Six-Legged Table, after 1902

This parlor table was designed by the architect and designer Adolf Loos (1870–1933). Its first documented use was in the seating area of the art historian and art writer Dr. Hugo Haberfeld’s (1875–1946) living room at his apartment in Vienna’s 8th district, Alser Straße 53, in 1899. Loos would keep returning to this item of furniture with several variations, for instance in 1901 for the furnishings of the Stessl apartment in Vienna’s 13th district, Auhofstraße 235. The design consists of a round mahogany tabletop, framed by sheet brass, with a round apron underneath it featuring six almost cylindrical table legs, stabilized in pairs by means of crossbars. The brass cuffs and crossbars on the legs, as well as the sheet brass border around the tabletop, reflect Loos’s demand for a unity of form and function, since they are not merely decorative but also serve a purpose. The execution of the object was carried out by the company of Friedrich Otto Schmidt, with whom Loos often collaborated.

MR, 2023