From Bauhaus to Our House

While I’m reading this book by Tom Wolfe, it tickles me several times that Mr. Wolfe somehow tried to be overly critical on architecture.  I agree with him on a few topics, though, like the one he said about how we all live in a repetitive ‘glass boxes’.  But even some of those ‘glass boxes’ have its meaning, and with that only one topic, he dragged it all the way to how Napoleon turned Paris into Rome, and it really make my head feels dizzy.  Although I admire how, not being an architect, he knows quite a lot of architectural background, I can’t help feeling that his understanding toward it was quite right.  He wrote sarcastically about Josef Albers’ teaching of the fundamental of materiality and snickered at the unknowing students: “starting from zero”.  Moreover, the words he used to describe lots of famous architects, such as Frank Lloyd Wright or Louis Kahn, made them looked like a joker.

Mr. Wolfe talked about modern architecture as if it is a bad thing, but I found it very attractive.  Personally I like minimalism, because it leave spaces for abstraction, and it is up to each person to imagine what it can be.  However, I do agree that sometimes designers’ imagination are too restricted by those ‘glass box’ they see everyday and that make a lot buildings, especially in Thailand, look boring. 

Also, I understand the point that Mr. Wolfe stated that during that period of time (after World War I), there were lots of art and architectural movements, styles, -isms, or whatever we called it.  Architect maestros that taught in schools introduced these movements and so it became a ‘law’ that students must follow.  It took away students’ freedom to have their own design.

Anyways, “From Bauhaus to Our House” is an enjoyable book in some parts, although I would prefer to have it more straight to the points, and it does provide significant amount of architectural history.

Wolfe, Tom. From Bauhaus to Our House. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1981. Print.