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Visual-Asymmetry in Adolf Loos’s Moller House: A Computational Analysis Testing Propositions About Performance and Spectation

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Abstract

Architectural historians describe Adolf Loos’s 1928 Moller House as having an interior spatial arrangement that constructs unequal or asymmetrical visual interactions between inhabitants, putting some on display and positioning others as observers. However, there is disagreement about the specific way the Moller House creates these relationships. This paper uses the ASVI computational technique to mathematically test if the spatial and formal properties of the Moller House reflect its four main theorized spatio-visual conditions. In this way the paper develops a new understanding of the spatio-visual experience of this famous early Modernist design.

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Acknowledgements

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

    Wenzhi Huangfu

  2. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Michael J. Ostwald

  3. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hongkong, China

    Thomas Chung

Authors
  1. Wenzhi Huangfu
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  2. Michael J. Ostwald
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  3. Thomas Chung
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Correspondence to Wenzhi Huangfu.

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Huangfu, W., Ostwald, M.J. & Chung, T. Visual-Asymmetry in Adolf Loos’s Moller House: A Computational Analysis Testing Propositions About Performance and Spectation. Nexus Netw J 23, 57–83 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00004-020-00481-5

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