Tradition and Modernity

Adolf Loos is a great advocate of the architect’s trade and construction traditions, as he considers that nothing should be invented anew: all we have to do is build according to tradition and use the best techniques of every era: “An architect is a bricklayer who has learned Latin,” he claimed. This is why he used the Doric column or pyramidal forms as constructive tools. In the eyes of postmodernity, he is a key point of reference for his project for the headquarters of The Chicago Tribune, a building in the shape of a Doric column lined in black granite and set upon a rectangular pedestal, which once illuminated would resemble a lamp.

“Only a very small part of architecture corresponds to the field of art: funeral and commemorative monuments. Everything else, everything with a purpose, must be excluded from the world of art.”
Adolf Loos

“Whenever the art of building distances itself from ornament it draws closer to the great builder, who takes it back once again to antiquity.”
Adolf Loos