Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious, edifying, and to the point
Review: After "The Painted Word," Wolfe's somewhat rambling but perspicacious identification of -theory- as the incubus of contemporary plastic art, Wolfe took on architecture. The result is far more to the point, and quite entertaining to read. What galls, mostly, is the loss of artisanship. My state used to have an industry where skilled stonecarvers whacked out Corinthian capitals and Art Deco embellishments in limestone. We no longer do, and here is why. A word in your ear, Mr. Wolfe. About atonal, serialist, and stochastic music. Sic 'em.
Rating:
Summary: Know something about architecture....
Review: and not just Tom Wolfe's career before you read or rip on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: One of Wolfe's Best!
Review: Ever wonder why pretty much all architecture after, say, 1945, is hideously ugly? This biting little treatise provides a tremendous explanation. You can read it in one sitting; you'll laugh out loud; and you'll never look at modern architecture quite the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother if you LIKE modern architecture
Review: For the rest of us who find cold, modern architecture to be...well...cold and modern, this book will briefly explain why you feel that way...and why some people seem to like it so much. It is a book that is clearly only skimming the surface (look at it sideways, how could it purport to be otherwise) but it's a fun surface to skim. I also wouldn't read this if you're a devout post-modernist. You'll find uncomfortable parallels between Wolfe's jabs at architecture and jabs others make a po-mos. A fun read that will enlighten someone who never hopes to be an "expert" on architecture, but would like to know why some God-awful, very expensive buildings ever got built.
Rating:
Summary: Wolfe Says What's On Your Mind
Review: Have you ever wondered why our architects became obsessed with building glass boxes in the sky when the more decorative styles of the past are so much more interesting to the eye? Wolfe takes on 20th century architecture in a way that is entertaining even to the layperson who knows nothing about the subject. He gets way inside any subject he writes about and examines it like a turbo-charged, pro-middle class, high IQ, red, white, and blue machine. The results are always entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Wolfe Says What's On Your Mind
Review: Have you ever wondered why our architects became obsessed with building glass boxes in the sky when the more decorative styles of the past are so much more interesting to the eye? Wolfe takes on 20th century architecture in a way that is entertaining even to the layperson who knows nothing about the subject. He gets way inside any subject he writes about and examines it like a turbo-charged, pro-middle class, high IQ, red, white, and blue machine. The results are always entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: It's to the doghouse for this one, Tom
Review: I know that Wolfe couldn't resist the temptation, but the sad fact is that he knows absolutely nothing about modern architecture. Where Jane Jacobs had a strong motive for her attack on Modern Architecture in "The Life and Death of American Cities," Wolfe is content to take glancing jabs at the Modernists. Jacobs' book had some punch, if somewhat misguided in her attack, and served as a rallying cry for New Yorkers to save their city from urban renewal. Here, Wolfe treats Modern Architecture as a passing fad that can now be roundly panned by critics for all its failures. Yet, Modern Architecture is inextricably woven into the fabric of the city and cannot be so easily removed and made fun of.
Rating:
Summary: It's to the doghouse for this one, Tom
Review: I know that Wolfe couldn't resist the temptation, but the sad fact is that he knows absolutely nothing about modern architecture. Where Jane Jacobs had a strong motive for her attack on Modern Architecture in "The Life and Death of American Cities," Wolfe is content to take glancing jabs at the Modernists. Jacobs' book had some punch, if somewhat misguided in her attack, and served as a rallying cry for New Yorkers to save their city from urban renewal. Here, Wolfe treats Modern Architecture as a passing fad that can now be roundly panned by critics for all its failures. Yet, Modern Architecture is inextricably woven into the fabric of the city and cannot be so easily removed and made fun of.
Rating:
Summary: Modern Architecture debunked
Review: I live a few blocks from the marble lollipops at 2 Columbus Circle: Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art. And as I read the impassioned articles in the New York Times about its impending destruction, I have wondered to myself "What is this strange building, and why do so many people care so deeply about it?". Tom Wolfe is just the man to tell me. And while he's at it, he put a whole field of endeavor into perspective. I grew up disliking the "modern" residences that disfigured Haddonfield New Jersey in the 1960s, but being too insecure to say so, and feeling vaguely uneasy about Waterfalls and puzzled about The Fountainhead. Wolfe to the rescue! It's short; it's sharp; it's funny; it's topical, still; it's entertaining. Buy it, read it and you'll never look at modern architecture in the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: So now I understand!
Review: I've always wondered who designed the latter. Now I know. Wolfe's view of these architects--if one wants to call them that--is that they were essentially elitist socialists who saw the common idiot as clay to be molded into the shoeboxes known as modern architecture. And he does this with style and humor. I also find him a better essayist than novelist (although that's not a knock at his novels). He discusses a housing project with which I am familiar--Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, a dozen-story shoebox that the working-class these architests so disdained was stuffed into. After not so many years, after the projects were destroyed, officials asked the remaining residents what they thought should be done with the building. Up rose the chant: "Blow them UP! Blow them Up! Blow them UP!" Which is exactly what happened to them. There is even a picture of the demolition in Wolfe's book. The problem with the architecture that Wolfe's discusses is that is essentially has no soul or individuality. How this type of design was ever taken seriously is beyond me.
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