GOLDEN AGE
The shoebox-sized saloon is just 88 square metres but wall mirrors suggest it’s much bigger. The dim lights glow amber, and cigarette smoke hangs in the air. From ceiling to floor, bar to banquettes, everything is rendered in elegant materials: mahogany, marble, onyx and green leather. Sinking into a drink, I feel transported back a century. Only the strains of The Rolling Stones or Cream or something of that vintage scrambles the scene like a skipped record. The American Bar is largely unchanged since its days as the everyday haunt of the city’s fin-de-siècle movers, shakers and troublemakers, and it survives as a distillation of Viennese Modernism. Designed in 1908 by pioneering architect Adolf Loos and commonly known as Loosbar, it blends functionality and purposefulness with a beauty and atmosphere that gets under the skin.
The key players of Viennese Modernism defined the movement in their own ways, but were united in being daring and ahead of their time. They metabolised the energy of the
