Over the last half century, the historiography of the Modern movement has grown increasingly complex. Where the development of Modern architecture was once presented as a coherent linear story, it is now understood to encompass a variety of overlapping and interwoven tendencies. A dominant narrative has been replaced by analysis and interpretation of competing directions, revealing the tensions and controversies that shaped the architecture of the 20th century. With the wide-ranging scholarship of recent years, historians have been challenged to account for a greater number of events, architects, buildings, texts and other influences that have been found to be significant.
The Future of Architecture Since 1889, Jean-Louis Cohen's new history of the Modern movement, rises to this challenge—addressing an extraordinary range of architectural achievement and showing how the architecture of the 20th century was shaped by art, technology, urbanism, and theory. Seminal figures, such as Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies, Gropius, and Kahn, still play key roles, but are surrounded by a large number of lesser-known figures who were omitted from many previous histories. Cohen, who teaches architectural history at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, gives prominent attention to work in Western Europe and the United States, but also looks at the spread of Modern architecture across the globe to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and post-colonial Asia and Africa. He broadens his focus even further to include directions often considered retrograde, such as the versions of Classicism adopted by totalitarian Germany and Russia.
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