The rise of modern architecture perhaps can be seen that it is the direct effect from the political and social point of view. As German at that time was crushed from the war and was humiliated from winners, the country itself and its people, in the state of a loser, possibly have to find some where in a stand point to grab. This means to become a socialist and anti-bourgeois. The suffocation from the collapse of economy and inflation, together with the ruins from the war brought the country down to the ground. This was probably the moment when the saying ‘start from the zero’ came about and Gropius was smart enough to take a hold of it.
The building Worker House, claimed to be ‘the new architecture for the workers’, ‘the perfect worker housing’ has a gold of rejecting ‘all things bourgeois’ (pg.17). Gropius and other architects such as Mies van der Rohe and J.J.P Oud as leaders were supported by Social Democrats in both Germany and Holland. In favor of the government who was trying to create a socialist society of equality and brotherhood, the building probably was well advertised. This could be one of the factors why Gropius and his crew were so successful at redefining beauty in architecture. The question is –
With all the support of the high authority and with the very few eyes of the young architects who were eager to re-create the world, what is beauty? And what exactly is non-bourgeois when the messengers of the non-bourgeois are not really the non-bourgeois?
The beauty in this case is a result from the intellectual fashion and the right moment to be born. Due to the political and social attachment, it can just be a pure political tool, an art of controlling or a depiction, an adaptation or a rebel after the lost –‘We’re independent of the bourgeois society around us!’ (pg.18).
From the book, the beauty is also used in relation to one of the non-bourgeois theory of using honest materials for they are what they are. Gropius finds purity and beauty of architecture in the honesty in the use of materials. For him the structure needs to be expressed. This means to strip the outer skin, the ornamental façade of buildings to show their bones or to leave them bare skin and say good-bye false facades so people can know that it’s the steel or metal or concrete they are using. As the definition of beauty is various depend on people’s perspectives, Gropius building, like the Worker Housing, which he and his crew really appreciate, can possibly be nothing far from a peeled apple that is left on a table for the workers.
The beauty can actually be an odd as the idea was so new and simple that it became strikingly remarkable for viewers.
Criticizing on the meaning of the non-bourgeois, based on the book, it is odd to learn that the Worker House which was built to be ‘the perfect work housing’ was complaint by the workers and the architects’ response were to reply ‘ they had to be reeducate’. This raised a question of what is the real meaning of non-bourgeois and whom it is for as the establisher of this idea have decent salary, were well educated and are not ‘intellectually undeveloped’ (pg. 32).
"Uncontrolled Vocabularies » Blog Archive » Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus To Our House."Uncontrolled Vocabularies. Web. 23 Jan. 2011.
"May 18." Steve's Pages. Web. 23 Jan. 2011.
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