- Publisher
- Ariadne Press
- Published
- 1997
- Shelf
- architecture: Manifesto
- ISBN
- 9781572410466
Manifesto
Ornament and Crime
Adolf Loos
The 1908 essay that declared decoration a crime, collected with the essays that complicate the slogan.
Why read it
The title has long outlived the argument, and reading the actual text is a corrective: Loos is writing about labour and waste rather than beauty, and his real target is the fashion cycle. Knowing that changes what a century of minimalism was claiming.
Why own it
This collection keeps the surrounding essays, which is the only way the famous one reads honestly. Short, quotable, endlessly misquoted. Worth owning so you can check what he said.
Who it is for
Anyone who has used the phrase "less is more" in a presentation.
Reading order
Book 1 of 5 in the architecture reading order, where it starts. See all 5
Read nextToward an ArchitectureLe CorbusierFifteen years later Le Corbusier made the modernist case in photographs, setting grain silos and ocean liners beside Greek temples.Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
