The Age Of Reason
James Howard Kunstler begins chapter four “Eden Updated,” with the suburban developments of today that arose from the idea that neither the city nor the country was a really suitable place to live. He continues to point out the difference between American and European cities. He states that American cities did not develop the same way as those in the Old War. The devices in civic design that had adorned Europe did not correspond with American property ownership, which put little value in the public realm. The Age of Reason interposed with its program for organizing knowledge and demonstrating the truths of science. The Age of Reason has came to be known as Romanticism. It started in Europe in the 1700s as a movement in literature and the arts
…show more content…
The first way is by divorcing the practice of building from the history and traditional meanings of buildings. The second is known as the promoting a species of urbanism that destroyed age-old social arrangements and with them, urban life as a general proposition. The third is by creating a physical setting for man that failed to respect the limits of scale, growth, and the consumption of natural resources, or to respect the lives of other living things. Kunstler characterizes the utopian-socialist ideas of the Bauhaus architects, who would eventually have a great impact on America. They had romanticized the machine and embraced the growing mechanization of life as a wonderful development. He also mentions Le Corbusier in this regard and his belief that “the house is a machine for living.” These architects fled to America when Hitler came to power because they were anti-Hitler. They both became part of the cultural establishment of America. They were in a period of considerable industrial and residential development after World War II, these architects and their “vision” had an inordinate influence. Philip Johnson is mentioned as a discipline of one of the architects that was connected with what was called “The International Style.” It made a revealing admission in an 1989 interview.
The first way is by divorcing the practice of building from the history and traditional meanings of buildings. The second is known as the promoting a species of urbanism that destroyed age-old social arrangements and with them, urban life as a general proposition. The third is by creating a physical setting for man that failed to respect the limits of scale, growth, and the consumption of natural resources, or to respect the lives of other living things. Kunstler characterizes the utopian-socialist ideas of the Bauhaus architects, who would eventually have a great impact on America. They had romanticized the machine and embraced the growing mechanization of life as a wonderful development. He also mentions Le Corbusier in this regard and his belief that “the house is a machine for living.” These architects fled to America when Hitler came to power because they were anti-Hitler. They both became part of the cultural establishment of America. They were in a period of considerable industrial and residential development after World War II, these architects and their “vision” had an inordinate influence. Philip Johnson is mentioned as a discipline of one of the architects that was connected with what was called “The International Style.” It made a revealing admission in an 1989 interview.