Mr. Loos makes some interesting points about the usefulness of ornament, and I tend to agree with him in many cases. If done wrong it is incredibly tacky and can ruin what could've been a beautiful object, and I understand that he came from an era when nearly everything was decorated. At the same time he sounds like a complete idiot while making his "educated" yet pig headed statement about the craft and reasoning behind ornament. I imagine he would swallow his words if he saw an Ikea factory, full of under-payed workers laminating particle board, preparing it for its maximum life span of 4 years. A chinese worker spending 16 hours carving a nature inspired pattern onto a bookshelf doesn't seem that bad suddenly. The fact that the worker goes home being proud of something rubs off on his wife, his children and his neighbor. Its better for the world when people feel like they've accomplished something, rather than toiling in a plant for some unknown economic authority.
Loos makes no effort to understand the difference between a plate set stamped with tacky images and work which is built with incredible care by someone who has spent years perfecting his/her craft. However, his opinionated rant is colorful and fun to read, his harshest expressions bringing me to laugh aloud. I think his depiction of the Papuans may be accurate on some levels despite its unapologetic linear approach, but at the end of the day Loos' superior cultivated brain has left him just another boring white guy with no flavor.
I think Loos actually has lots of flavour but he is perhaps in many ways disguising it in his text. he suggests that ones individuality is revealed through intellect, and i am wondering if he feels that is quite internal and secreted. Loos would eventually be ousted from "proper" society for a pedophilic scandal. That's pretty flavourful, or maybe just the same old abuses of power, or power-over-as-an- aphrodesiac that a certain kind of white guy has made a stock in trade.
ReplyDeletei think your recognition of the differences between kinds of manufacturing are very important and insightful. Clearly broad brush strokes will never truly satisfy. It is what makes Loos essay more dogmatic than ultimately useful, even if there are parts to which i adhere, or at least an aesthetic which in many ways i do share... I question how i came to have it though, often.