Home >> Austrian Studies, Volume 15, Number 1

The `Habsburg Myth', Ornament and Metaphor: Adolf Loos, Karl Kraus and Robert Musil

Author: Carr, Gilbert J.

Source: Austrian Studies, Volume 15, Number 1, 1 December 2007 , pp. 65-79(15)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

The analogy between Adolf Loos's critique of façade and ornament and Karl Kraus's satire on Vienna's hypocrisy is revisited in the light of the theories of space and metaphor. The `Habsburg myth' in Austrian satire is traced to Loos's `Potemkin city', and metaphors for Austria's mental regression are found in his and Kraus's responses to the Imperial Jubilee pageant of 1908. Robert Musil's `Loosian' observations about such incongruities in `Kakanien' and his critique of outmoded metaphors are compared with Kraus's comic `word-figures' personifying the obsolescent hierarchies in concrete satirical transpositions of `Loosian' aesthetics.

German
An Hand von Raum- und Metapherntheorien wird die Analogie zwischen der Fassaden-und Ornamentkritik Adolf Loos' und der Satire Karl Kraus' auf die Doppelmoral Wiens überprüft. Der `Habsburgische Mythos' in der österreichischen Satire wird auf Loos' `Potemkinsche Stadt' zurückgeführt sowie auf die Reaktionen Loos' und Kraus' beim Kaiser-Jubiläums-Huldigungsfestzug 1908, den sie als Inbegriff des geistigen Rückgangs Österreichs metaphorisch erfassen. `Loos'sche' Beobachtungen zu ähnlichen Widersprüchen werden in Robert Musils `Kakanien' nachgewiesen und Musils Kritik an unzeitgemäßen Metaphern wird mit der Komik von Kraus' `Wortgestalten' verglichen, die in konkreten satirischen Übertragungen einer `Loos'schen' Ästhetik jene erstarrenden Hierarchien verkörpern.
More about this publication?
  • Austrian Studies is an annual journal reflecting sustained interest in the distinctive cultural traditions of the Habsburg Empire and the Austrian Republic. By publishing a wide range of articles in English, together with a selection of book reviews, it aims to make recent research accessible to a broadly based international readership.

    The focus is on Austrian culture from 1750 to the present. Literature is considered in relation to psychology, philosophy, political theory, music, theatre, film, and the visual arts. 'Austrian' includes German-language culture of former areas of the Habsburg Empire, such as Prague and the Bukovina, as well as the work of people of Austrian origin living abroad. Austrian interactions with other linguistic and ethnic groups -- the Jewish communities of Austria-Hungary, for example -- are also taken into account.

    Each volume of Austrian Studies has a coherent but broadly conceived theme, and reviews of the most important recent publications in the field of Austrian studies. Each volume also includes a number of substantial review essays devoted either to keeping readers up to date with major cultural debates and events, or to areas of scholarship in which activity has been particularly intense.
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