Fresh insights into the thought and work of the modernist architect, from Loos expert Christopher Long

In this collection of essays, noted architectural historian and University of Texas professor Christopher Long (author of Adolf Loos on Trial) examines some of the many influences that shaped the work of the great architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933). Long's finely tuned essays on subjects such as Loos' time in America, his famous essay "Ornament and Crime" and other subjects, are at once brief excursions into Loos' rich and complex intellectual world, and an attempt to shed light on an important time in the history of architecture and design.

Long is deeply interested in Loos as an architect, but he is even more drawn to his profound and unique intellect, and to the clarity of mind with which Loos managed to probe and understand the realities of modern life. Loos, as Long writes, saw that "the problem of modernism was not the problem of style, but the problem of understanding how the world was changing."