Rating: 
Summary: FALSE 'GODS' OF ARCHITECTURE THROWN DOWN FROM OLYMPUS
Review: This polemic is a landmark work and should be required reading of any would-be architect to demystify the god-like aura he will be introduced to regarding certain architects of the past. Mr. Wolfe lays the parallel between the pretensions masquerading as art in his earlier seminal work, "The Painted Word", and that of the lofty pretensions of modern architecture, a means to generate lots of money without any real regard to beauty. Within a few chapters and just 128 pages of the softbound (including several dozen black and white photos), he skillfully and unabashedly strips the "clerisies" of the "Silver Prince," the "White Gods," and the "Scholastics" of their reams of air-head theories of 'buildings for the working class' to show the bald pretensions of those seeking not art, but self-adoration!I treasure my copy of the 1982 pocket book edition with a cover showing a model of the author (in his signature white suit, of course) standing and leaning against a model of a Victorian townhouse complete with the usual porches, turrets and dormer, in preference to the model of a modern and soulless, detailless 'glass block' building next to him. In a rapid and learned language, the author skewers the enormous egos, the blasé pretensions and the artless greed of our modern architects and developers as no on else can. He shows how an intellectual vogue of the 1920s beginning in the Bauhaus of reconstruction Germany found several variations and warpings with new materials and cheaper construction methods to create the 'glass box skyscrapers' with their flat roofs so characteristic of post World War II construction. One would think that to design an efficient building that is somewhat beautiful and within budget would be enough to satisfy any real architect, but here is shown that these would-be 'gods' preferred to build around themselves a worshiping school of acolytes so awed by these silver-tongued devils and so bereft of their own originality, that they caused the architecture schools to elevate these opportunists to an 'Olympus of Architects' from which Mr. Wolfe duly dethrones these supposed 'kings.' This reviewer is an admirer of that uniquely American form of architecture: the Movie Palace, a structure type that these 'elevated' "White Gods" would not even deign to call 'architecture,' so I am delighted that so clever a writer and perceptive a critic took on the task of setting history straight: the ornamentation that we all naturally love DOES belong in and on our buildings as part of the reflection of how God chose to ornament the acme of all architecture, the Earth itself, with flowers and such not directly needed in its superstructure. Form may follow function, but as here pointed out so skillfully, it does not mean that 'Naked is beautiful' in buildings. While it can be argued that as long as mankind ever more concentrates in squalid megalopolises, it will be necessary to build towering glass boxes to achieve the best use of limited space at a cost a developer can afford. I for one hope to avoid any megalopolis that alienates men from the true God and inflates the egos of man-made 'gods' to darken our lives with tasteless structures of profit only to the rich. Ironically, Mr. Wolfe chooses to reside in New York City with his family and every day must confront the ugly congestion of an 'urban forest' of buildings that block the sun from his life, but evidently not from his heart. In the finale, he heralds a halting return to ornamented structures and even admires some of the achievements of such diverse designers as Frank Lloyd Wright and John Portman, so he leaves one with hope that the fawning adoration of the Bauhaus and its descendents will wane, and that High Tech will cease to be 'High Ugly.' Let us rally to this call for a return to artistry and realize that to repeat the past of European architectural standards is not regression, but a realization that even in new materials of today we can continue to achieve the fine dimensions and proportions of human-scaled cities of ornamental beauty that were realized by our forefathers. (Matthew 23:27)
Rating: 
Summary: Wolfe tries to make us care about Modern Architecture
Review: Tom Wolfe focuses a jaundiced eye on the sphere of 20th Century Architecture in this slender volume. More a historical summary than an artistic statement, Wolfe examines how socio-economic forces led to the formation of the European art compounds of the twenties, and follows how they led to the state of architecture in America as it existed when this book was written, at the close of the 1970's. The major players are portrayed as arrogant, untalented, and self-serving theorists who have no interest in pleasing the hard-working, money-grubbing bourgeoisie, who after all, are paying to have these structures built, and there is no attempt to garner our sympathy by humanizing them in any way. Fans of Wolfe will already be familiar with this formula, and may still appreciate his caustic views on the topic, but this book is rather too superficial to be good scholarship, and as entertainment, it's only as captivating as its subject matter.As a writer, Wolfe is Wolfe, and can not be faulted for his irreverent style, his mastery of sarcasm, and his delightful ability to ferret out anything that smells of authoritarian doubletalk. Himself a master of the written word, he is never shy about ridiculing the nonsense that has often passed for scholarship in this field, but is this the fault of the writers, or merely an inadequacy of language itself? As Frank Zappa has pointed out, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture", and writing about architecture probably can't be much more effective. A structure has to be seen to be appreciated, and the dozen or so plates included in this book seem far too few for so essentially visual a medium. In particular, Wolfe's basic premise, that all the architecture of the past fifty years is dull and repetitive, would have been better served by page after page of ugly, cookie-cutter building projects that passed as great architecture. Disclaimer: no one old enough to actually remember the seventies has any less knowledge of modern architecture than this reviewer, who not only has relatively little interest in the subject, but is notoriously unobservant at the macro level, generally. The relevance, of course, is that anyone who has strong opinions (positive or negative) about modern architecture, or any architecture, for that matter, will surely find this book more interesting than I did.
Rating:
Summary: Wolfe tries to make us care about Modern Architecture
Review: Tom Wolfe focuses a jaundiced eye on the sphere of 20th Century Architecture in this slender volume. More a historical summary than an artistic statement, Wolfe examines how socio-economic forces led to the formation of the European art compounds of the twenties, and follows how they led to the state of architecture in America as it existed when this book was written, at the close of the 1970's. The major players are portrayed as arrogant, untalented, and self-serving theorists who have no interest in pleasing the hard-working, money-grubbing bourgeoisie, who after all, are paying to have these structures built, and there is no attempt to garner our sympathy by humanizing them in any way. Fans of Wolfe will already be familiar with this formula, and may still appreciate his caustic views on the topic, but this book is rather too superficial to be good scholarship, and as entertainment, it's only as captivating as its subject matter. As a writer, Wolfe is Wolfe, and can not be faulted for his irreverent style, his mastery of sarcasm, and his delightful ability to ferret out anything that smells of authoritarian doubletalk. Himself a master of the written word, he is never shy about ridiculing the nonsense that has often passed for scholarship in this field, but is this the fault of the writers, or merely an inadequacy of language itself? As Frank Zappa has pointed out, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture", and writing about architecture probably can't be much more effective. A structure has to be seen to be appreciated, and the dozen or so plates included in this book seem far too few for so essentially visual a medium. In particular, Wolfe's basic premise, that all the architecture of the past fifty years is dull and repetitive, would have been better served by page after page of ugly, cookie-cutter building projects that passed as great architecture. Disclaimer: no one old enough to actually remember the seventies has any less knowledge of modern architecture than this reviewer, who not only has relatively little interest in the subject, but is notoriously unobservant at the macro level, generally. The relevance, of course, is that anyone who has strong opinions (positive or negative) about modern architecture, or any architecture, for that matter, will surely find this book more interesting than I did.
Rating: 
Summary: thin but insightful
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: brilliant style, content lacking credibility
Review: Tom Wolfe, in this book, makes the same basic mistake as Karl Marx. He figured out what he wanted to say, researched it and made all his observations and all the facts concerning the subject fit his original idea. It really should be the other way around. I think Wolfe probably woke up one morning with a grudge against modern architects and decided to write this pamphlet attacking them and their buildings. While it is true that modern architecture has made some gigantic and monstrous mistakes, it has also produced some exceptional buildings. Norman Foster and Richard Rogers (to name only two of a wide range of very talented contemporary architects) would never be erecting HSBC or Lloyd's buildings if Le Corbusier and Gropius and Mies van der Rohe hadn't existed. In one instance, Wolfe criticises the latter for the Seagram building, claiming that it is full of contradictions to the Bauhaus rules. Perhaps, but the Seagram building is an architectural classic and it helped pave the way for a generation of sexy edifices. However, some of Wolfe's attacks are well founded. It is true that the Bauhaus architects believed themselves to be intellectual giants and that some of their ideas were spectacular and costly blunders (Will somebody please tear down Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation in Marseille?)Yet Wolfe strikes again with his brilliant idiosyncratic style that makes one forget the shallowness of his argument or the fact that it seems he bears a grudge against these people. It's a good book, it will make you laugh out loud and if you don't know much about architecture, it's a good start to get acquainted with the names of the main players and the buildings they designed.
Rating: 
Summary: Boo! Hiss!
Review: What an ugly, unsatisfying screed. Wolfe seems to believe that by piling on the exclamation points, the repetition, the mockery, and the intentional philistinism, he can convince us that everything in modern architecture is a sham. His style is the first instance of his colossal failure to hit a very, very broad target. I am no fan of the glass box, I pretty much hate it. But I would never convince myself that its designers were acting in bad faith. This pamphlet is one long sneer at the supposed bad faith of modern architecture. As if they were trying to pull something over on the public. Without one shred of evidence. There is plenty to document the pretension of modern architecture, which in itself is no great sin. So, unable to note this aspect of the work -- for Wolfe is quite pretentious himself -- he taunts the men for not really believing in principles Wolfe does not share. So, for failing to miss the target, dock him three points. For writing like a 5th grader, dock him another two.
Rating:
Summary: Great! but...
Review: Wolfe hits the nail on the head with most of this book. But I also agree with the reviewer who says that he generalizes too much. Granted, he does give Wright due praise, but he seems to lump the rest of the modernists together as if they were all the same (Kahn is treated as just another International disciple and Aalto is conveniently left out altogether). I disagree with a lot of his analysis of early modern architecture, and I happen to think some of the ideas of the Bauhaus guys were very important. But any Corbu-bashing is music to my ears; his late work in particular is just hideous and anyone who doesn't admit at least that much has to be hiding behind pretentious theories or hero-worship. The real prize of the book is Wolfe's excellent take on postmodernism. He basically confirms the suspicion that today's artists are pulling the wool over our eyes, and he exposes the blatant stupidity and intellectualization of Venturi and his cronies. A great read, lots of fun!
Rating:
Summary: a showpiece rant
Review: Wolfe's little book is actually an extended polemic against the Bauhaus school and all its offshoots in architecture and design. Although never boring, I found nothing new here. In fact, I found several direct steals from Robert Hughes's landmark SHOCK OF THE NEW (1980), the book and teleseries which came out the year before Wolfe wrote his little screed. I'd advise anyone interested in pursuing the iconoclast's case against modern architecture to check out this earlier work as well.
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