Residential Masterpieces 25: Adolf Loos Villa Muller / Villa Moller

Designed by Adolf Loos in his later years, these two houses are twin examples of the architect’s plain, unadorned style of architecture, despite their difference in size and budget. Both Villa Moller (1926–27) in Vienna and Villa Müller (1928–30) in Prague are illustrative of his ‘Raumplan’ design method. Loos applied a utilitarian approach in using the entire floor plan that would only later receive greater appreciation with the advent of postmodernism, an innovative spatialisation comprising sequences of spaces drawn in three dimensions. Photographed by Yoshio Futagawa, the two houses and the spatial brilliance of Loos come to life in an eclectic symbiosis with modernism.