L'œil à réaction

The Ghost Army, fake fleets and inflatable enemies of WW2.

The early modern architect Adolf Loos, who famously wrote “Ornament is a Crime,” also had a romantic streak, not unlike Carlo Mollino (see last week). In 1930 Adolf Loos completed two buildings: the (famous, urban) Müller House in Prague and the (not famous, rural) Landhaus Khuner (Khuner Villa) in Payerbach, Austria – two designs that could not be more different in appearance. While the Müller House is defined by an austere white cubic aesthetic, the Landhaus Khuner, is rustic, with log-and-stone construction sheltered under a pitched roof. The Müller House is hailed as a masterpiece of early modern architecture, while concerning the Landhaus Khuner, in contrast, there has developed only a sort of hush. We need to re-examine the Landhaus Khuner in order to embrace a broader understanding of what really constitutes architecture for today. You can visit, because today the house is a restaurant (and the colors are original).

Hans Josephsohn

Isa Genzken, Untitled, 2016 Collage with printed paper, tape and lacquer, 140 x 110 x 15 cm.

Rebecca Horn, THE MOON, THE CHILD, AND THE RIVER OF ANARCHY

René Groebli carrying out repair work on his centuries-old dry-stone wall house,a so-called Borie in southern France, 1982.

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Andrei Tarkovsky, Polaroid from the Book Instant Light

Shore Lagunillas in Venezuela S.A. bei Nacht, c.1928

Zuzanna Skiba - Grüner Vulkan (oil on canvas), 2018

“The 36-Hour War”, LIFE 11/19/45

Lucia Moholy. Masterhouse Moholy-Nagy, Dessau, Studio, ca. 1926.

Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Dorothea Rockburne Study for Noli Me Tangere, 1976

Samuel Beckett’s silent interview after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. (Swedish Television, 1969)