Discussion questions
Answer, in some depth, the following questions:
1. Is Loos against ornament in general? (A hint: no.) What is his problem with
ornament (which ornament) and why?
2. Is Loos talking about the same problem as William Morris – ie, the consequences of alienated labor in industrial production?
3. How does Loos’s view of art, and of the role of artists/designers, differ from
Morris’s? (See mainly ‘Potemkin Village’ and ‘Lesser Arts’.)
4. To whom is Loos addressing his argument (and his insults)? Who is his audience?
Who is the target of his attacks – the Papuans? the Austrian nobility? the craftsmen?
wives of Slovak farmers? …
5. What does Loos specifically mean by the passage ‘ live in the year 1908, but my
neighbor…’?
6. What does Loos mean when he says ‘ preach to the aristocrats’?