Crime and Ornamental by Adolf Loos

          After finish reading the article, This book is very interesting and really got my attention all the way through the last page. I immediately noticed the style of writing which is really different from Tom wolfe's style (the previous book that I have read). Adolf Loos has his own style of writing that I really like, it is quiet easy to understand and also very straight to the point. He has a very strong opinion towards "Ornaments" and really express it through his writing about his opinion and many strong examples to support his argument.

          I like the point that he really make me understand that period of time can cause such an amazing changes that can even turn normal things at that time into crime. There is an example which shows that in the past, writing on the wall is just one way for  to express and create styles which inspired our generations, but nowadays such an act are recognized as crime, we can see how valuable art has turned into just a crime. I believed that this can cause a really bad effects in the future, because doing so is also consist as creating an ornament. So, It is like we are losing an opportunity to create some impact to the generations after us.

          There are some of his opinions that I really disagree with, the first one is about what he said about ornaments, he implied that "Ornament is wasted of manpower and therefore wasted health. it has always been like this. But today it also means wasted materials". I completely think that the real point spending more time, energy and resources is to add more special value to it. Like what he said in the book that, those objects with even the smallest details are more valuable than those without any special details on it. We can really noticed in the museum, where those beautiful becomes more that just a waste of time, and transform into memorable and historical values that cannot be replaced. Also, due to the fact that I was born and raised as a Thai citizen where we really appreciate those hard work as a real value of the thing. I think that what he said about ornaments as "degenerate" not true at all.

          It is really nice to be able to learn from Loos, even there is something and I was disagree with, but I think it is because the fact that we are in the different period of time so, that is why our perspective are so unique in some point. This is also a very valuable lesson that may be in the future, my point of view will be considered as unique just like what Loos did to our generations. It is all about the future, we have no idea what it will turned to be, the best we can do is just keep guessing about it. Who knows may be what we consist as a "degeneration" today will become the most valuable piece of art in the near future.

          

Tom Wolfe - From Bauhaus to Our House

                 After I got a chance to read the book "From Bauhaus To Our House" by Mr. Tom Wolfe, I have never expect that this book will give me these much questions in my mind before. I have spend a lot of time on each page trying to understand all the text which is quiet hard to understand because of his unique style of writing, I think it may be one of the hardest book I have read so far. Even that, The book still gave me a lot of new perspectives and points of view to think about, some of them are very inspirational but also there are few of them that I am totally disagree with Mr. Tom Wolfe, mostly about how he express his opinion towards architecture in such an overly critical way.

                It is quite amazing how he was able to  criticized many well-known architects such as Mies van de Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright about their creations. It even more complicated due to the fact that Mr. Tom Wolfe himself is not even architect, I found it very interesting to see a man who didn't  study architecture, to  comments on buildings and architectures. Even though I still admire how he is able to have a great knowledge about architecture.

                Also, I found his opinion towards modern architecture, referred as "Glass Box" in the book, quite hard to except due to the fact that I personally liked it. I think it is personal opinion because it provides almost unlimited options for the users to be able to put whatever they preferred inside that space. But there is also a point that sometimes I agreed with him. he claimed that the "Glass Box" can also be an obstacle that really blocked new ideas and imaginations from the designers, which can be noticed in many areas around the country.

                 There is one point in the book that really caught my attention and suddenly become my favorite lesson from the book. "starting from zero", the phase that linked to the teaching where the book taught me about the soul of things. In the book, there are students tried to create their own piece of art by using newspaper, there are many amazing outcomes from those students, but the one that got picked is just a piece of paper folded to the tent. The story taught me that even this paper tent is the simplest but it is also the only one that really got the real characteristic (soul) of the paper, it express the true feelings of the paper.

                I think that it is a very interesting book to read, even it is a really confusing book but there are many great things that can be archived from it.