Tag Archives: Bauhaus

Professor Curl’s revenge

Posted on January 27, 2023 by David Brussat

1933 competition entry by Mies van der Rohe for new Reichsbank. (Stevens Curl collection) Since the publication of his masterly evisceration of modernist architecture in 2018, Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism, James Stevens Curl has … Continue reading →

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More pause please, Newport

Posted on September 14, 2020 by David Brussat

Faced with a development proposal to replace the Newport Grand casino, the City by the Sea recently placed a moratorium on development in order to suck its elegant thumb about its development guidelines. Bloomberg CityLab published a lengthy article, “History … Continue reading →

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Why villains love modernism

Posted on January 8, 2020 by David Brussat

The title of the CNN website’s feature article is actually “Why movie villains love modern architecture,” but my headline asks a more pertinent question. It’s not just movie villains but actual villains whose architectural taste flies in the face of … Continue reading →

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A “cauldron of perversions”

Posted on November 1, 2019 by David Brussat

I did a double-take when I saw, in Metropolis, the article “Far From Being a Temple to Rationality, the Bauhaus Was a Cauldron of Perversions,” by Beatriz Colomina. Of course, I knew that already, having read “Making Dystopia,” James Stevens … Continue reading →

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The trenches of modernism

Posted on July 3, 2019 by David Brussat

Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus school, died fifty years ago today. A new biography is out, Gropius: The Man Who Built the Bauhaus, by Fiona MacCarthy. Two major houses published it simultaneously, Faber & Faber in the U.K. … Continue reading →

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Betsky barks at the Bauhaus

Posted on June 17, 2019 by David Brussat

Some might not realize that Aaron Betsky has added to his role as critic for Architect magazine that of director of Taliesin West, the architecture school founded in 1932 by Frank Lloyd Wright and his third wife, Olgivanna. Amid the … Continue reading →

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Wee wow for Bauwauhauses

Posted on April 27, 2018 by David Brussat

“Mutts-have: Architects create luxury kennels for charity auction” is the headline of this story by Guardian critic Oliver Wainwright. “Mutts-have”? … I’m sorry, that really does not cut the mustard. Mutts-have ≠ must-have. And if you glide down the complement of … Continue reading →

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Perils of architecture school

Posted on June 12, 2017 by David Brussat

Common/Edge is a website about architecture. All of the essays are written well, but many seem to try to have it both ways about the battle over style in architecture. So I’m not quite sure how Prof. Nikos Salingaros managed … Continue reading →

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From Bauhaus to Coolhaus

Posted on October 3, 2016 by David Brussat

  The definition of “to brand” must be to promote a product as the opposite of what it is. For example, take Coolhaus Ice Cream. It riffs on the Bauhaus, the Weimar German cult of artists from which emerged modern … Continue reading →

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Hitler’s revenge on America

Posted on June 8, 2016 by David Brussat

The journal Places has published, as the inaugural installment in its Future Archive series of forgotten writing of the past century, a 1968 essay for Art in America by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy called “Hitler’s Revenge.” The essay is introduced by Despina … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments