Armchair, Draft Adolf Loos

This Fau­teuil is made in sol­id oak with a high seat with leather cov­er; the back­rest is in leather, free on the upper and low­er part, though applied with pati­nat­ed brass nails at each side of the frame.

This chair is a per­fect exam­ple for Adolf Loos’ clear, cubic design. It has been restored and fresh­ly uphol­stered includ­ing a new leather cov­er in our inhouse-workshops. 

The ​“Loos Fire­place Fau­teuil” is a true design icon by one of the strongest and most polar­iz­ing archi­tects of his time. Adolf Loos used this draft for the Inte­ri­ors of Josef Vogl’s Apart­ment in Pilsen (Plzen, Czech Repub­lic), in the Vil­la Müller in Prague (1928) and the coun­try­side res­i­dence of Khuner in Payer­bach /​Lower Aus­tria (1930).

The sig­nif­i­cant man­u­fac­to­ry Friedrich Otto Schmidt pro­duced this chair mod­el in vari­a­tions for its cus­tomers. In the com­pa­ny’s archive one can find the mod­el title SREN 72, amongst oth­ers. Most like­ly, Friedrich Otto Schmidt felt inspired by Adolf Loos, who close­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with the man­u­fac­tur­er, to pro­duce a chair mod­el, which varies slightly.

Adolf Loos (*Decem­ber 10^th, 1870 in Brünn — August 23^rd, 1933 in Karls­burg near Vien­na), was an archi­tect, design­er, author and teacher. In art his­tor­i­cal lit­er­a­ture, Loos is con­sid­ered one of the most impor­tant pio­neer of mod­ernism in archi­tec­ture and design. He clear­ly kept a dis­tance to the archi­tects of the Wiener Werk­stätte and main­tained a crit­i­cal posi­tion towards Ger­many’s ​“Deutsche Werk­bund” and the ​“Bauhaus”.

Adolf Loos great­ly influ­enced, next to the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Vien­nese Jugend­stil and the asso­ci­a­tion ​“Wiener Sec­ce­sion” and ​“Wiener Werk­stätte“ such as Otto Wag­n­er, Josef Hof­mann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, as well as Max Fabi­ani und Jože Plečnik, stu­dents of Otto Wag­n­er, the ​“Vien­nese Stil”. Espe­cial­ly note­wor­thy the fact that Loos was a strong oppo­nent Vien­nese Art Nou­veau, the ​“Seces­sion Style”

Adolf Loos had a close rela­tion­ship with Arnold Schön­berg, Oskar Kokosch­ka, Peter Altenberg and Karl Kraus, who he sup­port­ed pas­sion­ate­ly on their pro­fes­sion­al path. He influ­enced many mod­ernest archi­tects such as Richard Neu­tra, Hein­rich Kul­ka and Lui­gi Blau. Adolf Loos led his own pri­vate school where he taught Paul Engel­mann and Leopold Fis­ch­er. One of his most impor­tant writ­ings is the book ​“Orna­ment und Ver­brechen” (Orna­ment and Crime, 1908) cam­paign­ing against the orna­ment itself. Loos spent a lot of time in Paris in the 20ies, in close con­tact with the avant­garde artist circles. 

From 1925 — 1926 he built a house for Tris­tan Tzara in Paris, a French poet, jour­nal­ist, art col­lec­tor, film mak­er and found­ing mem­ber of the dadaism.

Also, Loos planned a house for the dancer Josephine Bak­er in 1927 in Paris at the Avenue Bugeaud with a hor­i­zon­tal­ly black-white striped façade, nev­er realized.

A won­der­ful exam­ple, next to the Loos house on Vien­na’s ​“Michael­er­platz” is the Vil­la Müller in Prague, built 1930, almost com­plete­ly pre­served and today run as a muse­um, show­cas­ing the cubic shape, a core theme of Loos’ design. The Inte­ri­or nice­ly com­bines fine mate­ri­als and dec­o­ra­tions of dif­fer­ent eras.

Adolf Loos designed the fire­place chair, we present here, amongst oth­er objects, for the Vil­la Müller.

See Lit.:

M. Kris­tan, Adolf Loos Villen, Wien 2001, p 111 (view from the gallery in the room), p 115 (room of the son, p 125; B. Rukschcio, R. Schachel, Adolf Loos Leben und Werk, Salzburg, Wien 1982, S. 622f. Nr. 199. Archiv Friedrich Otto Schmidt.

https://​lan​dese​cho​.cz/​i​n​d​ex.ph…

Vil­la Müller

It was no coin­ci­dence that Adolf Loos cel­e­brat­ed his 60^th birth­day on the 10^th of Decem­ber 1930 in Vil­la Müller in Prague. It is not only con­sid­ered a mas­ter­work to this day, Adolf Loos him­self count­ed it among his most beau­ti­ful works.

The con­trac­tor Fran­tišek Müller com­mis­sioned the white, cube-shaped, mod­est­ly designed build­ing — except of the yel­low win­dow frames -, between 1928 – 1930 in Prague’s city dis­trict Střešovice. At the same time, two oth­er remark­able build­ing were being built, some­where else in Europe: Vil­la Tugend­hat by Mies van der Rohe in Brünn and Vil­la Savoy by Le Cor­busier near Paris.…

Pho­to below to the right shows the Vil­la Müller with the arm­chair in the mid­dle in front of the fireplace.