Awarded the Muvamo “Golden Cube” for Vienna’s most iconic and beautifully designed bar interior.
Loos American Bar Through Time
Loos American Bar was designed by Adolf Loos in 1908, during a time when Vienna was still steeped in the decorative elegance of Jugendstil (Art Nouveau). Loos, a vocal critic of ornamentation in architecture, used the bar as a bold, physical expression of his radical ideas. His essay Ornament and Crime would go on to influence generations of modernist designers, but the bar itself is perhaps his most approachable manifesto – small, functional, and beautiful in its restraint.
While the term “American Bar” referred to a style of drinking establishment popularized in the United States – focused on cocktails and fast service – Loos reinterpreted it through a Viennese lens. Loos reimagined the American Bar as an intimate Viennese space with harmonious proportions and opulent modern materials (marble, onyx, mahogany, mirrors), rather than copying Art Nouveau decor.
The bar quickly gained a reputation among the Viennese elite as a discreet, stylish meeting place. Over the decades, it has hosted artists, architects, writers, and quietly stylish travelers from around the world. It survived war, regime changes, and shifting tastes – and today, it remains remarkably intact, both in structure and spirit.
Its enduring relevance lies in its refusal to chase trends. Loos Bar is timeless because it was never about fashion – it was about fundamentals: space, light, material, and experience.
Loos American Bar offers a more compact, quietly brilliant form of elegance. A minimalist counterpoint to the city’s baroque rhythms – and all the more memorable because of it.
