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. 20 The author explainedthe nature and origin of modern art and architecture, presented the major representa-11 Francis R.Yerbury, Modern European Buildings, 5.Also see Scheffauer, Dynamic Architecture, 324, and Irving K.Pond, From Foreign Shores, 403.12 Scheffauer, Dynamic Architecture, 324.13 Walker, The Relation of Skyscrapers to Our Life, 694.14 Parker M.Hooper, Twentieth Century European Architecture, 209, and Howard T.Fisher, New Elements in House Design, 403.15 Museum of Modern Art, Machine Art, 1 37; Douglas Haskell, Grain Elevators and Houses, 486; and Fisher, New Elements in House Design, 403.16 Events in other European countries, such as Austria and Scandinavia, were noted, but not asconsistently or with such detail as for the countries mentioned above.17 Alfred H.Barr, Notes on Russian Architecture, 103, 105.18 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, The Architectural Work of J.J.P.Oud, 98, and Alfred H.Barr, Dutch Letter. 19 Robert Stern, Relevance of the Decade. 20 Theo van Doesburg, Evolution of Modern Architecture in Holland. 40 THE DISSEMINATION OF BAUHAUS IDEAStives of De Stijl, and outlined thegroup s principles in sixteen points.In 1928, Hitchcock wrote an articleon the work of Oud that appearedin The Arts.21 Articles in journalssuch as these reached only small butnonetheless significant audiences.Only a few years later, the large,established professional journalsbegan to publish articles on the DeStijl movement.22The English-language publi-cation of Le Corbusier s Vers unearchitecture was enormously influ-ential on the reception of Euro-pean modernism.23 At the time ofits publication in America, it wasnot an easily digested book: thespectrum of critical response ranged2.1 Le Corbusier during his first stay in the United States,from alienation and rejection to1930.From left to right: Henry-Russell Hitchcock, thearchitects Jacobs and Soby, Le Corbusier.(Photo from H.acceptance and acknowledgment.Searing, ed., In Search of Modern Architecture.)Hitchcock s review in ArchitecturalRecord in early 1928 referred to thebook s relationship to the Germanscene and to the architecture of the Bauhaus; the point of tangency he noted was theWeissenhof-Siedlung in Stuttgart.24It is safe to assume that increasing awareness of European avant-garde move-ments related to the Bauhaus helped to increase knowledge of the Bauhaus itself.Thenature of the image ascribed to the Bauhaus in the process is another story.The parallelreception of many modernist currents did not exclude recognition of their differences,but in some cases these differences were simply ignored.The great distance betweenthe centers of activity in Europe and the American audience also blurred them.Evenpeople who had visited the places and works in question did not always bring an au-thentic image home.This was especially true of the early years of European modernism sreception, when little was known in America about new developments and the rela-tionships among them.It is also possible that the Stuttgart Weissenhof-Siedlung,understood as an early vehicle for the introduction of the European avant-garde toAmerica, enhanced the tendency to gloss over differences.By juxtaposing architects ofdiverse persuasions, the exposition may have falsely propagated a sense of closure in the 41 IMPLICIT INFORMATIONEuropean movement.As revolutionary as this exposition was for American reception,it may also have misled its audience.Film Among those media in the United States that set the trends in aesthetic prefer-ence, film assumed particular importance in the twenties.Following the suc-cess of such films as The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, the medium was not only recognizedas a new art form, but the spaces and architecture it depicted became significant in thevisualization of the new metropolis.In film, fantastic visions of life in the metropoliscould be united with the desire for the modern in the new architecture of the metropo-lis.Cinema, as Luis Buñuel stated in 1927, had become the faithful translator of thearchitect s most daring dreams ; only in cinema could.one of the central utopias ofarchitectural modernism be realized, the belief that form and function could logicallyand clearly be conjoined. 25 The broad influence that the architectural images of thetwenties and thirties had on the audience is also discussed by Donald Albrecht:[The cinema of the twenties and thirties] offers a challenging new perspective on mod-ern architecture, as well as an unusual case study of how mass culture assimilates radi-cal visions in the arts.No vehicle provided as effective and widespread an exposureof imagery as the medium of the movies
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