Taking It Lying Down

While From Bauhaus to Our House mostly concerns the pretentiousness, ideology and snobbery of the American architectural establishment and the origins of its twentieth century culture, Wolfe also, from time to time, brings up an additional theme concerning the reaction of the communities that commissioned the architectural establishment's designs. Primarily American businesses, government and non-profits of a large size commissioned, in Wolfe's view, the hideous architectural designs that originates from the International Style architects and their descendents.

Wolfe cannot understand why these communities took the designs of the architects lying down. At one point in the book, Wolfe argues that the "working classes" hated the International Style. In one case, he reports a wide range of lower class people cheering when projects they had once lived in were demolished. The projects were built in the International Style and were considered by these people ugly and...