Dragana Vasilski In search of the roots of minimalism in architecture: FORMAL SILENCE OF ADOLF LOOS ABSTRACT: Architectural examples of minimalism together with strict forms of modern movements and the possibilities offered by new materials and technologies contribute to the triumph of aesthetics, which has become a symbol of our times. Minimalism in architecture, as the most original contribution to the idea of simplicity in architecture today has its roots in different areas, as well as in the creation of prominent individuals – authors’ strong individualities that do not tolerate any kind of categorization. One such author is certainly Adolf Loos. His theoretical ideas regarding decorations were sensational, because while the modernists had a dilemma about where and how to place ornaments, Loos was adamant: his drastic solution predicted the complete elimination of ornament. In our time, minimalist architecture revives the simplicity of Adolf Loos, whose design rejected historicism and its parasites, decoration, on behalf of pronounced rationalism. It is possible to follow the guiding principle of his "formal silence" from Carl Andre to Herzog & de Meuron, as well as over the Mediterranean vernacular architecture to Alberto Campo Baeza and Alvaro Siza. Keywords: minimalism, architecture, Adolf Loos, „formal silence“, rationalism INTRODUCTION Adolf Loos clearly must be considered among those whose ideas have effectively supported and contributed to the modern movement, although his contribution was sporadic, personal, and not always very serious. As an architect, he emerged as one of the first to build in a way that really appreciated the simplicity of form as a virtue in itself, however, usually spoiling this simplicity by his practice of deliberately abandoning it, or by his choice of the materials he used. As a writer, he was tumultuous, showing the grit, contradiction, and the ability to convert personal strife into public crusades; yet he was admired and privileged, and people were still proud to have claimed that they knew him, twenty or more years after his death. It is well known that the solitary architectural and critical act of Adolf Loos was accepted by the Modern Movement as a drastic price of cuts and mutilation, turning him into a figure of a stoic pioneer or someone who is expelled for his role as a proposer, someone who is on the border of a new world, tired from the previous which is about to disappear forever, but that is still out of contact with the real problems and demands of mass technological society.