Baldness and Modernism is book that studies iconic Bauhaus bald heads. It derives from a not-totally-serious book by Alison and Peter Smithson, Heroic Period of Modern Architecture (1981) which limited modernism to the period 1915–1929.
This fiction is re-contextualised here with studies of iconic Bauhaus bald heads (Schlemmer, Itten, etc.), laid out here as Part 1, Literal Baldness. Part 2 is Phenomenal Baldness, which unwinds the Bauhaus narrative put about by Walter Gropius that has held water for 100 years. According to Peter Smithson, 'Spin doctor Gropius manipulated his Bauhaus successes into a cornerstone of post WW2 modernism. Cracks in this story are now emerging along with the fact that Gropius was in hindsight, not a very good architect. Attacks on the Bauhaus like those by Rudolph Schwartz or Tom Wolfe as well as a comprehensive list of Gropius hand-holders, and those edited out of his narrative are here explored. To conclude Gropius is compared to his contemporary Bruno Taut, a far more interesting and talented architect.'
This book, as with Peter Wilson’s previous Bedtime Stories for Architects or Some Reasons for Traveling to Italy, is written in the same anecdotal style, savouring Shandyisms and the quirks of history.
