The work of art is brought into the world without there being a need for it. The house satisfies a requirement. The work of art is responsible to none; the house is responsible to everyone. The work of art wants to draw people out of their state of comfort.

Louis and did odd jobs in New York.  
Gravagnuolo Benedetto (1995).  204.

In this and many other essays he contributed to the elaboration of a body of theory and criticism of Modernism in architecture. He was influential in European Modern architecture and in his essay Ornament and Crime he abandoned the aesthetic principles of the Vienna Secession.