Talk:From Bauhaus to Our House

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A fact from From Bauhaus to Our House appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 14 December 2007.
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[edit] POV tag

The "Critical response" section falls far short of compliance with Wikipedia:Neutrality. It very obviously reflects an assumption that pro-modernists are intellectually and culturally superior, and that their opponents are ignorant people who do not deserve respect. Beorhtric (talk) 19:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I utterly fail to see any statement even possibly implying such assumptions. Care to be more precise? Circeus (talk) 19:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
It is in almost every line:
  • Why is the viewpoint of the architectural establishment given priority? Of course they were hostile. Would you expect a positive response to a book attacking organised crime from the Mafia? This approach reflects the arrogance of the modernist establishment, in which outsiders are not considered fit to participate in a dialogue about architecture (and everything possible is done to ensure that no-one who does not support the establishment line can have a career in architecture). Scorn and intimidation are used as substitutes for reasoned debate, and we get buildings that most people hate. Beorhtric (talk) 20:07, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Hilton refuted "some" of Wolfe's points? Why only emphasise the disagreements? Why imply that Wolfe's style (which has made him one of the most praised journalists alive?) invalidates his arguments?
  • Why is it relevant that architecture was moving away from modernism to post-modernism? Wolfe was attacking modernism. This paragraph is an attempt to move the discussion away from the actual subject of the book.
  • Why choose patronising phrasing like "conceded that the book was, at the least, well-written". Wolfe is a famous prose stylist, so this is hardly a surprise. (I wonder how well written pro-modernist texts may be, and whether modernists would consider poor prose in a modernist text a damning criticism of modernist architecture?)
  • Why use the grudging word "conceded" in relation to concessions to Wolfe, when there is nothing grudging about the language in which attacks on him are reported.
Beorhtric (talk) 20:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I will work on improving the wording in this section. I cited my sources pretty extensively in the critical response section -- it hope it's clear that these are the critics opinions, not my own. One of my major sources is "The Critical Response to Tom Wolfe" which is a compendium written by a literature scholar (not architecture) which summarizes the tone of the critical response. I feel strongly that we must work from reliable published sources, and so if you know of different critical opinions, please add them here so we can work them into the article. --JayHenry (talk) 17:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)