In the mid-1960s, Adorno, while feverishly working on the manuscripts of Aesthetic Theory, finds the opportunity to speak about architecture. In his lecture "Functionalism Today," he exposes the paradoxes of Adolph Loos' architectural theory, with a focus on the issue of ornamentation within functionalism. Adhering to the dialectical approach to aesthetic and social questions, he highlights the contradiction of pure functionalism, which, by seeking to eliminate ornamentation and its symbolic function, arouses suspicion "that whatever cancels style constitutes, unconsciously, style itself." It is this suspicion that motivates Adorno's critical perspective towards capitalist social reality and its fetishistic functions, as expressed not only in the field of economy but also in the field of art.

"[...] Functionalist architecture stands against the repressed instincts of empirical subjects, who continue to seek their happiness in all sorts of corners or crevices even within present society; it represents the intellectual character, a human potential that is constituted by the most progressive consciousness but is suffocated in the inner depths of human existence, where individuals remain spiritually weak."
Theodor Adorno