Interfered Modernity: A Coffee with Adolf Loos

Abstract

The transition to modernity in medieval city of Vienna took place in the second half of the 19th century through an urban transformation driven by the emperor, as a representation of the future capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Ringstrasse, inspired by Parisian urban plans, was designed as a showcase for the neo-styles of a new era, but also as a platform for establishing the institutional ideological discourse. As an alternative to this linear boulevard within the “hollowed-out wall,” a series of atomized and introspective architectural spaces emerged: the Wiener Kaffeehaus. Within their interiors, alternative paths to the imposed modernity were conceived, such as the Viennese Secession, which promoted the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk—the total work of art—integrating art, architecture, and everyday objects. Between the reproductive continuity of institutional modernity and the evolutionary disjunction of a dissident modernity, an individual emerged—unadapted to the Viennese bourgeois society. Educated in the unprejudiced metropolises of modern America, Adolf Loos became the instigator of an incipient interfered modernity.