Quote

All art is erotic. The first ornament to have been invented, the cross, was of erotic origin. It was the first work of art. A horizontal stroke: the woman lying down. A vertical stroke: the male who penetrates her.

Adolf Loos

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Adolf Loos
Age: 63 †
Born: 1870
Born: January 1
Died: 1933
Died: March 28
Architect
Architecture Critic
Art Theorist
Designer
Essayist
Photographer
Teacher
Writer
Brünn
Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos
Lying
Strokes
Woman
Penetrate
Penetrates
Art
Origin
Ornament
Firsts
Invented
Horizontal
First
Male
Vertical
Work
Males
Ornaments
Cross
Stroke
Crosses
Erotic

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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.
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I have emerged victorious from my thirty years of struggle. I have freed mankind from superfluous ornament.
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Supply and demand regulate architectural form.
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The Potemkin city of which I wish to speak here is none other than our dear Vienna herself.
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If nothing were left of an extinct race but a single button, I would be able to infer, form the shape of that button, how these people dressed, built their houses, how they lived, what was their religion, their art, their mentality.
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The room has to be comfortable the house has to look habitable.
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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.
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Tattooed men who are not behind bars are either latent criminals or degenerate aristocrats. If someone who is tattooed dies in freedom, then he does so a few years before he would have committed murder.
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Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise.
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The work of art shows people new directions and thinks of the future. The house thinks of the present.
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Be truthful. Nature only sides with truth.
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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.
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Lack of ornamentation is a sign of spiritual strength.
Adolf Loos
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Be not afraid of being called un-fashionable.
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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.
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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.
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The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary the house is conservative.
Adolf Loos