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From Bauhaus to our house
First published 1981 · 179 pages
A blistering, highly entertaining takedown of the architectural elites who boxed the modern world into glass and steel.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting next to the smartest, most exasperated critic at a high-society dinner party as they dismantle the pretensions of the room. It is a brisk, energetic polemic that crackles with signature stylistic fireworks, utilizing italics, exclamation points, and relentless wit to drive its points home. The mood is combative yet deeply entertaining, inviting you to share in the author's cynical amusement at how a fringe European art movement managed to convince corporate America to live and work in sterile glass boxes. It is less a dry history of architecture than a sociological roast of intellectual elitism. Readers who love sharp, contrarian cultural commentary will devour this propulsive essay, reveling in its unapologetic irreverence and sharp-tongued observations about the spaces we inhabit.
- Mood
- combative
- energetic
- intellectual
- cynical
- Tone
- satirical
- irreverent
- polemical
- witty
- exasperated
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- cultural elitism · intellectual pretension · the absurdity of dogma · American conformity · art versus utility
- The writing
- Exuberant and highly stylized, packed with italics, exclamation points, and a signature blend of erudition and colloquial punch.
- The arc
- Moves from amused disbelief at European architectural dogma to a passionate, exasperated lament for the American urban landscape.
- Who it's for
- Readers who relish sharp, contrarian cultural criticism and enjoy watching a master satirist dismantle intellectual orthodoxies.
About the book
A lamentation on the state of modernist, international style architecture. In this long-form architectural screed in essay form, Wolfe takes aim at celebrated figures in the modernist movement—most notably Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius—and examines the reasons for their rise and continuing acclaim.
Description from Open Library.
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