Ornament und Verbrechen

Adolf Loos, Ornement et Crime, Cahiers d’aujourd'hui, n. 5, June 1913, p. 247-256

Author(s): Adolf Loos

Associated movement:

Language : German

Medium : Periodical Press

Original edition of the manifesto: Adolf Loos, Ornement et Crime, Cahiers d’aujourd'hui, n. 5, June 1913, p. 247-256

Where can we find this manifesto? Ulrich Conrads, Programmes et manifestes de l'architecture du XX siècle, Les éditions de la Villette, Paris 1991(1ère édition Vieweg & Sohn 1981; Adolf Loos, Ornement et crime, Payot et Rivages, 2003

Which critic recognizes the work as a manifesto ? or: Typical characteristics of a manifesto The texte is widely considered as a manifesto, epscially starting from the publication of the text in Le Corbusier's Cahier d'Aujourd'hui

Editorial comments: The first publication of ‘Ornament und Verbrechen’ is unknown, but before it was published Adolf Loos presented lectures with that name, which he retrospectively dated to 1908. ‘Ornament und Verbrechen’ lectures were reported in Fremden Blatt, 22 January 1910, p. 21, and Der Sturm, 1, 3 March 1910, p. 8. The first lecture of the text is supposed to have been held in 1910 at the Akademischer Verband für Literatur und Musik in Vienna. In 1913, French translations appeared in the Cahiers d’aujourd'hui (Ornement et Crime, n. 5, June 1913, p. 247-256), and L'Esprit Nouveau, 2,15 November 1920, pp. 159-68. The text appeared in German only in 1929, in the Frankfurter Zeitung, (24 October 1929), as Ornament und Verbrechen. It was the architect Henry Kulka, who assisted Loos during a reprint of the essay in 1931 in Trotzdem, that altered the original year to 1908 after he consulted Loos, who either didn't remember well or wanted to assume primacy in the confrontation against the Secessionists