Dodecahedron Hanging Lamp, c. 1902/03

The fashion-conscious architect Adolf Loos (1870–1933) had manifold ties to the tailor company Kniže. Loos designed the Kniže branches on Graben in Vienna, in Karlsbad (present-day Karlovy Vary), on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin as well as on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Hugo Steiner – the managing director of the Paris branch opened in 1927 – commissioned Loos in 1910 to build the apartment building in Vienna’s Hietzing district that would become a milestone in modern architecture. In the tailor company’s sales rooms, it was especially the polygonal ceiling lamps made from brass and cut glass that provided brand recognition. In his interior design concepts created shortly after 1900, Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956), whose work and person Adolf Loos met with ambivalence, favored comparable light fixtures.

IR, 2021