The strange saga of American architecture in the twentieth century makes for both high comedy and intellectual excitement as Wolfe debunks the Euro...
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Jun 16, 2008
Nat
rated it: 
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 u
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Feb 24, 2009
Geoffrey
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I just finished reading Herdeg’s The Decorated Diagram of 1983 simultaneously with Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House of 1981 – a combination, though unplanned, has proved a very fruitful pairing. The latter is a charming and witty anti-intellectual critique of modern architecture’s banal and sterile qualities and the devastation it has wrought on American cities and landscape. Seeing through the naive stylistic labels of Wolfe, Herdeg lays the blame of the above aforementioned problems, not
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Jan 26, 2009
Jeremy
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The number of educated Americans for whom this book constitutes all that they know about architecture must be remarkably high. Probably second only to the Fountainhead, really, and comparing the two, Bauhaus is of course superior as a guide to architecture. And it is written by a brilliant prose stylist, Wolfe, capable of wry comments and asides and intellectual flourishes that make page turning a pleasure.
However, there is a cloying constant attack on the politics of the architect More...
However, there is a cloying constant attack on the politics of the architect More...
Dec 31, 2011
Sarah
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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 puzzl
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Jan 16, 2009
James
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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
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Apr 11, 2010
Michelle
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Tom Wolfe is cranky. And he is cranky because all the buildings going up around him make no sense, are ugly, and especially because these ugly buildings are being embraced by academics and everyone. At least, that's what Wolfe argues in From Bauhaus to Our House, his critique of the modern school of architecture.
While I can get behind much of criticisms (the architects respected in academia often could count the number of their buildings actually constructed on their fingers, that More...
While I can get behind much of criticisms (the architects respected in academia often could count the number of their buildings actually constructed on their fingers, that More...
Dec 02, 2009
Bryant
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Wolfe gets a bit wobbly at times, wanting American architecture to reflect the big bad boldness of the American capitalist spirit, not the lean limp-wristed socialism of western Europe. The essential flaw in his argument is his failure to see Bauhaus style in anything but political terms. He never evaluates whether functional, minimalist architecture can also have intrinsic aesthetic value, and whether that aesthetic has an appropriate place in the history of architecture. The chapter on Edwa
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Oct 28, 2009
Srikanth
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Apr 14, 2011
Tommy Bat-Blog
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For a very long time this book has been one of my all-time TOP favorite books I have ever read...and I have consumed 1000's, ha! When Tom Wolfe wants to be, he can be an extremely excellent Writer. He's very intelligent & has a great wit.
This book is pretty much about Bauhaus Architecture. You know, the "white cubes" from the 1920's & 30's. He covers the lives of the many Architects in that gendre, especially Walter Gropius, the founder of the movement. The thing that's gre More...
This book is pretty much about Bauhaus Architecture. You know, the "white cubes" from the 1920's & 30's. He covers the lives of the many Architects in that gendre, especially Walter Gropius, the founder of the movement. The thing that's gre More...
May 13, 2009
Michele
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From Bauhaus to Our House traces the journey of the modernist architecture movement from 1920s Europe to 1980s United States. Tom Wolfe treats what might otherwise be a dry, uninteresting subject with a heaping of humor.
He states his thesis in the first sentence of the first page, "O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, has there ever been another place on earth where so many people of wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much architecture they deteste More...
He states his thesis in the first sentence of the first page, "O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, has there ever been another place on earth where so many people of wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much architecture they deteste More...
Dec 13, 2009
Nearly thirty years ago, Tom Wolfe put the architectural world in a tizzy when he published this essay attacking modern architecture.
Now, I'm not a big fan of glass & steel & concrete office buildings, but Wolfe is absolutely virulent on the subject. And therein lies the rub. He detests Bauhaus-inspired work so much that he has no perspective. He is guilty of the same pretentiousness and arrogance of which he accuses the architects whom he dislikes.
There is a great deal to be More...
Now, I'm not a big fan of glass & steel & concrete office buildings, but Wolfe is absolutely virulent on the subject. And therein lies the rub. He detests Bauhaus-inspired work so much that he has no perspective. He is guilty of the same pretentiousness and arrogance of which he accuses the architects whom he dislikes.
There is a great deal to be More...
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Aug 03, 2011
Michael
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I certainly wouldn't describe this book as "delightful" for anything but an undisciplined reader. Wolfe dismantles the entirety of modern architectural history, only to leave us with a post-modernism that he views as insufficient. While this is indubitably a beginner's book and therefore has significant omissions, one can't help but recognize that Wolfe's logic is sound even when he's attacking the most universally beloved architects of the twentieth century (Le Corbusier, Mies, and es
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Mar 14, 2010
Adam
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I was given this book to make me aware of architecture. And it may well have achieved that, for a little while. But it was simply an unpleasant experience to read the book. Wolfe writes a 128 page social history of modern architecture that is unrelentingly, bitingly spiteful and negative. He details all of their failings, and gives in-depth accounts of their sophistries and petty ideological squabbles-supposedly for the justified end of mocking them, but I merely found it tiresome. I know t...mo
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Dec 16, 2009
Jennifer
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This was a complete kick for me. Tom Wolfe makes any topic seem interesting but I did love hearing him reduce architectural modernism to the simplest terms possible so elegantly. His sardonic, exasperated review of modernism and post-modernism (and their many related dialects) was pitch-perfect. It was great to hear him express the same weariness I feel about the profession, albeit he wrote this book when I was only six years old. Despite that, it still seemed relevant to me and I'd say it w
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Dec 19, 2011
Ben
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I'm in the midst of an emotional confrontation with Wolfe's work at the moment, so I'm not sure how well I can do this. Okay, so since going to graduate school for journalism I'm been suspecting myself of being rather ill suited for this pursuit and in fact rather a fool for passing up a chance to fashion myself as a European-styled Intellectual by studying the liberal arts at the New School. If this all sounds terribly pretentious to you please know that I more than agree with you, but you shou
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Nov 11, 2011
Joel
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An acerbic critique of modern design and the uninspired forms which dominated American architecture in the post-war era through the 80s, Wolfe leaves no question about his stance on the issue.
His screed on the 'Yale box', its relations/derivations and their prolific propagation is unmitigated disgust. He also takes his shots at architects/designers themselves, in a number of asides and direct bullet-points.
This same topic is handled with far more care and context in Richa More...
His screed on the 'Yale box', its relations/derivations and their prolific propagation is unmitigated disgust. He also takes his shots at architects/designers themselves, in a number of asides and direct bullet-points.
This same topic is handled with far more care and context in Richa More...
Sep 16, 2011
Scott
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Beneath his immaculate three-piece white suits and European flair, Tom Wolfe at heart is a "Hogstomping Baroque" American. His own exuberant journalistic style runs counter to the spare, self-effacing reporting of many renowned American journalists; and his take on 20th-century American architecture follows a similar bent. He asks, Why do American's continue to build massive glass-box buildings they detest? Don't they realize the International Style of architecture, all lines and sharp
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Jul 02, 2008
Katherine
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All the architecture people should definitely read this so we can talk about it! It is a pretty scathing critique which points out the inherent flaws, hypocrisies, failures, and general arrogance of modern architecture. I didn't agree with all of it (I love the Schroeder House, and the Farnsworth House, de stijl, and Walter Gropius) but I thought it summed up a lot of my architectural misgivings fairly well. And is was funny in a very snarky sort of way.
I re-iterate my deep and More...
I re-iterate my deep and More...
Apr 26, 2008
Carter
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All you have to do is look up in any major western city to remind yourself how depressingly necessary this book remains. Tom Wolfe pops the ego of modern architecture, unmasking it as the kind of art we love, in spite of itself, because self-anointed experts tell us we should.
Wolfe goes on a bender of sarcasm to deflate the pompous, supposedly Marxist philosophies behind "glass box" modernism. He traces the rise & sanctification of men such as Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies va More...
Wolfe goes on a bender of sarcasm to deflate the pompous, supposedly Marxist philosophies behind "glass box" modernism. He traces the rise & sanctification of men such as Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies va More...
Sep 12, 2011
Abby
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A brief, snarky introduction to the wave of modern architecture in the 20th century. Overall, Wolfe's credibility was dampened, in my mind, because of his constant sarcasm and obvious disdain for all things modern architecture. I'm not a huge fan myself, but would it have killed him to say a few nice things? Don't read if you're looking for an objective account of an architectural movement. If you want a very biased and funny report, then Wolfe is your man.
May 30, 2010
Eric
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Wolfe is a great storyteller, but as an architecture student, it is not very enlightening material. I don't even think it's a great read for non-architects because it can be misleading and shallow about architectural pedagogy. Granted some architectural theory is overblown with little substance, but this is a pretty water downed history.
Aug 14, 2010
Dennis
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Wolfe's wit crafts an uncovered history of modern architecture: how the Bauhause shaped the things to come. This is an excellent primer to get into the spirit of architectural history. Good to read while listening to modern Jazz.
If you like the movie "Helvetica" and modern design, you'll appreciate this book.
If you like the movie "Helvetica" and modern design, you'll appreciate this book.
Jan 20, 2010
Vivienne
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Wolfe really doesn't like modern architecture and re-states that point over and over and over again in this short book.
I found myself quickly bored by his one-side ranting, feeling that his argument was weak compared to the academic texts on Modernism that I'd tackled in art history. They also might be critical of the dominance of certain schools such as Bauhaus but did so with a more balanced perspective rather than it just being a tirade.
This really should have been an More...
I found myself quickly bored by his one-side ranting, feeling that his argument was weak compared to the academic texts on Modernism that I'd tackled in art history. They also might be critical of the dominance of certain schools such as Bauhaus but did so with a more balanced perspective rather than it just being a tirade.
This really should have been an More...
Oct 04, 2011
Ed
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Great book, especially coupled with E. Micheal Jones' Living Machines.
A great line: Of Buckminster Fuller "He would give amazing twelve-hour lectures, great seamless geodesic domes of words that youths with supple spines and good kidneys found uplifting, even intoxicating"
A great line: Of Buckminster Fuller "He would give amazing twelve-hour lectures, great seamless geodesic domes of words that youths with supple spines and good kidneys found uplifting, even intoxicating"
Dec 28, 2009
Ryan
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There are a lot of legitimate arguments to be made against the Bauhaus and Purism, but Tom Wolfe seems too interested in writing a sprawling rant to really explore them. Only once, near the very end, did he mention that many of these buildings were not built on a human scale -- in my view, their biggest flaw. Instead, the book focuses on these issues, which seem minor in comparison:
1. Glass, steel, and concrete are bad.
2. Simplicity is bad.
3. Architects who band together More...
1. Glass, steel, and concrete are bad.
2. Simplicity is bad.
3. Architects who band together More...
Jan 14, 2008
Sharif
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Unlike Tom Wolfe's other books, "From Bauhaus to Our House" is concise. It's a smart and funny clinical dissection of the stepwise process of thinking, political ideology and over-thinking that shaped modern architecture.
Wolfe also describes the screechingly funny dangers of ideology and grad school bull sessions let loose in the real world. Best example: the story of how minimalism--inspired by a worker-oriented socialist aesthetic--devasted construction workers in Ame More...
Wolfe also describes the screechingly funny dangers of ideology and grad school bull sessions let loose in the real world. Best example: the story of how minimalism--inspired by a worker-oriented socialist aesthetic--devasted construction workers in Ame More...
Oct 16, 2010
Zachary
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I never thought I could laugh at the same queasy structures which have so often made me revile in a gut-wrenching disgust. At least, knowing their origin, I can have some pity via their delusional--at least, mislead--architects.
Apr 15, 2011
Helie
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I had some great laugh-out-loud moments, but Wolfe was way too disparaging toward the International Style and Bauhaus for me to believe that he was being objective. Still, a fun read, and I learned a lot about architecture!
Dec 28, 2007
Mia
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Wolfe wonders when, in the history of empires, any people has been so captive to theory-based architecture that, in practice, they don't like. Concrete boxes, concrete boxes, glass and concrete boxes. This story of 20th c. architecture is full of ironies--e.g. how "anti-bourgeoisie" worker housing (which The [fabled] Workers did not like) born out of European revolution would become synonymous w/ American capitalism. Attention paid to the U.S.'s colonized mind when it comes to all thin
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Jan 25, 2010
Lisa
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A viciously tongue-in-cheek look at the history of Bauhaus architecture and design. A deeply satisfying exercise in throwing stones by one who'd clearly never be caught dead living in glass houses.
