Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co investigate the evolution of modern architecture from its Enlightenment origins through the mid-1970s. Rather than presenting a sequence of stylistic triumphs, they analyze design through the lens of political economy and capitalist urbanization. The authors explain how the avant-garde attempted to organize social space and how those efforts were assimilated or neutralized by industrial systems. They focus on the dialectic between architectural form and institutional power, examining the development of the city as a productive machine through the work of figures like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and the masters of the Bauhaus.
This text serves scholars and students of architectural theory who require a rigorous ideological critique rather than a mere catalog of buildings. Readers obtain a framework for understanding how physical structures function as instruments of social planning and economic policy. The book provides the analytical tools to distinguish between the aesthetic intentions of an architect and the technical requirements of the urban market. Those who finish the volume gain an unsentimental perspective on the limitations of design within contemporary society.
- Published
- 1976
- Language
- EN
