Loos House

The Loos House on Michaelerplatz is a residential and commercial building completed by Adolf Loos in 1911, and its plain rendered facade triggered one of the Habsburg era's most heated architectural controversies. Loos had just articulated his manifesto 'Ornament and Crime', and this building was his bluntest rebuttal to the ornate Ringstrasse style dominating Vienna at the time. Emperor Franz Josef I is said to have been so offended by the windows' lack of decorative eyebrows that he avoided facing the building from the Hofburg across the square — apocryphal or not, the anecdote captures the genuine shock the facade produced in 1911. Today the ground floor houses a Raiffeisen bank branch and is open to the public, offering a rare chance to experience Loos's signature spatial sequencing: varying ceiling heights, luxurious marbles, and a total absence of applied ornament.

Adolf Loos's ornament-free commercial building opposite the Hofburg — the Emperor reputedly drew his curtains.