Steiner house, which is designed for the painter Lilly Steiner and her husband Hugo, was built in Vienna in 1910. It is one of Adolf Loos’s most significant and well-known work. Being celebrated as the epitome of a modern home, Steiner House has an advanced modernity of form, which allows it to be the phase of transition from classical to modern architecture in the contemporary architecture history. It also represents the anticipation and manifesto of Rationalism which refers to the ideology of symmetry, functionality, geometric shapes of form, and use of highly industrialized materials. We can learn from Adolf Loos’s critiques on Josef Hoffman that Loos strongly refused the use of decoration in architecture, and opposed the inclusion of
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Therefore, Stoclet Palace and Steiner House represents two different styles of Viennese houses. Moreover, the purpose of Loos’ s anti-decoration design was not only because of aesthetics, but also for economical concern, since the economy of Central Europe was getting worse at that point. Nevertheless, when the design was initially suggested by Adolf Loos, the Viennese could not accept the undecorated façade, thus they tried to impose a traditional, historicized one. Loos resisted to change, he, however, could not persuade the Viennese because he was not yet an established architect by that time, so he had to bear all the negative comments. Fortunately, his clients supported him. As a result, Steiner House was successfully built and then stroked the modern architecture …show more content…
The garden side (back side), to which architecture historians paid more attention, is perfectly symmetrical. This allows Loos to be out of fashion in an era when the avant-garde advocated asymmetry. Although the street side (front side) look symmetrical in form, the fenestration is irregular. The fenestration is subdivided into grids which successfully corresponds to the overall geometry of the façade. The large windows allow the incoming of light into the atelier of the painter and the living room, producing sufficient and comfortable lighting. However, the window on the left is slightly taller than a square while the window on the right is shorter but wider. Therefore, people commented this house as a combination of being classically symmetrical and asymmetrically
Therefore, Stoclet Palace and Steiner House represents two different styles of Viennese houses. Moreover, the purpose of Loos’ s anti-decoration design was not only because of aesthetics, but also for economical concern, since the economy of Central Europe was getting worse at that point. Nevertheless, when the design was initially suggested by Adolf Loos, the Viennese could not accept the undecorated façade, thus they tried to impose a traditional, historicized one. Loos resisted to change, he, however, could not persuade the Viennese because he was not yet an established architect by that time, so he had to bear all the negative comments. Fortunately, his clients supported him. As a result, Steiner House was successfully built and then stroked the modern architecture …show more content…
The garden side (back side), to which architecture historians paid more attention, is perfectly symmetrical. This allows Loos to be out of fashion in an era when the avant-garde advocated asymmetry. Although the street side (front side) look symmetrical in form, the fenestration is irregular. The fenestration is subdivided into grids which successfully corresponds to the overall geometry of the façade. The large windows allow the incoming of light into the atelier of the painter and the living room, producing sufficient and comfortable lighting. However, the window on the left is slightly taller than a square while the window on the right is shorter but wider. Therefore, people commented this house as a combination of being classically symmetrical and asymmetrically