Loos, Adolf
(12/10/1870, Brünn/Moravia - 8/23/1933, Vienna)
Austrian architect and critic, a trailblazer of the international style in Europe. Studied in Dresden, from 1893-6 resided in the USA, then in Vienna (the Steiner house, designed in 1910, was one of the first reinforced concrete houses in Europe). In his writings ("Ornamentation and Crime", 1908) he positioned himself against art nouveau and the Viennese workshop. From 1924-8, he lived in the Paris avant-garde scene. Far circles of European avant-garde architecture were lastingly affected by his radical beginnings of a material, functional architecture.
Trakl appeared on Loos' horizon beginning in Vienna around 1910, where Loos together with Karl Kraus and Oskar Kokoschka, for whom the “Academic Federation for Literature and Music” was dear, and included Erhard Buschbeck who worked on Georg's behalf. The connection became friendly starting in 1913 aided by Karl Hauer. Apart from frequent meetings in Vienna, he undertook a journey in August 1913 with his wife Bessie and Trakl to Venice. The poem “Sebastian in Dream,” in the book of the same title is dedicated to him.