No comments about Exploring Ottawa: An Architectural Guide to the Nation's Capital.

1 comments about Bauhaus Culture: From Weimar To The Cold War.

1. The Bauhaus was the site of one of the most influential experiments in the art world, moving from Germany at the turn of the century to 1933 Berlin and offering an alternative to state-sponsored fine arts academies. Today modern art still holds elements of Bauhaus tradition and thus BAUHAUS CULTURE: FROM WEIMAR TO THE COLD WAR offers essays from art scholars analyzing accomplishments of the Bauhaus and adding the history essential to a thorough understanding of its unique role in the arts. Other books on the topic review Bauhaus artistic results: BAUHAUS culture is the other side of the spectrum: essential for an understanding not only of the art works and artists, but for the underlying culture which spawned them.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch

1 comments about An Aesthetic Occupation: The Immediacy of Architecture and the Palestine Conflict.

1. In light of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, Monk's An Aesthetic Occupation offers an enlightening perspective on the tired discourse of recrimination and counter-recrimination that has guided the Palestine conflict for over a hundred years. Monk's analysis of architecture as the focus of the accusations fired from both sides does not recreate the rhetoric of the historical actors he engages. Rather, as Monk himself would put it, his book is a history of the history of how architecture has been deployed in the conflict. And as such, the book both gets at the very emptiness of the ideologies that drive this conflict, and demonstrates the eternal return of that emptiness as both sides re-invoke architecture as the epicenter of historical ethnic claims on the land. In this, we need only remind ourselves that the current violence was sparked by Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in the autumn of 2000, in a blatant disregard (and repetition) of a history of ideological discourse about architecture and ownership of place that goes back at least to General Charles Gordon, the nineteenth-century British imperialist with whom Monk begins his study.

   In short, this is an excellent book, excellent because it is able to articulate and theorize the discursive and aesthetic apparatus in which Middle Eastern politics of the conflict have been caught. Monk does not offer explicit solutions out of that morass, but one is still forced to believe that enlightenment and analysis are the first step toward a solution. It is here that Monk's book offers something for the present and for the future.

No comments about Verb Matters.

1 comments about Building the New World: Modern Architecture in Latin America.

1. From the very beginning, Europe's modernist architects had a burning need to prostelitize about the benefits of their new architectural style. Their socialist message of modernity with its emphasis on form following function, simplicity and economy found an eager audience in Latin America during the first half of the Twentieth Century.
   
   "Building the New World" follows the rise of modernist architecture in Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil with a special emphasis on the ideas of Le Corbusier. These countries became world leaders in the advancement of the modernist agenda. At the time, Latin America's modernist architecture was admired throughout the world. Today, Latin America's contribution to modern architecture is almost unknown outside of the region. Valerie Fraser does a good job of raising the question of what happened to this acclaim. Unfortunately, she does not do a decent job of answering the question which she posits at the beginning of her book.
   
   In the end, "Building the New World" is nothing more than a cursory survey of Latin American modernist architecture. The illustrations are meager and the analysis is superficial. The only good thing that I recommend about this book is that it can purchased used for around five dollars. There is not alot written in English about this period of architectural history and anyone who is interested in the period will probably have to purchase this book. Purchase a used copy. In addition, avoid Carlos Brillembourg's "Latin American Architecture 1929-1960", an even less substantial work of architectural history.

No comments about Denys Lasdun.

1 comments about Casa Colombiana.

1. This book is filled by spectacular photographs of exceptional houses in Colmbia. It demonstrates the incredible range of architecture suited to the variety of terrains of this beautiful country.

   It is a "must" on the coffee tables for anybody who has lived in Colombia. Any architects or people interested in tropical architecture can find inspiration here.

2 comments about From Bauhaus to Our House.

1. I am apparently getting really good at randomly picking up books that few people have reviewed. I picked this one up randomly which seems appropriate.
   
   I found this and put it up on top of my monitor. It's a small book and is about architecture and I glanced inside and decided it was worth the time to read it. I picked it up yesterday and started through the 126 pages.
   
   Wolfe is a clever writer. In this book he talks a lot about the architecture schools of the first half of the twentieth century. He goes forward from there and discusses them with biting humor and satire.
   
   Wolfe's writing is sarcastic but seeks to stick to modern given definitions. "Bauhaus" looks at the way modern architecture is a response to the bourgeois. The way the Bauhaus saw bourgeois, it was a dirty word. It is used as an epithet throughout the book.
   
   Merriam Webster defines bourgeois as:
   
   1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of the townsman or of the social middle class
   
   2 : marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity
   
   3 : dominated by commercial and industrial interests : capitalistic
   
   The Bauhaus sought to run away from the bourgeois, but with Wolfe's description of bourgeois, the architecture schools seem to embrace it on many levels.
   
   The book is dominated by the evolution of architectural "compounds" such as that founded by Walter Gropius in Germany in the Bauhaus school. The concept of the "group" drove out the individual response to innovation which reminds me so strongly of my very favorite book The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. The similarities to Rand's text and the actualities promoted by the Bauhaus group as detailed by Wolfe are disconcerting. The comparison between the two is my own opinion, not that of Wolfe.
   
   The Bauhaus group fled Germany because of the great war and came to American where they were established quickly as the shining light of modern design. Gropius himself is referred to as The Silver Prince. Wolfe's narrative talks about the self absorption of these architects and their ability to shove their concept of what was good down the throats of anyone who wanted to build something special. According to Wolfe, American architecture put itself inside the unornamented "box" of modernist thought.
   
   Wolfe does not pull punches. He runs riot over the schools of architecture that want to pull meaning away from original and individual thought and give impetus to the group. Wolfe uses much sarcasm to show that the Modernists are as guilty of conforming as those they accuse.
   
   This book laments the loss of beaux-arts crafting and ornamentation. They are casualties because they serve the individual rather than society as a whole.
   
   The Bauhaus draws much of its early success from "public housing projects." These buildings seem to lean toward the lowest common denominator. Promoting clean lines, the buildings also seem to promote a monotony and cheapness. Anyone who disagreed with this "groupthink" would be accused of the heinous crime of being bourgeois.
   
   If one looks at American architecture prior to the 1980's one will see the "boxes" so loved by the modernists. How many of us have looked at the tall glass boxes in modern cities and wondered "How hard was that to design?"
   
   Wolfe details some of the conflict between Gropius and friends who were European imports and Frank Lloyd Wright who was a truly American invention. In this book there are quite a few photographs. One of them is of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Robie House." It looks so cutting edge modern, and when I checked the date I was astonished to find that it is a hundred years old. How cool is that?
   
   The book evolves into a philosophical and semantic discussion that loses its edge toward the end. There is some celebration of the newer generation of architects that dared defy The Silver Prince and company. Philip Johnson and Richard Meier (architect of the Getty Museum) are discussed as the young rabble rousers who defy the Modernists but still ascribe to many of their virtues.
   
   This text is challenging. It assumes that the reader has some knowledge of architecture and architectural history. I'm fortunate in that. I teach Art History so I didn't have to struggle to make a lot of connections.



2. As you drive through your city, certain blocks seem bleak, don't they? This book exposes why those ugly buildings got built. Wolfe explains the dynasty that coerced architects, company executives, and city planners into a drab simplicity with a political agenda.
   While the architecture under discussion has passed, I recommend this book for activists who fight ugly real estate development in their neighborhood nests.

1 comments about Le Corbusier.

1. This book really gives you an insight into one of Architecture's greats. I bought it to get a general idea of Corb's work, not because it fascinated me, but, as an architecture graduate, because I thought I should. This book opened Corb's work to me.
   
   It gives a chronological view of the man's life and work. It features great photos and drawings of his most important works, and some of his less well known ones too. The writing is done so well, giving an insight into Corb's theories and explaining how and why each project came about.
   
   I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in architecture who wants to know a bit more about the history of 20th century design, and the impact that Le Corbusier had.

No comments about Architectural Principles in the Age of Historicism.