Steiner House is a building in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. It is considered one of the major works of architect

Adolf Loos Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was an inspiration to modernism and a widely- ...

Background

Loos was still starting his career in 1910 when he designed and constructed the Steiner house in Vienna, Austria. This design was much better accepted than Loos' earlier works and quickly became a worldwide example of

rationalist architecture In architecture, Rationalism is an architectural current which mostly developed from Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Vitruvius had claimed in his work '' De architectura'' that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally. The form ...

. In his buildings, Loos normally starts with one main volume in which the space, configuration, and elements follows the rules and composition of classical architecture. He organizes the interior of that volume with smaller cubes, rectangles boxes, and cylinders arranged in a volumetric puzzle of sorts. This determines the internal organization of his buildings and Loos regularly uses protrusions from the main block to create other areas of the building such as terraces. In the Steiner house, Loos uses his volumes to create a classical tripartite façade. He does this by creating a recess between the two wings of the house that continues straight to the roof. In general, Loos lets his

fenestration Fenestration may refer to: * Fenestration (architecture), the design, construction, or presence of openings in a building * Used in relation to fenestra in anatomy, medicine and biology * Fenestration, holes in the rudder A rudder is a primar ...

be subdivided into squares and rectangles that all obey a modular system, which correspond perfectly with the geometry of the façade. This system sets up order on the interior such as the living room being connected to a terrace that has access to the garden. Even in this early design, Loos uses interior organization that would remain with him throughout his career. The Steiner house features a living area that is raised slightly above the ground level and separated from more private areas of the house such as bedrooms and painting studio, which was located on the first floor.In Europe, the "first floor" of a building is the first floor ''above ground level''. Thus, the first floor is distinguished from the ground floor. In the United States, the first floor and the ground floor are generally synonymous. See storey. The served space in this house is neatly separated from the serving space by placing the serving space in the basement and attic. This was the style for which Loos strove: a refined and intricate interior with a simple and nonthreatening exterior. The Steiner house has a stucco façade like most of his other buildings but not without reason. Loos built his buildings with

roughcast Roughcast or pebbledash is a coarse plaster surface used on outside walls that consists of lime and sometimes cement mixed with sand, small gravel and often pebbles or shells. The materials are mixed into a slurry and are then thrown at the ...

walls and used the stucco to form a protective skin over the bricks. Loos did not want to use the stucco as a cheap imitation rock and condemned that practice; in general he used stucco for its functionality. The stucco façades have another benefit: they create a smooth, unornamented, and white surface. This surface represents the nature of the material and also does not hint to what is inside the building. Most of Loos' works were located in open lots and did not need any party walls and yet they faced other constraints that he had to work around. In the case of the Steiner house, Loos was only able build one floor above the street level. This led him to create a one quarter round roof that is facing the street. This roof flattens out the apex and makes the two additional floors that look out onto the garden impossible to see from the street. The curved roof was an interesting choice because it was not a straight break from

gabled roof A gable roof is a roof consisting of two sections whose upper horizontal edges meet to form its ridge. The most common roof shape in cold or temperate climates, it is constructed of rafters, roof trusses or purlins. The pitch of a gable roof ca ...

s or a brand new innovative idea. Instead it was meant to demonstrate certainty of form and economy of space, proving that traditions can be manipulated or rid of completely, for a functional and non-aesthetic purpose.

Notes

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Hietzing Houses completed in 1910 Modernist architecture Adolf Loos buildings Houses in Austria