From Bauhaus to Our House [Paperback]

Tom Wolfe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 1999

Tom Wolfe, "America's most skillful satirist" (The Atlantic Monthly), examines the strange saga of American architecture in this sequel to The Painted Word.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A search-and-destroy mission against architectural pretensions . . . a funny book."--New York

 

"Full of insight . . . marvelously right."--People

 

"Wolfe's delightfully witty, biting history of modern architecture is a scintillating high comedy of big money, manners, and massive manipulation of public taste."--Publishers Weekly

 

"No wonder . . . this book is the hottest topic in Manhattan's architectural salons."--The New York Times Book Review

"Tom Wolfe has squeezed a funny tale out of glass and stone. . . hilarious."--The Wall Street Journal

"Sharp serpent's-tooth wit, useful cultural insight, and snazzy zip! pop! writing."--Playboy

 

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, Spanish (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (October 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055338063X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553380637
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #638,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Wolfe is the author of more than a dozen books, among them such contemporary classics as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and A Man in Full. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he earned his B.A. at Washington and Lee University and a Ph.D. in American studies at Yale. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars thin but insightful, August 29, 2004

By 

J. R. Muller (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From Bauhaus to Our House (Paperback)

Tom Wolfe is without a doubt the most honest and humorously penetrating social critic since Mark Twain. He writes what we would love to say and in a manner any of us would give our pinkies to employ. This book, though not as good as others, goes right to the heart of the problems with modern architecture that have plagued our cities and our aesthetic sense. Lest some of you think I'm a cultural philistine, I am myself an architecture student, and I can say that Wolfe's skewerings of the modern profession are so accurate as to be almost omniscient. He rightfully lampoons the excessive intellectualization, the hackneyed leftism, and reverse snobbery of architectects since the 20's while showing the lamentable effects of these traits. His analysis, though shallow, is regretably dead accurate for he understands the social and intellectual impulses (and justifications) that have driven the profession since the Bauhaus. Tom Wolfe constantly plays the role of the young boy in "The Emperor's New Clothes" and, once again he is pointing out the laughably naked elite which are producing architecture these days. I do not agree with all of his analysis of certain buildings, but his social critique from the archictural theorists to the clients to the "working class" are all as humorous, sad and accurate as you expect from Wolfe.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting even for those with no architectural background., September 26, 2006

By 

M. Strong (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Bauhaus to Our House (Paperback)

From Bauhaus to Our House is inescapably a book about architecture, but it's about more than that, too. Wolfe uses architecture as a lens to magnify a problem you see again and again in human society and human history - group think and mindless following.

I have no architectural background, and found Wolfe's (very) brief history of 20th century Western architecture to be very interesting. I've always wondered how we ended up with so many monotonous and kinda fugly buildings in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. In Bauhaus, Wolfe offers up his explanation in a fun, readable manner.

Beyond that, however, Wolfe also gives you a look at one instance of a rather homogeneous group of people - in this case academic architects - come up with an idea that takes on a life of its own and becomes too powerful for anyone to challenge. Call it group think, peer pressure, mindless following, popular culture or the will of the majority, it's a somewhat frightening process and here Wolfe shows it to us in a case where - thankfully - all we got from it was a lot of ugly buildings.

Recommended.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wolfe the essayist is even better than Wolfe the novelist, March 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: From Bauhaus to Our House (Curley Large Print Books) (Paperback)

One doesn't normally think of a book on architecture as being funny, but Wolfe's hilarious evisceration of modern architecture's sacred cows is truly a scream. Wolfe skewers the pretensions and downright foolishness of some of the most famous names in 20th Century architecture, and does so in a manner that is always engaging and fun to read. You may not agree with everything he says, but you certainly won't be bored by his witty and provocative observations. As good as Wolfe the novelist is, Wolfe the essayist is even better.