The internet is filled with things. Here is one of them.
Book Review: From Bauhaus To Our House2025 Jan 4
Scott Alexander (pseudonymous author of high-readership blog Slate Star Code/Astral Codex Ten) is insightful and clever, if a bit "too online" for me to subscribe to outright. He's a psychologist by training and that's where he started blogging, but in the past decade his blog's contents have wandered anywhere and everywhere, with posts lengthy and frequent enough I don't understand how he would have time left enough to actually see patients.
Anyway. The post I've linked here is his book review of Tom Wolfe's 1981 critique of modern architecture, From Bauhaus to Our House, which has nothing to do with psychology (except, you know, the psychology of spaces, man) but is fascinating anyway. Fascinating because I don't possess the stamina to read a book-length Tom Wolfe critique of anything, but also because Alexander doesn't just regurgitate Wolfe's points but actually dissects them, prods them, pokes them to see whether they hold up to scrutiny. I can't say whether Alexander's being fair to the source material (as, again, I ain't reading that, and I know zilch about modern architecture) but I can say that I like that he's churned it into something which I can digest, and thus feel enlightened by despite doing none of the work of having to actually *shudder* read the damn thing. Thanks, Scott!
Scott Alexander (pseudonymous author of high-readership blog Slate Star Code/Astral Codex Ten) is insightful and clever, if a bit "too online" for me to subscribe to outright. He's a psychologist by training and that's where he started blogging, but in the past decade his blog's contents have wandered anywhere and everywhere, with posts lengthy and frequent enough I don't understand how he would have time left enough to actually see patients.
Anyway. The post I've linked here is his book review of Tom Wolfe's 1981 critique of modern architecture, From Bauhaus to Our House, which has nothing to do with psychology (except, you know, the psychology of spaces, man) but is fascinating anyway. Fascinating because I don't possess the stamina to read a book-length Tom Wolfe critique of anything, but also because Alexander doesn't just regurgitate Wolfe's points but actually dissects them, prods them, pokes them to see whether they hold up to scrutiny. I can't say whether Alexander's being fair to the source material (as, again, I ain't reading that, and I know zilch about modern architecture) but I can say that I like that he's churned it into something which I can digest, and thus feel enlightened by despite doing none of the work of having to actually *shudder* read the damn thing. Thanks, Scott!