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Repeat Yourself: Loos and the Culture of the Copy

This exhibition research project explores my own 2008 proposal to build a facsimile of House Baker by Adolf Loos in China and questions the implication of the passing of Loos’ work into public domain 75 years after his death.

The research project raises interesting questions and quests for new methodologies of research that intersect architectural history, theory, design and copyright. The project elaborated the small scale of the original drawings and developed them in detailed plans of 1:10 and 1:5. This change of scale and precision necessitated a close investigation of the work of Loos and also a theoretical position that would define the nature of the facsimile.

The research for the exhibition investigated the legal possibilities of copying, leading to questions about copyright-law in China and the Loos estate. It also showed how individuals and institutions that claim to be its righteous heirs contest the Loos estate. This research contributed to a number of international lecture presentations (Columbia University, LSE London, MIT, Weimar, Vienna, Moscow, Athens, publications and design consultations. The exhibition was reviewed in architectural magazines and I was invited to present the work in public lectures internationally. I have discussed the problem of copying, appropriation and authenticity through various means (interviews, films, archival research, journal essays, lectures, symposia and exhibitions. Most representative here is the chapter ‘Copying as a media form’ (Oslo, 2013) and the journal article ‘Architectural Doppelgängers’ (AA Files, 2012).

The exhibition was shown as part of the ‘Museum of Copying’ (curated by FAT Architects) in the Arsenale, 13th Venice Architecture Biennale (curated by David Chipperfield) and as a solo-show in the AZW Architecture Centre Vienna, Austria 2013 and the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, GSAPP, Columbia University, New York 2013.