Ornament and Crime
Ornament and Crime is an essay written by the influential Austrian architect Adolf Loos in 1908, and translated into English in 1913, under its challenging title. "The evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects" Loos proclaimed, linking the optimistic sense of the linear and upward progress of cultures with the contemporary vogue for applying evolution to cultural contexts. In the essay Loos expresses his philosophy that ornamentation can have the effect of causing objects to go out of style and thus become obsolete. It struck him that it was a crime to waste the effort needed to add ornamentation when the ornamentation would cause the object to soon go out of style. Loos introduced a sense of the "immorality" of ornament, describing it as "degenerate", its suppression as necessary for regulating modern society. The essay was important in articulating the views that were fundamental to the Arts and Crafts movement and to the Bauhaus design studio, and led to Modernism in architecture.
See also
- Le Corbusier "Towards a New Architecture"
Further reading
- Banner, Reynham, 1960. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age Characteristic attitudes and themes of European artists and architects, 1900 – 1930
- Giedion, Siegfried, Space, Time and Architecture : The Growth of a New tradition