Tag Archives: Walter Gropius

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 →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

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 →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

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 →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Architecture’s Three Stooges

Posted on September 30, 2018 by David Brussat

Theodore Dalrymple, a British physician, psychiatrist and theorist of society, culture and design, has written a review of James Stevens Curl’s new book Making Dystopia for the New English Review. Dalrymple calls the book “essential, uncompromising, learned,” and especially devastating … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Modern architecture is crazy

Posted on January 28, 2018 by David Brussat

Among the most recent revelations of science in the service of architecture is that three of the most eminent founders of modern architecture suffered from mental illness. Le Corbusier was on the autism spectrum while Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Old mods hard-wired to ugly

Posted on August 23, 2017 by David Brussat

The two buildings above say all that needs to be said, really, about why traditional architecture is superior to modern architecture. Still, it is crucial to understand why modern architecture emerged in the first half of the last century, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

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

Reflect the Pan-Am Building

Posted on March 5, 2016 by David Brussat

Few things are, I believe, more ridiculous than the frequent claim that glass buildings “reflect their context” by mirroring their neighborhoods in their glass façades. It does not happen, or even seem to happen, except when the sun is just … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Plecnik capitals you can see

Posted on March 25, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is that page of column capitals disambiguated from the shot taken and sent to TradArch by Angelo Gueli yesterday and posted in a cropped and undisambiguated (I think that’s a word) by me. The photos were too small for … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Column: Modern architecture’s coup d’etat

Posted on February 27, 2014 by David Brussat

How did modern architecture suddenly replace the traditional architecture that, by the 20th century, offered a wide variety of joyful styles to house human activity? Why, in just three decades, were three millennia of beauty replaced so entirely by ugliness … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments