Christopher Long: The New Interior - lecture at Gallery VI PER

Gallery VI invites you to another lecture in the series History, Theory & Criticism in Architecture.

The lecture deals with how three leading Viennese modernists – Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, and Oskar Strnad – redefined the concept of modern interior in just seven years right before the outbreak of the First World War. The contribution follows the course of their debates and works and the way each designer attempted to formulate their own distinctive vision of living. The most important new development that emerged during this time was the idea of so-called Wiener Wohnkultur (literally Vienna’s culture of living), which promoted comfortable and colorful interiors that were modern but not overly so. Oskar Strnad, the main author of this new design conception, established a set of principles that aimed to counter the prevailing doctrine of functionalism.

Christopher Long is a professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a recognized expert in Central European and American modern architecture and design. His numerous books include New Space: Movement and Experience in Central European Modern Architecture (2023), Jock Peters, Architect and Designer: The Varieties of Modernism (2021), Adolf Loos: The Last Houses / Poslední domy (2021), and Essays on Adolf Loos (2019). Recently, he has published three new books: Lucian Bernhard (2023), Adolf Loos: Significance, Context, Reception. Essays (2024), and American Modernness: The New Graphic Art in the United States, 1890–1940 (2024).

The project was created with the financial support of the City of Prague, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, and the State Cultural Fund of the Czech Republic.