Class and Architecture

[Redistribute the Rep]

I've become interested in architecture recently. Might the historical architecture movements be related to class antagonisms, and how so?

[Creative Destruction]

The three styles I'm most familiar with (Bauhaus, Arts & Crafts and American Craftsman/Missionary) are based on trying to transcend class antagonisms. Arts & Crafts was a response to the industrial bourgeoisie of the Victorian age, where they thought that the working class was being robbed of income and creativity through industrial capitalism. The Craftsman movement took half that tack, but recognized the usefulness of individualism, but sought to provide a quality aesthetic style that middle-working class folks could afford. (Both of these are very much linked to the small scale artisan and middle class, much like Proudhonism was.) Bauhaus was a complement to industrial style, but looked to strip away German bourgeois excess in architecture, typography and what not. It was developed at the end of the 1919 German revolution and had many communists among the ranks.