Wolfe writes, “It was more than a school it was a commune, a spiritual movement. “The Silver Prince,” as the first chapter is titled, refers to Walter Gropius, who, in 1919, founded the Bauhaus school of architecture in Weimar, Germany. He argues that the austere International Style of architecture was ill-suited to post-war America, where the booming economy encouraged indulgent consumption and lavish lifestyles. Laying the blame for America’s bland modern buildings at the door of Europe’s architectural “compounds,” Wolfe lambasts the follies of Germany’s Bauhaus movement and regrets its mid-century migration to America.
Tom Wolfe’s 1981 book-length essay, From Bauhaus to Our House, is a trenchant critique of 20th-century architecture’s “glass-box” aesthetic.
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