From Bahaus to Our House

Bahaus to our House was an interesting book. While reading I didn’t know what exactly what was going on it just sounded like a lot of negative critiquing. It was when I finished and put all of the pieces together that I realized what the book was really about. The critiquing seemed to be what the architects of that time were experiencing and what pushed them from one scene to the next. When a type or techniques of architecture were criticized the architects would fix it and move on. There were so many different styles in the past 50 years and it is interesting to see the changes and why things changed. I thought it was interesting that Europeans didn’t like the skyscrapers and just straight up insulted them. Stepping back I can see why, the skyscrapers were more engineering marvels than they were architectural art. Architects and engineers were starting to become separate fields and the European architects didn’t like it or appreciate it. Americans seemed to be more on the power side and wanted to create bigger and better things so they created the tallest building in the world. I can relate to this especially directly following a war and when the United States is the up and coming world power. The Europeans were more into the art aspect and connecting with their roots that went on for centuries.

Other parts of the book were interesting as well. I thought that the part where Wright punked Gropius was quite funny. To have someone come up to shake your hand and then just basically say you’re here for this purpose so leave when you are done would be hilarious to me. Gropius was a man of influence too so the significance of that moment would be huge. This also showed the distaste and bitterness that the battle of architecture resulted in. The critiques that one architect would put on another or that even other critics would compare one to undoubtedly made some people bitter. Overall From Bahaus to Our House was a book that I enjoyed more when I finished it. Not that I didn't enjoy the read but when I put together the information that it had I enjoyed it more than while I was actually reading it.