Loos's archive survived World War II in London

London - The archive of the famous architect Adolf Loos was saved during the Second World War in London, where it was hidden in the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Last week, a major exhibition about the Brno-born Loos, which is generating considerable interest in London, began at the institute.
    The fact that Loos's archive was saved during the war in our institute was discovered only during the preparation of the exhibition when we were searching for what we had about Loos, said Irena Murray-Žantovská, director of the RIBA library.
    The executor of Adolf Loos's (1870-1933) will was his friend, the Jewish art historian Ludwig Münz. In 1938, he left Vienna for London after the Anschluss and took Loos's archive with him. After the outbreak of the war, when it became clear that London would be bombed, Münz turned to RIBA for help, which hid Loos's archive.
    "The collection was hidden in the underground part of the institute, which fortunately was not bombed. The building survived and the collection did too," said Murray-Žantovská. "The archive was here until the summer of 1946 when Münz decided to return to Vienna. After Münz's death in 1957, his widow partly donated and partly sold Loos's archive to the Vienna museum Albertina, where it remains to this day.
    In the RIBA library, there are still about ten pages of the inventory of Loos's archive, which contains designs and projects for all significant projects, part of his personal library, student projects, and even drawings by his father, who was a stonemason," said Murray-Žantovská.
    The London exhibition is based on an exhibition about Loos at the Museum of the Capital City of Prague two years ago. It focuses on the work he created in the Czech lands from 1900 to 1933. It follows the reconstruction of the famous Müller villa, or the restoration of his apartments in Plzeň and presents designs, models, furniture, and glass.
    The exhibition is complemented by a number of original exhibits from the RIBA library. These include first editions of his essays, copies of the magazine Das Andere, which he published himself, and models from the RIBA collections, stated Murray-Žantovská. Among them is a model of a house in Paris for the famous dancer Josephine Baker, which was never realized - unlike the house for the Dadaist Tristan Tzara in Montmartre, Paris.
    "Some designs for Czech projects that made it to the RIBA collections from engineers who worked for Loos are also on display. These were people who emigrated to England and donated their engineering projects for Loos's buildings to us," she noted.
    Loos did not realize any projects in Britain. "But there was an English influence here. He had a great interest in English architecture and the English manners of his time, he styled himself in an English manner - he was very fond of dressing in English suits, wore English shoes, he liked life in England more than in Austria. He had somewhat exaggerated ideas about England," added Murray-Žantovská.
    After the war, Loos had only one exhibition in Britain - in 1985 in Oxford. We tried to build on the very successful exhibition about Le Corbusier at RIBA in 2008, said the director of the institute's library. In connection with the exhibition, RIBA organized a series of programs, symposiums, and other events dedicated to Loos.
    According to Murray-Žantovská, the exhibition is very successful with the public. On Saturday, we had to ask visitors to wait so that everyone could thoroughly examine the exhibition, she said. The Observer featured a large article about the exhibition, as did the professional magazine Building Design.
    The exhibition, which is supported by the Czech Center, will be at the RIBA headquarters in central London until May 3.