion of beauty and utility found in the American and English architecture, full of the vitality so obviously lacking from Vienna's tainted society.

Loos was impressed by the first skyscrapers, by domestic architecture, and in general, by a society full of vitality that was supported by egalitarian and utilitarian aspirations. He discovered the classical spirit of the engineer-the Greek of modern times-who professed the fusion of beauty and utility in everyday objects. ^{28 C}

It is those utilitarian societal aspirations which elevate the idea of functionality to an importance exceeding that of decoration or external interests that Loos found so stimulating The value system outside Vienna was completely contrary to that found within, where utility succumbed to the seeming worthiness of decoration. Health and life seem to exude from functional forms in American society, unlike the morbidity and decadence found in Vienna. In opposition to Musil's declaration, America enjoyed a successful ethical drive by dismissing the importance of the aesthetic and accompanying immoral ornamentation in favor of healthy functionality. The resulting structures built in praise of truth thereby lack the confusion instilled by excess ornamentation and enforce the concept of vitality seen in portions of American society.

  Loos' sentiments on architectural structure and tainted fin-de-siecle Vienna are original or at least unusual concepts for a member of his era. What or who influenced his ideology, encouraging its growth to its concluding pinnacle? Loos preceded the turn-of-the-century art movements of Avant-garde, Art Nouveau, Viennese Succession,²⁹ and the International style by at least eight years. "Sensualism and decorative obsession of Art Nouveau were noticeably prominent at the beginning of the century. Kraus, Loos, Schoenberg, Wittgenstein, Trakl and Kokoschka intervened...." ³⁰ Loos was never designated as belonging to any particular movement, but rather gravitated towards what worked best in architecture, as opposed to what was fashionable or associated with a particular artistic style. In fact, Loos' Cafe Museum of 1899 was an attack against Olbrich's Haus der Sucession, the manifesto of the Art Nouveau movement. ³¹

  Loos had also become fast friends with Karl Kraus, Peter Altenberg, and Arnold Schoenberg, and the course of their discussions often ran to talks on the architect Otto Wagner or became the precursor to Loos' forthcoming essays. ³² Wagner greatly influenced Loos' sentiments on ornamentation with his desire that ornamentation appear as no more than a skin to the encompassed structure: "materials should be worked in such a way that it is impossible to confuse the clad material with its cladding." ³³ Wagner's use of the cube and his geometric forms, exemplified in his 1912 design for the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Stadtmuseum, ³⁴ are prominently reproduced in almost every element of Loos' work, such as the stepped pyramidal shape of the Kaerntner Bar ceiling. "Loos brought to life the clearest form, the cube, and the world's most perfect building, the stepped pyramid." ³⁵ Altenberg too was immortalized in portrait set into the rear of Loos' Kaerntner (or American) Bar of 1907. Loos also maintained a friendship with the author Karl Kraus, who scripted the frequently cited quote regarding the chamber pot and the urn. The young artist Kokoschka became a benefactor of Loos' financial and influential backing. It's also interesting to note how, of the artists active in Vienna at the turn of the century, Kokoschka's work seemed most at home in Loos' structures, and that the artist had even done a portrait of Loos.

  After delving into the influence of individuals on Loos' work and ideology, one should analyze the utilization of architectural elements in conception-order construction of ideal Loosian structures. Since quality materials and workmanship surpass any potential benefits obtained via the incorporation of decoration, ³⁶ the prominence of the materials demand their selection be made with great particularity in order to ensure the appropriate atmosphere's subconscious invocation. Adolf Loos made frequent use of marble in columns, wall covering and floors, as well as constructing a myriad of wood parquet floors, wood paneling in walls, oriental rugs, and checkerboard or tile motifs. The cube, stepped pyramid, rectangular columns and various grid patterns can be found in most Loosian structures, as well as spheres, cylinders, the aforementioned columns. Loos seemed to enjoy centering a circular point within various cubes in constructed buildings, such as in the ceilings of his Zentralsparkasse and the Duschnitzhaus, as well as the frequent use of chain-suspended circular light fixtures, false wood beams, and split-level floor divisions (Visual examples related commentary can be found at http://www.student.brynmawr.edu/~ahackman/Loos/Notes.html).

  Loos desired expressive facades, but the contrast between the exterior facades and interior decoration such varied degrees of richness is quite drastic: "The house should be discrete on the outside, its entire richness should be disclosed on the inside." ³⁷ The external facades must meld with the encompassing urban area, whereas the interiors might be decorated according to the taste of each client. "...The building should be dumb on the outside and reveal its wealth only on the inside," ³⁸ for anything overly expressive externally might tear at the surrounding urban fabric.

  Loos defined the respective spheres of art and architecture in order to arrive at a more cojent, conception-order methodology for constructing an ideal architectural example, meeting both functional and psychologically satisfactory objectives. In his discussion of superfluous ornamentation and mis-used architectural styles, Loos provides a critique of the underlying shallow nature of fin-de-siecle Viennese culture, presenting conceptual rules by which we instead might begin to build. With this ideological template, aimed at a better understanding of the essence of a perfect structure, we are provided with a means to construct more appropriate, pure architecture.