03 — ARTWORK
Goldman & Salatsch Building (Looshaus)
- MEDIUM
- Photo
- TYPE
- Other
PALETTE
HOVER OR TAP A SWATCH FOR NAME, SHARE AND HEX. SAMPLED FROM THE IMAGE — INDICATIVE, NOT A PIGMENT ANALYSIS.
THIS REPRODUCTION DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE ↓
- FILE
- 1400 × 1004 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
Loos admired Karl Friedrich Schinkel as the last architect he considered able to use the architectural orders without rhetoric, and in the Goldman & Salatsch Building, his own classicism found expression in the marbleloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles. columns of the entrance canopy and the entablatureIn classical architecture, the part of a building between the capitals of the columns and the roof. It consists of the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. raised above the mezzanine.
The interior of this building, with its marble veneers and mahogany joinery, also reveals Loos's preference to use rich materials in place of applied ornamentation.
After its completion, the house caused a shock in the city which was still characterized by its historical taste. It was called by the Viennese "a house without eyebrows" since the window-roofing, which was usual at that time, was completely missing. It was said that Emperor Franz Joseph had not only avoided passing next to Looshaus for the rest of his life by using the exit at the Michaelerplatz but also had to leave the windows of the Hofburg nailed so that he did not have to see the "hideous" house anymore.
In 1987 the Raiffeisen Bank bought the building and renovated it.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r53b47124f3d5fc,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Goldman & Salatsch Building (Looshaus) by LOOS, Adolf},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/loos-adolf-r6f70839e67d81c/goldman--salatsch-building-looshaus-r53b47124f3d5fc},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
