In the mid-1960s, while Adorno was tirelessly working on the manuscripts of Aesthetic Theory, he seized the opportunity to speak on the subject of architecture. In his speech "Functionalism Today", he presents the paradoxes of Adolph Loos' architectural theory, prompted by the issue of decoration within the framework of functionalism.

Staying true to the dialectical view of aesthetic and social questions, he will highlight the contradiction of pure functionalism, which, desiring to eliminate decoration and its symbolic function, pushes away the suspicion "that whatever negates style constitutes, unconsciously, style itself." This suspicion drives Adorno's critical view of capitalist social reality and its fetishistic functions, as expressed not only in the economy but also in the field of art.

(From the presentation on the back cover of the book) - "[...] Functionalist architecture stands against the repressed instincts of empirical subjects, who continue, even within the present society, to seek their happiness in every kind of corner or crevice; it represents the intellectual character, a human potential that is connected to the most progressive consciousness but is drowned in the innermost depths of people's existence, who remain spiritually powerless." (Theodor Adorno)