Form, Function, and Freedom: A Dialogue between Frank Lloyd Wright’s and Adolf Loos’ Modern Architectural Legacies for the Future. Roberto M. García Sepúlveda Throughout the beginning of the 20th century, architecture in Europe and North America faced disruption and reform through private dwellings. From industrial and technological advancements to new design and building approaches, architects faced a challenge to resist or adapt to the new ways of the turn of the century. Around 1900, the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed a series of homes that reflected a new American domestic architecture (Blake, 1969). These homes called Prairie Houses, primarily in the Midwest, counted with infinite residential innovations where Wright welcomed motion and dynamism. Wright identified a lack of architectural equivalency to the ideal of his nation. He believed space and freedom were the chief characteristics of the new world, the limitless space and the man on the move (Blake, 1969). Meanwhile, Austrian and Czechoslovak architect Adolf Loos, led a deconstruction of cultural life and false luxury in Europe. His private homes became zones of intimacy and retreat from social behaviour. Loos intentionally created a design disparity between the interior and the facade, often resulting in cubic forms (Sarnitz & Loos, 2022). His buildings with smooth facades and ornamentation-free surfaces, such as the Cafe Museum and House on Michaelerplatz in Vienna, provoked architectural scandals. However, while some considered Loos “an unloved and uncomfortable polemicist”, others saw him as “a particularly differentiated thinker preparing the way for the modern age” (Sarnitz & Loos, 2022). “Every great architect is necessarily a great poet” Wright stated, “he must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age” (1932), and he shared this with Loos. Not only through his designs, but also in his writing, Loos became one of the few modern architects that passionately questioned and criticised his culture and society, especially during a time when architecture no longer adapted or fulfilled the primal instinct of every human being, to shelter himself (Le Corbusier,
Figure 1. Frank Lloyd Wright, Robie House, Chicago, 1910. Facade. Image via Domus.
Figure 2. Adolf Loos, Goldman Salatsch Building House on Michaelerplatz, Vienna, 1909-1910. Facade. Image via Visiting Vienna
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