1906 - Architecture, Real Estate

Architecture, Real Estate

The Villa Karma is completed at Clarens outside Montreux, Switzerland, to designs by Moravian-born architect Adolf Loos, 35, who has eschewed both art nouveau and Beaux-Arts historicism in favor of a geometric simplicity devoid of ornamentation.

The Larkin Building completed at Buffalo, N.Y., to designs by Frank Lloyd Wright will stand until 1949. Built close to the tracks of the New York Central for a wholesale merchandiser of soap and groceries, the office building has an interior sealed off to create a quiet atmosphere; its huge fireproof interior reaches to the roof, with executive offices in tiers of galleries overlooking the central atrium. Its forbidding exterior is of stone that has been shipped from a Lake Superior quarry and cut on the site; magnesite imported from mines in Greece is fabricated on the site into custom-made fixtures and is cheaper than any other masonry material (the building costs 17¢ per cubic foot as compared with 23¢ to 30¢ for a standard fireproof structure).