Vidler writes in his introduction:
In the following essays, I have interrogated the struggle for an urban architecture in the modern period, its critiques and aspirations, in the belief that understanding the historical dimensions of the debate will lead to a renewal of interest in an architecture calculated to redeem, if only partially, our “planet of slums” and its deteriorating environment; an interest that will not simply reject “utopia” out of hand or fall back into the complacencies of nostalgia. Written during a period in which the debates themselves were actively engaged by critics and supporters of modernism, they reflect contemporary issues as they search for their prehistory. As historical inquiries, they inevitably also engage the transformations in history writing itself since 1970, intellectual responses to the social and political conditions of postwar modernity.
This fascinating series of essays on issues and figures is an invaluable resource for architects and art historians and enthusiasts of structure and substance alike.
About the Author
Vidler received his B.A. in Architecture and Fine Arts and his Diploma in Architecture from Cambridge University, England, and his Ph.D. from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He has been on the faculty of the Princeton University School of Architecture and the University of California, Los
Angeles. Vidler has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he was a Getty Scholar at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in 1992–93.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.