From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe
From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe
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From Bauhaus to Our House

Author: Tom Wolfe

Narrator: Dennis McKee

Unabridged: 3 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/23/2026

Categories: Nonfiction, Architecture, Art

Synopsis

Walter Gropius, the "grandfather" of steel and glass, conceived his architectural vision in the rubble of WWI and the decadence of Weimar in the decade after. His doctrine found fertile soil in America, where it was time to adopt a new architecture that expressed our now stronger than ever national identity. But Gropius' minimalist ideals were in stark contrast to the actual spirit of the times. Today, Americans look on their own architecture with furrowed brow.In this engaging work of criticism founded on more than the sheer aesthetics of architecture, Tom Wolfe chronicles the trends of the form that ultimately brought us the ubiquitous and baffling "glass box" of modern commerce. In his hands, the strange saga of American architecture in the twentieth century becomes both high comedy and a fascinating journey through the social, political, and intellectual forces of the time.

About Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe (1931–2018) was the author of numerous books considered contemporary classics, including The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, among others, and several of his books have been made into major motion pictures. He was also a journalist and founder of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is credited with introducing such terms as “the right stuff,” “radical chic,” “the Me Decade,” and “good ol’ boy” into the English lexicon. A native of Richmond, he earned his BA degree at Washington and Lee University and a PhD in American studies at Yale.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lee on November 17, 2022

Fun to read Wolfe again for the first time since the late '80s or so. Such automatic energy and urbane knowingness and lists like this extended with "ands" instead of commas and exclamation points! Makes a funny point about the bourgeois not wanting to create bourgeois buildings but essentially dict......more

Goodreads review by Mark on September 13, 2015

The funny thing about Tom Wolfe is that for all of the hip edginess of his writing style, he’s actually a square. His writings were revolutionary, as he was one of the founders of New Journalism, but his own personal outlook is quite conservative. Wolfe may have gone along on a bus trip with Ken Kes......more

Goodreads review by Suzannah Rowntree on February 04, 2017

This is the first Tom Wolfe book I've read, and it's an absolute hoot. Wolfe is opinionated, caustic, funny, and completely irreverent - the perfect person to write a short and never-dull book on that unclad emperor, modern architecture. This book is for everyone who's ever wondered why, even though......more

Goodreads review by Damian on April 08, 2021

I found myself imagining this extended essay as a lost Ballard or Paul Scheerbart story as I read. A new edition of this book filled with colored plates and an appendix containing longer excerpts from the written works referred to would be welcome. Even better - a complete rewrite of the book as act......more

Goodreads review by Stetson on August 12, 2025

Ahhh, another Wolfe classic: From Bauhaus to Our House. Wolfe’s aimed this slim white missile aimed straight at the gleaming, glass-and-steel temples of 1970s American architecture. Here, the man in the cream white suit turns his eye not to astronauts or acid trippers or Wall Street buccaneers, but......more

Quotes

“Full of insight…marvelously right.” People

“Wolfe’s delightfully witty, biting history of modern architecture is a scintillating high comedy of big money, manners, and massive manipulation of public taste.” Publishers Weekly

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