Customer Reviews

Bauhaus Ideal Then And Now The: AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO MODERN DESIGN

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Today's design students are overloaded with too many skills and ideas to absorb. Unfortunately, as students race into the future, it seems that subjects like Design History are the first to suffer. This book addresses that problem. You could think of it as the 'cliff notes' of Modernism. It's concise, fun to read, and beautifully illustrated. You can read it in one sitting. It connects Modernist ideas across design, art and architecture from the Bauhaus until now. Along the way, Smock pokes fun at some of the more pretensious characters and positions of Modernism. Most of all, he puts the ideas and forms of Modernism in context for our time. The author clearly has a deep appreciation for his subject, and argues that we still have much to learn from the spirit and optimism of Modernism. For students, this book should help to inspire new interest in what Modernism was/is all about. It suggests that rather than seeing a dusty footnote in history, maybe it's something we should pick up, polish, and re-examine. As an intro, this book should inspire further study for young designers.

Sprinkled liberally with the author's own pencil sketches of famous architects, buildings and other design icons, "The Bauhaus Ideal" is a small book chock full of unique perspectives on the history of design. It is pitched at the lay reader or college student - even someone with no interest whatsoever in Bauhaus or architecture would find this an absorbing read, which is why I think it would do very well in an intro liberal arts course for college freshmen hoping to pick up some ideas about modern art and architecture before they branch off onto the irreversible "med school" or "law school" track. It reads rather like the notebooks of da Vinci because of the deft pencil sketches; it also reminds me of John Ruskin's manifesto, "The Stones of Venice". Smock would very conversationally talk about an architect or a building, then throw in a little sketch - the effect is like dropping in on a professor who really knows his stuff but is cool enough to not beat you over the head with it. Smock is good enough to be a professional illustrator. In a few lead strokes he would capture the spirit of a real person's face, or the bare branches of winter. For the non-lay reader, the architect, or "those in the know", this book reaffirms one's thoughts about the giants in the architecture world and asks provoking questions about why things are what they are. All in all, a real treat and worth the price.

Great book; found it very useful for a presentation on Bauhaus.

This is the book for people who are interested in design (i.e. buy things)
but don't read design magazines. Thought-provoking and funny.