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From Bauhaus to Our House
Tom Wolfe, "America's most skillful satirist" (The Atlantic Monthly), examines the strange saga of American architecture in this sequel to The Painted Word.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
About the author
Tom Wolfe
168 books2,772 followersWolfe was educated at Washington and Lee Universities and also at Yale, where he received a PhD in American studies.
Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into the inner workings of the mind, writing about the unconscious decisions people make in their lives. His attention to eccentricities of human behavior and language and to questions of social status are considered unparalleled in the American literary canon.
He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Tom Wolfe is also famous for coining and defining the term fiction-absolute .
http://us.macmillan.com/author/tomwolfe
Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into the inner workings of the mind, writing about the unconscious decisions people make in their lives. His attention to eccentricities of human behavior and language and to questions of social status are considered unparalleled in the American literary canon.
He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Tom Wolfe is also famous for coining and defining the term fiction-absolute .
http://us.macmillan.com/author/tomwolfe
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 355 reviews
May 25, 2020
Long time since I read it (35 yrs ±!). I recall a classic page, where the stonecutters and terra-cotta craftsmen rage, rage against the coming of Modernism, the Streamline look, and the end of their jobs. For a real review, go straight to Sarah's, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And here's the current article that prompted this mini-review, https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/1...
-- with lots of pictures! Very good article/rant. Hat tip to Nancy Lebovitz for the link.
Good book. Maybe I should reread it. And, for sure, read the "Why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture" article -- and click some of the ugly-building links, too!. I never did figure out what/where the Dead Whale with Portholes building is.... 😳
And here's the current article that prompted this mini-review, https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/1...
-- with lots of pictures! Very good article/rant. Hat tip to Nancy Lebovitz for the link.
Good book. Maybe I should reread it. And, for sure, read the "Why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture" article -- and click some of the ugly-building links, too!. I never did figure out what/where the Dead Whale with Portholes building is.... 😳
November 17, 2022
Fun to read Wolfe again for the first time since the late '80s or so. Such automatic energy and urbane knowingness and lists like this extended with "ands" instead of commas and exclamation points! Makes a funny point about the bourgeois not wanting to create bourgeois buildings but essentially dictating what the proles want without bothering to get their opinion. A generally fun survey of 20th century architecture I read mainly for a refresher in Tom Wolfe prose style.
December 31, 2011
Wolfe writes an interesting, hilarious, and opinionated account of how we ended up with all Those Buildings, i.e. those concrete boxes that look like factories that everyone understands are "art" but secretly thinks are really ugly. My architecture knowledge is pretty much limited to recognizing that architects design bafflingly expensive, utilitarian chairs (how bourgeois of me!) and that "Eero" and "Saarinen" are frequent answers to New York Times crossword puzzle clues. As a lay person, I enjoyed learning about the philosophical European architecture "compounds" with idealistic manifestos, their goal of designing for the proletariat and eliminating anything that reeked of wealth, and the havoc these white tower institutions wreaked across Europe and the U.S. (for instance, insisting that roofs must be flat in the middle of snow country). I also really liked that Wolfe doesn't pull any of his punches. He pretty much masters the art of rolling his eyes on paper by using italics, exclamation points, and quotation marks ("A color? Well, I mean, my God -- how very bourgeois!" -- only imagine this line with italics, which Goodreads does not allow). Some of Wolfe's best snark is also found in his photo captions: Under a photo of a typical steel-barred concrete structure, "The Dutch really knew how to bourgeois-proof a building." Under a photo of an austere retirement home with a single embellishment on top (a sculpture of a giant tv antenna as "a symbol for the elderly"): "It took us thirty-seven years to get this far."
Amidst the snark are some good, thoughtful points, but I have to admit that my favorite things are how Wolfe keeps shouting, "How bourgeois!" every other paragraph, and also his photo on the back cover, in which he is wearing an all-white suit and white shoes.
My 52nd and last book of the year!
Amidst the snark are some good, thoughtful points, but I have to admit that my favorite things are how Wolfe keeps shouting, "How bourgeois!" every other paragraph, and also his photo on the back cover, in which he is wearing an all-white suit and white shoes.
My 52nd and last book of the year!
February 4, 2017
This is the first Tom Wolfe book I've read, and it's an absolute hoot. Wolfe is opinionated, caustic, funny, and completely irreverent - the perfect person to write a short and never-dull book on that unclad emperor, modern architecture. This book is for everyone who's ever wondered why, even though everyone hates modern architecture, we're all continuously forced first to pay for it and then to look at at it.
September 13, 2015
The funny thing about Tom Wolfe is that for all of the hip edginess of his writing style, he’s actually a square. His writings were revolutionary, as he was one of the founders of New Journalism, but his own personal outlook is quite conservative. Wolfe may have gone along on a bus trip with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, but he wasn’t joining them for their LSD trips. Wolfe was always something of an outsider, and this made him one of the great chroniclers of the 1960’s and 1970’s, able to capture the spirit of the times without letting that spirit consume him.
In his 1981 book From Bauhaus to Our House, Wolfe offer his critique of the modernist architecture made famous by Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and others. From Bauhaus to Our House examines how modernism rose from the fringes of Europe to become the dominant style of American architecture during the mid-20th century. Wolfe makes it clear from page one that he doesn’t care for modernist architecture, both the style and the intellectual philosophies behind it. Wolfe’s own tastes tend towards the older, more ornamental styles of architecture that modernism pushed aside.
In 2006, in an interview with the National Endowment for the Humanities, Wolfe said of his books about art and architecture, The Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House, “I intended those books as permission slips for everybody to like what they want.” But that’s just not true! He spends all 128 pages of From Bauhaus to Our House knocking modernism and doesn’t have a single good thing to say about it! Wolfe never admits that there might be some reason people liked modernism, he doesn’t give anyone permission to like it. And that’s the problem with the book; it’s all black and white. (This, ironically enough, makes it fit in perfectly with the ideal modernist color scheme.) Wolfe’s way of thinking doesn’t allow for any shades of gray, or any nuances. That style of writing a critique annoys me. It’s too easy to just say something is all good or all bad; it takes more skill to admit that it’s more complicated than that.
Rather than just criticize From Bauhaus to Our House, I will admit that Wolfe’s writing style makes it entertaining to read. He’s a funny writer, and he crafts many witty put-downs. Consider this example: “In short, this has been America’s period of full-blooded, go-to-hell, belly-rubbing wahoo-yahoo youthful rampage-and what architecture has she to show for it? An architecture whose tenets prohibit every manifestation of exuberance, power, empire, grandeur, or even high spirits and playfulness, as the height of bad taste.” (p.61) That’s excellent writing, and the point Wolfe makes is a very good one. Modernism was a very serious architectural movement, with little room for whimsy.
From Bauhaus to Our House commits the cardinal sin of being a nonfiction book that doesn’t have any footnotes or cite any sources. That always annoys me, as I want to know where the author is getting their ideas and quotes from. What books about architecture and the Bauhaus movement did Tom Wolfe read? He doesn’t tell us. There’s also a glaring error in the book, at least from an art history perspective, as Wolfe writes on page 44 of artists from Europe coming to America in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, and one of the artists he mentions is Modigliani. There’s just one problem with that. Modigliani died in 1920.
Personally, I’m much more open in my architectural tastes than Tom Wolfe is. I enjoy a lot of different styles of architecture. I like modernist buildings; I also like Second Empire buildings, Richardsonian Romanesque buildings, Prairie style buildings. I admire just about anything, as long as it’s a successful design. I know that whatever I deem to be a “successful design” is very subjective. I love the history behind architecture, and how it shows the changing tastes of its time. Buildings reflect the time in which they were built, and it would simply be very boring if every building was built in the same style. Since I’ve lived in the Twin Cities for nearly my entire life, I’ll use an example from downtown Minneapolis. I love both the modernist IDS Center, built in 1972, and the art deco Foshay Tower, built in 1929. I couldn’t choose between them, and I wouldn’t want to. They are both classic designs of their time, and they’re both beautiful buildings.
I’m intrigued by the Utopian spirit of a lot of modernist architecture. A lot of those buildings had social planning goals, and I think the modernist architects really thought that their steel and glass high rises would be the ideal place for people to live. I think most modernist architects working in 1950 would have predicted that everyone in major urban areas would live in giant skyscrapers by the year 2015. Of course, that hasn’t come to pass. The broad trend over the last 30 years is for new housing in the suburbs to be in the boring McMansion style, while people who are staying in the middle of metro areas have generally been quite happy to rehab old houses or repurpose old industrial buildings for lofts. I know I just made a sweeping generalization, and I know the above statement might not hold true for other urban areas around the United States, but that seems to be the general trend here in the Twin Cities.
Wolfe criticizes some of the large scale modernist urban planning buildings, like Minoru Yamasaki’s ill-fated Pruitt-Igoe apartment complex in St. Louis. The Wikipedia article about the Pruitt-Igoe development is a fascinating read. Completed in 1954, the complex quickly became a haven for crime, and in 1972 the city began demolishing it. What Wolfe doesn’t mention in his writing about Pruitt-Igoe is that it was a failure of urban planning more than just a failure of architecture. Pruitt-Igoe didn’t fail because Yamasaki’s architecture was fatally flawed; it failed for a million other reasons. It’s not the architect’s fault if it never worked out the way it was supposed to.
I also feel compelled to defend Minoru Yamasaki because he designed one of my favorite buildings in downtown Minneapolis, the beautiful NWNL building from 1965. Originally built for the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, it’s now called Voya Financial 20 Washington. I’m a little biased since my mother worked in this building for many years, and I have many happy memories of visiting her at work in this gorgeous setting. One of my favorite touches is the reflecting pool that runs along the entire south side of the building. It’s a beautiful example of modernist architecture at its best.
From Bauhaus to Our House is a quick read that is really a footnote to Tom Wolfe’s more major works, but the paperback edition has one of the coolest covers ever, as it shows a caricature figure of Tom Wolfe, dressed in his trademark white suit, standing in between a Victorian Queen Anne-style house and a modernist steel and glass office tower. I don’t know what the figure of Wolfe is made out of, maybe paper mache? It’s a crazy and funny book cover.
In his 1981 book From Bauhaus to Our House, Wolfe offer his critique of the modernist architecture made famous by Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and others. From Bauhaus to Our House examines how modernism rose from the fringes of Europe to become the dominant style of American architecture during the mid-20th century. Wolfe makes it clear from page one that he doesn’t care for modernist architecture, both the style and the intellectual philosophies behind it. Wolfe’s own tastes tend towards the older, more ornamental styles of architecture that modernism pushed aside.
In 2006, in an interview with the National Endowment for the Humanities, Wolfe said of his books about art and architecture, The Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House, “I intended those books as permission slips for everybody to like what they want.” But that’s just not true! He spends all 128 pages of From Bauhaus to Our House knocking modernism and doesn’t have a single good thing to say about it! Wolfe never admits that there might be some reason people liked modernism, he doesn’t give anyone permission to like it. And that’s the problem with the book; it’s all black and white. (This, ironically enough, makes it fit in perfectly with the ideal modernist color scheme.) Wolfe’s way of thinking doesn’t allow for any shades of gray, or any nuances. That style of writing a critique annoys me. It’s too easy to just say something is all good or all bad; it takes more skill to admit that it’s more complicated than that.
Rather than just criticize From Bauhaus to Our House, I will admit that Wolfe’s writing style makes it entertaining to read. He’s a funny writer, and he crafts many witty put-downs. Consider this example: “In short, this has been America’s period of full-blooded, go-to-hell, belly-rubbing wahoo-yahoo youthful rampage-and what architecture has she to show for it? An architecture whose tenets prohibit every manifestation of exuberance, power, empire, grandeur, or even high spirits and playfulness, as the height of bad taste.” (p.61) That’s excellent writing, and the point Wolfe makes is a very good one. Modernism was a very serious architectural movement, with little room for whimsy.
From Bauhaus to Our House commits the cardinal sin of being a nonfiction book that doesn’t have any footnotes or cite any sources. That always annoys me, as I want to know where the author is getting their ideas and quotes from. What books about architecture and the Bauhaus movement did Tom Wolfe read? He doesn’t tell us. There’s also a glaring error in the book, at least from an art history perspective, as Wolfe writes on page 44 of artists from Europe coming to America in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, and one of the artists he mentions is Modigliani. There’s just one problem with that. Modigliani died in 1920.
Personally, I’m much more open in my architectural tastes than Tom Wolfe is. I enjoy a lot of different styles of architecture. I like modernist buildings; I also like Second Empire buildings, Richardsonian Romanesque buildings, Prairie style buildings. I admire just about anything, as long as it’s a successful design. I know that whatever I deem to be a “successful design” is very subjective. I love the history behind architecture, and how it shows the changing tastes of its time. Buildings reflect the time in which they were built, and it would simply be very boring if every building was built in the same style. Since I’ve lived in the Twin Cities for nearly my entire life, I’ll use an example from downtown Minneapolis. I love both the modernist IDS Center, built in 1972, and the art deco Foshay Tower, built in 1929. I couldn’t choose between them, and I wouldn’t want to. They are both classic designs of their time, and they’re both beautiful buildings.
I’m intrigued by the Utopian spirit of a lot of modernist architecture. A lot of those buildings had social planning goals, and I think the modernist architects really thought that their steel and glass high rises would be the ideal place for people to live. I think most modernist architects working in 1950 would have predicted that everyone in major urban areas would live in giant skyscrapers by the year 2015. Of course, that hasn’t come to pass. The broad trend over the last 30 years is for new housing in the suburbs to be in the boring McMansion style, while people who are staying in the middle of metro areas have generally been quite happy to rehab old houses or repurpose old industrial buildings for lofts. I know I just made a sweeping generalization, and I know the above statement might not hold true for other urban areas around the United States, but that seems to be the general trend here in the Twin Cities.
Wolfe criticizes some of the large scale modernist urban planning buildings, like Minoru Yamasaki’s ill-fated Pruitt-Igoe apartment complex in St. Louis. The Wikipedia article about the Pruitt-Igoe development is a fascinating read. Completed in 1954, the complex quickly became a haven for crime, and in 1972 the city began demolishing it. What Wolfe doesn’t mention in his writing about Pruitt-Igoe is that it was a failure of urban planning more than just a failure of architecture. Pruitt-Igoe didn’t fail because Yamasaki’s architecture was fatally flawed; it failed for a million other reasons. It’s not the architect’s fault if it never worked out the way it was supposed to.
I also feel compelled to defend Minoru Yamasaki because he designed one of my favorite buildings in downtown Minneapolis, the beautiful NWNL building from 1965. Originally built for the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, it’s now called Voya Financial 20 Washington. I’m a little biased since my mother worked in this building for many years, and I have many happy memories of visiting her at work in this gorgeous setting. One of my favorite touches is the reflecting pool that runs along the entire south side of the building. It’s a beautiful example of modernist architecture at its best.
From Bauhaus to Our House is a quick read that is really a footnote to Tom Wolfe’s more major works, but the paperback edition has one of the coolest covers ever, as it shows a caricature figure of Tom Wolfe, dressed in his trademark white suit, standing in between a Victorian Queen Anne-style house and a modernist steel and glass office tower. I don’t know what the figure of Wolfe is made out of, maybe paper mache? It’s a crazy and funny book cover.
April 9, 2021
I found myself imagining this extended essay as a lost Ballard or Paul Scheerbart story as I read. A new edition of this book filled with colored plates and an appendix containing longer excerpts from the written works referred to would be welcome. Even better - a complete rewrite of the book as actual fiction, with changed names, fabricated images, exaggerated details, and long, winding tangents.
July 27, 2012
The Bauhaus school stripped away all tradition in the name Socialism, creating the Modernist schools and mass housing for the prols. Many of our council/ public housing horrors can laid at Bauhaus's door- howling and moaning. The blocks of glass and steel, the grey and white furnishings and interiors that we inhabit as workplaces, we can thank them for these as well.
This is Tom Wolfe, biting, sarcastic and cutting through to the core.
This is Tom Wolfe, biting, sarcastic and cutting through to the core.
May 23, 2018
I'm very interested in the question of why the richest and most powerful civilization in human history has decided to create the ugliest and most hateful architectural landscape imaginable, despite having the power to easily make what people enjoy and find pleasing. Tom Wolfe sees the same problem and identifies its roots in the emergence of a number of "anti-bourgeois" schools of architectural thought that emerged in Europe in the aftermath of WWI. Premiere among them was the Bauhaus School, which obliterated ornamentation and anything else that human beings like in buildings in the name of expunging bourgeois influence and returning civilization back to some imaginary point zero. This type of thinking also disseminated into art, music and other endeavors where bourgeois influence was perceived and deemed in need of obliteration.
This is more of an intellectual history than a book about architecture. Its a strange, short book that requires you to be much more knowledgable about these schools, trends and individual architects than I am. As such I didn't really get what I was looking for out of it. A really good book for the layperson who cares about this issue is The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton. This one can be safely missed by most, save for people working in the field.
This is more of an intellectual history than a book about architecture. Its a strange, short book that requires you to be much more knowledgable about these schools, trends and individual architects than I am. As such I didn't really get what I was looking for out of it. A really good book for the layperson who cares about this issue is The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton. This one can be safely missed by most, save for people working in the field.
March 30, 2017
Laugh-out-loud funny nonfiction romp about the bigoted world of 20th century architecture. Got it from the library, devoured it, handed it to my husband, then he read it aloud to me over a couple of evenings. It's a case study of how a small, prescriptivist art clique with enough snobbery and chutzpah was able to conquer and dominate their cashed-up patrons and make them pay for buildings they hated without ever questioning their authority. My favourite story was how the actual *workers* were the only ones with enough moxie to say no to the dreadful vision of worker housing handed down to them from in high. "Blow it up! Blow it up!" they chanted. Insightful, funny, and memorable.
July 21, 2020
8/10
Not as fresh as The Painted Word.
Not as fresh as The Painted Word.
October 9, 2022
good book. I now find architecture interesting.
June 13, 2020
a fun, short intro to modern architecture. will always be in my collection.
June 16, 2008
Wolfe likes exuberance. He doesn't like restraint and purity. So he criticizes early and mid-century modern architecture and applauds those who resisted the glass box in favor of expressive and exuberant designs--like Eero Saarinen. Wolfe's most interesting claim is that the motivation for architectural modernism was despair after the first world war and the desire to create a new society from scratch, since the old one had been destroyed. But that rationale made no sense in America, which was unscathed, and didn't need to be rebuilt from scratch.
There is no attempt here to give a philosophical account of modern architecture--treating it as "becoming self-conscious" or being "concerned with the conditions of its own possibility" or anything like that. That means there is no attempt to understand modernism from the inside, which might come across as sheer obnoxiousness. But it will come across that way only if you're so in love with modernism that you can't stand to see it criticized.
There is no attempt here to give a philosophical account of modern architecture--treating it as "becoming self-conscious" or being "concerned with the conditions of its own possibility" or anything like that. That means there is no attempt to understand modernism from the inside, which might come across as sheer obnoxiousness. But it will come across that way only if you're so in love with modernism that you can't stand to see it criticized.
January 16, 2009
Tom Wolfe's short work, From Bauhaus to Our House, is little more than a screed against the excesses of modern architecture. While agreeing with many of his conclusions, I found the style and tone of the book to be inappropriate for the purpose of serious art/architecture criticism. Written in 1981, it seems dated with a quarter century of architectural progress having occurred since it was published. There are references to other art forms, music in particular, that demonstrate an unfamiliarity with the material. The result of these references led me to question Wolfe's knowledge of architecture. While Wolfe has been one of my favorite authors with works like The Right Stuff and A Man in Full, this book will not be placed together with those favorites. An alternative for those who are interested in the spirit of twentieth century architecture may be found in the work of Louis Kahn.
July 9, 2018
If journalism were always this engaging, I’d be much more well-informed.
Stuff objective narrative. Give me a point of view to interact with, support your claims with data, and then let me read the opposing POV. Especially when we write of events happening during our lifetimes.
Stuff objective narrative. Give me a point of view to interact with, support your claims with data, and then let me read the opposing POV. Especially when we write of events happening during our lifetimes.
April 30, 2023
stop sloinikams
Mėgstantiems Bauhauzą prieš skaitant šią knygą reiktų pasikaustyti kantrybe, nes apie jį čia neperskaitysi nei vieno gero žodžio. Aš planuodama kelionę į Vokietiją ir tikrindama UNESCO sąrašus užmečiau akį į tą Bauhauzą ir likau gana neutrali jo atžvilgiu, man pasirodė visai gražu, bet ir nelikau itin sužavėta, tai Veimaras taip ir liko neaplankytas.
Taip, aš apie architektūrą kalbu gražu, negražu, gal dar įdomu ir nuobodu terminais, tai ir pati nežinau ko ėmiausi skaityti šią Tom Wolfe knygą, kurioje apie architektūrą vietomis kalbama tikrai moksliškai, aš nežinojau nei vienos joje minimos pavardės, o vienintelis pastatas, kurio nereikėjo googlinti buvo vargšas modernistų nurašytas ‘Empire State Building’. Bet pastaruoju metu taip liūdina nuobodi stiklaininė Vilniaus statyba, kad norėjosi pasibėdavoti kartu su bendraminčiu, pasigaudyti argumentų, ir nors knyga nebuvo visai tai, ko tikėjausi, buvo smagu ją skaityti. Autorius tikrai nevengia ką nors riebesnio pasakyti ir gali tuo žavėtis, net jeigu ir ne visiškai sutinki su tuo ką jis sako.
Aš susidariau įspūdį, kad autorius visiškai nemėgsta jokios modernios architektūros, tekste lyg ir pajaučiau jo šiltesnius jausmus atskalūnui Edward Durell Stone ir jo Tadž Marijai, bet bendrai visa knyga yra modernios architektūros kritika. Nors gal labiau ne apskritai jos, bet intelektualinę architektų valdžią užgrobusių grupuočių ir jų idealų kritika. Iš vienos pusės skaitant buvo liūdna dėl tokio siauraprotiškumo, vidurinės mokyklos patyčių lygio intelektualinių diskusijų, privedusių prie vienodų ir neįdomių pastatų. Iš kitos pusės man kiek juokingas pasirodė autoriaus bandymas suversti visą kaltę už modernizmo kliurkas Europai ir, svarbiausia, socializmui. Kai Tom Wolfe pateikia visas modernios architektūros savybes per prizmę ‘ne buržuaziška’ ir pats prideda ‘kad ir ką tai reikštų’ atrodo tikrai kvaila tokiomis idėjomis vadovautis, bet man atrodo, kad jis tiesiog ieškodamas tokių argumentų jų suranda. Galbūt socializmas kažkiek ir pastūmėjo tas idėjas, bet man atrodo natūralu, kad architektūra turėjo kažkur evoliucionuoti ir stiklas, betonas, minimalizmas ir struktūralizmas buvo natūralus kitas žingsnis XX amžiaus viduryje. Taip, kartais pasiekdavęs absurdiškus kraštutinumus, bet tai nereiškia, kad jis nedavė ir gerų vaisių. Aš svajoju apie Mid Century Modern įkvėptus namus ir mano neišlavintai akiai tuose interjeruose netrūksta nei spalvų, nei gyvybės, nei įdomių formų. O gal mano smegenys tiesiog praplautos šiuolaikinės architektūros propagandos.
Bet kokiu atveju, Tome Wolfe su ‘Nuo Bauhauzo iki mūsų’ kvietė ir vis dar kviečia diskusijai, aštriai, gal kiek purvinai, bet diskusijai apie modernią architektūrą ir jos filosofiją ir aš labai tikiuosi, kad žmonės, prieš patvirtindami dar vieną sloiniką Konstitucijos prospekte šią knygą paskaitys.
Mėgstantiems Bauhauzą prieš skaitant šią knygą reiktų pasikaustyti kantrybe, nes apie jį čia neperskaitysi nei vieno gero žodžio. Aš planuodama kelionę į Vokietiją ir tikrindama UNESCO sąrašus užmečiau akį į tą Bauhauzą ir likau gana neutrali jo atžvilgiu, man pasirodė visai gražu, bet ir nelikau itin sužavėta, tai Veimaras taip ir liko neaplankytas.
Taip, aš apie architektūrą kalbu gražu, negražu, gal dar įdomu ir nuobodu terminais, tai ir pati nežinau ko ėmiausi skaityti šią Tom Wolfe knygą, kurioje apie architektūrą vietomis kalbama tikrai moksliškai, aš nežinojau nei vienos joje minimos pavardės, o vienintelis pastatas, kurio nereikėjo googlinti buvo vargšas modernistų nurašytas ‘Empire State Building’. Bet pastaruoju metu taip liūdina nuobodi stiklaininė Vilniaus statyba, kad norėjosi pasibėdavoti kartu su bendraminčiu, pasigaudyti argumentų, ir nors knyga nebuvo visai tai, ko tikėjausi, buvo smagu ją skaityti. Autorius tikrai nevengia ką nors riebesnio pasakyti ir gali tuo žavėtis, net jeigu ir ne visiškai sutinki su tuo ką jis sako.
Aš susidariau įspūdį, kad autorius visiškai nemėgsta jokios modernios architektūros, tekste lyg ir pajaučiau jo šiltesnius jausmus atskalūnui Edward Durell Stone ir jo Tadž Marijai, bet bendrai visa knyga yra modernios architektūros kritika. Nors gal labiau ne apskritai jos, bet intelektualinę architektų valdžią užgrobusių grupuočių ir jų idealų kritika. Iš vienos pusės skaitant buvo liūdna dėl tokio siauraprotiškumo, vidurinės mokyklos patyčių lygio intelektualinių diskusijų, privedusių prie vienodų ir neįdomių pastatų. Iš kitos pusės man kiek juokingas pasirodė autoriaus bandymas suversti visą kaltę už modernizmo kliurkas Europai ir, svarbiausia, socializmui. Kai Tom Wolfe pateikia visas modernios architektūros savybes per prizmę ‘ne buržuaziška’ ir pats prideda ‘kad ir ką tai reikštų’ atrodo tikrai kvaila tokiomis idėjomis vadovautis, bet man atrodo, kad jis tiesiog ieškodamas tokių argumentų jų suranda. Galbūt socializmas kažkiek ir pastūmėjo tas idėjas, bet man atrodo natūralu, kad architektūra turėjo kažkur evoliucionuoti ir stiklas, betonas, minimalizmas ir struktūralizmas buvo natūralus kitas žingsnis XX amžiaus viduryje. Taip, kartais pasiekdavęs absurdiškus kraštutinumus, bet tai nereiškia, kad jis nedavė ir gerų vaisių. Aš svajoju apie Mid Century Modern įkvėptus namus ir mano neišlavintai akiai tuose interjeruose netrūksta nei spalvų, nei gyvybės, nei įdomių formų. O gal mano smegenys tiesiog praplautos šiuolaikinės architektūros propagandos.
Bet kokiu atveju, Tome Wolfe su ‘Nuo Bauhauzo iki mūsų’ kvietė ir vis dar kviečia diskusijai, aštriai, gal kiek purvinai, bet diskusijai apie modernią architektūrą ir jos filosofiją ir aš labai tikiuosi, kad žmonės, prieš patvirtindami dar vieną sloiniką Konstitucijos prospekte šią knygą paskaitys.
July 6, 2016
In which Tom Wolfe rips the modern and post modernists a new one with his usual pluck and verve. Wolfe cannot get beyond his American disgust for the iconoclasts, who tore down traditional architecture in America for no good reason. His summary of the Europeans seems, from my limited knowledge of them, accurate, and his description is at once funny and painful—painful in the sense of regret for the ugliness that has been raised on the American landscape for decades as a result. This historical background does help explain why Wright has experienced a revival in America since at least the 1990s.
Wolfe storms guns of irony blazing into Harvard, Yale and the MoMA and when he gets through nothing is left standing but some crappy pieces of kitsch by the manifesto thumping post-modernists. It is a painful journey that nonetheless rings true; flat roofs tend to leak like cheesecloth. But to be fair, as Wolfe is not, the movement toward new design did not simply arise from the crushing disappointment of the fruits of the prior trajectory, aka, the meaningless slaughter of No Man’s Land, but also of what could be done with the new materials and technology of steel and glass, of what had finally become possible.
I prefer Richardson and Wright to Corbusier as much as the next guy, but I applauded when I read, in a Japanese history of modern architecture, this description for the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion: “It was the architectural equivalent of splitting the atom, breaking design down into its fundamental elements.”
Wolfe never reaches the conclusion that fame is a false god, and that striving for market recognition results in all the idiocy and poor taste, because he takes the market and human nature as a given. No need to try harder, to make the effort to withdraw from the accepted verities and seek the Tao. No, for Wolfe, the problem is not society. The problem is only the verities that are chosen to be accepted, and the reasons for the rejection of others. Helpful enough, as far as it goes.
Wolfe storms guns of irony blazing into Harvard, Yale and the MoMA and when he gets through nothing is left standing but some crappy pieces of kitsch by the manifesto thumping post-modernists. It is a painful journey that nonetheless rings true; flat roofs tend to leak like cheesecloth. But to be fair, as Wolfe is not, the movement toward new design did not simply arise from the crushing disappointment of the fruits of the prior trajectory, aka, the meaningless slaughter of No Man’s Land, but also of what could be done with the new materials and technology of steel and glass, of what had finally become possible.
I prefer Richardson and Wright to Corbusier as much as the next guy, but I applauded when I read, in a Japanese history of modern architecture, this description for the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion: “It was the architectural equivalent of splitting the atom, breaking design down into its fundamental elements.”
Wolfe never reaches the conclusion that fame is a false god, and that striving for market recognition results in all the idiocy and poor taste, because he takes the market and human nature as a given. No need to try harder, to make the effort to withdraw from the accepted verities and seek the Tao. No, for Wolfe, the problem is not society. The problem is only the verities that are chosen to be accepted, and the reasons for the rejection of others. Helpful enough, as far as it goes.
November 22, 2020
A fun little intellectual history about how all major cities look vaguely the same—excepting the obvious landmarks. Essentially, Modernism (i.e. the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, and the like) is completely to blame in Wolfe’s mind.
I've been generally appreciative of Modernism and instinctively like some of the architecture and design, so this book was a proper corrective to some of my rosy views of the movement. However, Wolfe allows no room for any Modernist sympathies, which makes this book feel more like a scree than a measured, critical history (this review takes Wolfe to task, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ).
While the tone can be grating at times, generally the writing is vibrant and engaging. Wofle's wit and literary flourishes inspire some interesting new perspectives. But by the same token, his cursory summations and references occasionally get his subject completely wrong. For example on page 79 he has a completely incorrect view of Analytical philosophy, seemingly describing it more as its opposite, continental philosophy. A few pages later, he gets Robert Venturi, famed postmodern architect, incorrect: "Not for a moment did Venturi dispute the underlying assumptions of modern architecture" (85). In fact, Venturi has written extensively about his problems with Modern architecture. See for example, my review of his seminal work—written with Brown and Izenour: Learning From Las Vegas (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
Wolfe’s critical take is worth reading, but one needs to be highly critical of Wolfe himself in order to pick out the gems and throw out the chaff.
I've been generally appreciative of Modernism and instinctively like some of the architecture and design, so this book was a proper corrective to some of my rosy views of the movement. However, Wolfe allows no room for any Modernist sympathies, which makes this book feel more like a scree than a measured, critical history (this review takes Wolfe to task, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ).
While the tone can be grating at times, generally the writing is vibrant and engaging. Wofle's wit and literary flourishes inspire some interesting new perspectives. But by the same token, his cursory summations and references occasionally get his subject completely wrong. For example on page 79 he has a completely incorrect view of Analytical philosophy, seemingly describing it more as its opposite, continental philosophy. A few pages later, he gets Robert Venturi, famed postmodern architect, incorrect: "Not for a moment did Venturi dispute the underlying assumptions of modern architecture" (85). In fact, Venturi has written extensively about his problems with Modern architecture. See for example, my review of his seminal work—written with Brown and Izenour: Learning From Las Vegas (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
Wolfe’s critical take is worth reading, but one needs to be highly critical of Wolfe himself in order to pick out the gems and throw out the chaff.
February 6, 2017
I just finished Tom Wolfe's excellent "From Bauhaus to Our House." And I wonder with the Bauhaus and modern architecture calling itself "non bourgeois", is there anything more bourgeois than modern architecture and the Barcelona chair?
I didn't like it as much this time as previous readings, probably the fourth time I've read it. But, there is something incredibly elitist about academies and art. True in poetry, art, writing and music.
In the internet age, we are entering a time of incredible weirdness and great access to publish. I think we will see amazing art, we already are.
And architecture is getting more interesting and away from the box. It's amazing the beauty of the Craftsman house around Pasadena, CA was often bought as a kit from Sears in the 1920s.
I also flew this a lot faster in previous readings. I loved it previously so keeping the 5 stars.
I didn't like it as much this time as previous readings, probably the fourth time I've read it. But, there is something incredibly elitist about academies and art. True in poetry, art, writing and music.
In the internet age, we are entering a time of incredible weirdness and great access to publish. I think we will see amazing art, we already are.
And architecture is getting more interesting and away from the box. It's amazing the beauty of the Craftsman house around Pasadena, CA was often bought as a kit from Sears in the 1920s.
I also flew this a lot faster in previous readings. I loved it previously so keeping the 5 stars.
January 16, 2015
Somebody mentioned this on Facebook recently, and I (having some interest in domestic architecture) thought "ooh, sounds interesting" and headed for the library.
Alas, the title is distinctly misleading; the book is not at all about domestic architecture. It is about modern architecture in general, from the Bauhaus onwards, with particular attention to America. And, since the author dislikes modern architecture and has no patience for the theories behind it, it is also a fairly scathing critique of those things.
I have to admit to having little fondness for the concrete box style of modern architecture myself, nor much patience with pomposity, so I did find the book quite amusing. But it's not actually what I was wanting to read.
Alas, the title is distinctly misleading; the book is not at all about domestic architecture. It is about modern architecture in general, from the Bauhaus onwards, with particular attention to America. And, since the author dislikes modern architecture and has no patience for the theories behind it, it is also a fairly scathing critique of those things.
I have to admit to having little fondness for the concrete box style of modern architecture myself, nor much patience with pomposity, so I did find the book quite amusing. But it's not actually what I was wanting to read.
August 7, 2012
This book is a hilarious demolition job. It raises the mystifying question of how a small number of European architects from the 1920s managed to turn their field of work into a religion replete with dogma. It also looks at some of the devastating effects Bauhaus has had on urban planning and housing projects. In a way, Wolfe's criticism could have been even harsher. That is especially true of the figue of Le Corbusier – a man who would have torn down half of Paris if only they'd let him and who had no qualms working for dictators.
July 8, 2015
An accessible and brief history of Modern architecture. Laced with cynicism and sarcasm, this is not an objective history but one written through the lens of Wolfe's frustration with 20th century architectural trends. Having studied this period in architectural history, I appreciated the author's biting wit and emphasis on characterizing the architects themselves rather than their designs, but would not recommend the book to someone unfamiliar with the key players in Modern architecture.
November 27, 2018
26 Nov. 2018 - I remember reading and enjoying this little book sometime in the early 80s, not too long after it was published in 1981. Tom Wolfe is just a fantastic writer. Very creative and accurate portrait painter of the foibles of various people and groups.
This one critiqued the Bauhaus architects and movement as being opposed to designing buildings that were enjoyable to observe, live and work in. I think he made many good points in a very touching way.
This one critiqued the Bauhaus architects and movement as being opposed to designing buildings that were enjoyable to observe, live and work in. I think he made many good points in a very touching way.
September 16, 2016
This book gets half a star for showing a surface understanding of architectural history, theory, and education. The second half star is for getting away with publishing an entire book full of sarcastic ramblings.
November 26, 2007
This book made me realize Tom Wolfe knows nothing about architecture or art.
January 18, 2010
So So So funny and informative! Not hard to keep track of schools/movements with Wolfe. Concise and witty as hell.
January 3, 2024
palabra de d10s
te alabamos señor
te alabamos señor
May 5, 2022
This book was a fascinating chronicle about the rise of tyrannical modernism in architecture. Previously, artists, and especially architects, viewed themselves as servants to the general public. That all changed with the artist colony movement where artists now grouped in colonies to develop manifestos, their 10 commandments from on high. Artists now viewed themselves as high priests. This new vision saw the artist as sanctifiers of the common person--Wolfe used Stalin's phrase: “engineers of his soul” (33).
The first and greatest commandment of the rising new school of architecture, which began in Germany and quickly spread throughout Europe, was: "Thou shalt be anti-bourgeois at all cost." Bourgeois houses have steep roofs so only flat roofs were designed, even in locations where this was eminently impractical, such as Holland which receives several feet of snow. Bourgeois houses have high ceilings so new worker housing must have low ceilings, narrow hallways, etc. "At the heart of functional, as everyone knew, was not function but the spiritual quality known as nonbourgeois" (76). Although workers themselves despised this new housing, the socialist governments endorsed it because of its ideology; otherwise, the style would never have gained traction.
The reason America adopted the Bauhaus style remains puzzling. In Europe, the style was a reaction against the aristocracy and tradition. America had no aristocracy and traditions to react to. And yet, when six of the leading Bauhaus architects emigrated to the U. S. on the eve of World War II, they were immediately ushered into top U. S. architectural positions. For example, leading Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius was made head of the school of architecture at Harvard, and Mies van der Rohe was installed as dean of architecture and master builder at the Armour Institute in Chicago. "Within three years the course of architecture had changed, utterly" (48). I can only attribute these American prostrations to European style to an intense desire for America to be seen by Europeans as Avante Garde, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, progressive, cutting-edge, and oh so cool.
As soon as the Bauhaus style took over the top universities, creativity and innovation were squashed. Most designs that came out of Yale were what became known as "The Yale box," a cement and glass box, each student constructing an identical one. Truly talented architects, like Frank Lloyd Wright, were disregarded and sidelined for not conforming to the exact Bauhaus style. Those who didn't submit to the pure forms were not given exhibitions, invited to speak, or allowed to hold top positions at the Universities. Edward Durell Stone started out as a strict disciple of the Bauhaus school but later turned apostate. When he was ridiculed by the elite for building anything other than a glass box he retorted, "twenty-five hundred years of Western culture rather than twenty-five years of architectural history" (88). Preach!
For a movement that was in reaction to the Bourgeois upper class, it was quite elitist. Those at the top echelons of architectural theory looked down on the architects who spent their time designing buildings that were actually built. These plebian architects were seen as beneath the "purists" who spent all their time merely theorizing about architecture. "The very productivity of a man like Wright, Portman, or Stone counted against them given the new mental atmosphere in the universities" (96).
This new mental atmosphere was characterized by leading Architects in universities spending all their time writing theoretical treatises with sentences such as this one by Peter Eisenman: "Syntactic meaning as defined here is not concerned with the meaning that accrues to elements or actual relationships between elements but rather the relationship between relationships" (122).
This preoccupation with highfalutin, esoteric nonsense that only other academics will pretend to understand has only ricocheted out of control since Wolfe wrote this book. (See my review of S, M, L, XL by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus). As I said in my review of Koolhaas's book, those who have nothing substantive to say will often use inscrutable academic-speak to sound erudite. It's not hard to see through it. It turns out that it's much harder to design buildings that are useful and beautiful than merely talking about "art."
The Bauhaus mantra of "starting from zero" is an example of what C. S. Lewis called chronological snobbery, the belief that something is superior simply because it is new. It's refusing to learn anything from the past and insisting to be too smart to stand on anyone else's foundation. The real irony is how bourgeois the entire Bauhaus school had become in its way of looking down on everyone else. Strangely, there was even a tyranny as to what furniture the faithful used: “The state of grace, the Radiant City, was two Barcelona chairs, one on either end of the sisal rug, before the flush-door couch, under the light of the heat-lamp reflectors” (61).
Other forms of American art: novels, visual arts, and music also fell prey to Avante Garde European fashion. However, those forms can disappear while we have to look at buildings for decades (except for the Bauhaus-style Pruitt-Igor projects in St. Louis which were mercifully dynamited at the residents' suggestion. Those who lived in them despised them.)
The modern architecture school was against the bourgeoisie, presumably because of their snobbishness, yet became the mightiest snobs of all.
There's a troubling trend in the twentieth century to try to reduce reality down to something simpler than it is. Minimalism continues to be the dominant trend in design, yet this severe, spare style doesn't fit well with the world that God created. "It's hard to kick against the goads" (Acts 26:14). Minimalism lives on because Sartres' dogma that existence precedes essence, that we can shape reality after our imagination, continues to be the dominant paradigm. But those who love people, want people around, love creativity, love gatherings, coziness, creature comforts, serving, and hospitality know that the minimalist clime is great for selling magazines and getting positions at Harvard, but not much else.
The first and greatest commandment of the rising new school of architecture, which began in Germany and quickly spread throughout Europe, was: "Thou shalt be anti-bourgeois at all cost." Bourgeois houses have steep roofs so only flat roofs were designed, even in locations where this was eminently impractical, such as Holland which receives several feet of snow. Bourgeois houses have high ceilings so new worker housing must have low ceilings, narrow hallways, etc. "At the heart of functional, as everyone knew, was not function but the spiritual quality known as nonbourgeois" (76). Although workers themselves despised this new housing, the socialist governments endorsed it because of its ideology; otherwise, the style would never have gained traction.
The reason America adopted the Bauhaus style remains puzzling. In Europe, the style was a reaction against the aristocracy and tradition. America had no aristocracy and traditions to react to. And yet, when six of the leading Bauhaus architects emigrated to the U. S. on the eve of World War II, they were immediately ushered into top U. S. architectural positions. For example, leading Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius was made head of the school of architecture at Harvard, and Mies van der Rohe was installed as dean of architecture and master builder at the Armour Institute in Chicago. "Within three years the course of architecture had changed, utterly" (48). I can only attribute these American prostrations to European style to an intense desire for America to be seen by Europeans as Avante Garde, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, progressive, cutting-edge, and oh so cool.
As soon as the Bauhaus style took over the top universities, creativity and innovation were squashed. Most designs that came out of Yale were what became known as "The Yale box," a cement and glass box, each student constructing an identical one. Truly talented architects, like Frank Lloyd Wright, were disregarded and sidelined for not conforming to the exact Bauhaus style. Those who didn't submit to the pure forms were not given exhibitions, invited to speak, or allowed to hold top positions at the Universities. Edward Durell Stone started out as a strict disciple of the Bauhaus school but later turned apostate. When he was ridiculed by the elite for building anything other than a glass box he retorted, "twenty-five hundred years of Western culture rather than twenty-five years of architectural history" (88). Preach!
For a movement that was in reaction to the Bourgeois upper class, it was quite elitist. Those at the top echelons of architectural theory looked down on the architects who spent their time designing buildings that were actually built. These plebian architects were seen as beneath the "purists" who spent all their time merely theorizing about architecture. "The very productivity of a man like Wright, Portman, or Stone counted against them given the new mental atmosphere in the universities" (96).
This new mental atmosphere was characterized by leading Architects in universities spending all their time writing theoretical treatises with sentences such as this one by Peter Eisenman: "Syntactic meaning as defined here is not concerned with the meaning that accrues to elements or actual relationships between elements but rather the relationship between relationships" (122).
This preoccupation with highfalutin, esoteric nonsense that only other academics will pretend to understand has only ricocheted out of control since Wolfe wrote this book. (See my review of S, M, L, XL by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus). As I said in my review of Koolhaas's book, those who have nothing substantive to say will often use inscrutable academic-speak to sound erudite. It's not hard to see through it. It turns out that it's much harder to design buildings that are useful and beautiful than merely talking about "art."
The Bauhaus mantra of "starting from zero" is an example of what C. S. Lewis called chronological snobbery, the belief that something is superior simply because it is new. It's refusing to learn anything from the past and insisting to be too smart to stand on anyone else's foundation. The real irony is how bourgeois the entire Bauhaus school had become in its way of looking down on everyone else. Strangely, there was even a tyranny as to what furniture the faithful used: “The state of grace, the Radiant City, was two Barcelona chairs, one on either end of the sisal rug, before the flush-door couch, under the light of the heat-lamp reflectors” (61).
Other forms of American art: novels, visual arts, and music also fell prey to Avante Garde European fashion. However, those forms can disappear while we have to look at buildings for decades (except for the Bauhaus-style Pruitt-Igor projects in St. Louis which were mercifully dynamited at the residents' suggestion. Those who lived in them despised them.)
The modern architecture school was against the bourgeoisie, presumably because of their snobbishness, yet became the mightiest snobs of all.
There's a troubling trend in the twentieth century to try to reduce reality down to something simpler than it is. Minimalism continues to be the dominant trend in design, yet this severe, spare style doesn't fit well with the world that God created. "It's hard to kick against the goads" (Acts 26:14). Minimalism lives on because Sartres' dogma that existence precedes essence, that we can shape reality after our imagination, continues to be the dominant paradigm. But those who love people, want people around, love creativity, love gatherings, coziness, creature comforts, serving, and hospitality know that the minimalist clime is great for selling magazines and getting positions at Harvard, but not much else.
June 13, 2021
tom wolfe takes a reactionary POV toward american architecture, simultaneously complaining about the rise of marxist ethos in the arts, and the pretentious or incomprehensible nature of various schools of theory while at the same time lamenting that postmodernism is merely an aesthetic retread of modernism and has doomed itself to that fate by categorizing itself as an evolution of aesthetics rather than a brand new approach. he welds the word bourgeois like a weapon here, using irony to ape the students and marxists that he's already presented as incomprehensible. but here's the thing: anyone trying to convince you that cultural marxism is a thing, and that marxism is not about material conditions is running a shell game on you, and Wolfe is clearly associating theory with blanket criticism of stuff he doesn't like and then using Cold War paranoia over Marx to try to get his readers to play connect the dots. This book occasionally has interesting stuff to say and I certainly don't know enough about architecture to really dig in and pick Wolfe apart, but it's important that you know: This guy is full of shit.
July 30, 2020
How do I accidentally read so many good books? God shows his grace to me through accidental gems and recommendations by Anita Deacon.
I didn't know that this genre existed, i.e. satirical, winsome, educated critique of a field that comes off as hilarious and charming?
Wolfe nails the architectural genocide that we've gone through over the last century, landing us with ugly buildings that no one wants.
Plus, it cracked me up. And it had pictures!
Win, win, win.
I didn't know that this genre existed, i.e. satirical, winsome, educated critique of a field that comes off as hilarious and charming?
Wolfe nails the architectural genocide that we've gone through over the last century, landing us with ugly buildings that no one wants.
Plus, it cracked me up. And it had pictures!
Win, win, win.
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