Review: From Bauhaus to Ecohouse: A History of Ecological Design by Peder Anker

On the second page of From Bauhaus to Ecohouse: A History of Ecological Design, Peder Anker shares the life-altering experience that eventually caused him to write this important yet flawed account of ecological design in the twentieth century. As a Norwegian youngster, he traveled for a family vacation to the Epcot Center at Disney World, and he left Florida certain that that prototypical community of the future did not belong to his future. "This book is an attempt to come to terms with this ecological line of reasoning, and it proceeds according to my own trajectory from Europe to the United States," he writes (2). Anker's early admission alerts the reader that much of the book might be inflected by this distressing childhood experience, and such a suspicion is frequently reinforced. Despite this agenda-driven inquiry, From Bauhaus to Ecohouse reveals a...