Architecture of Good Intentions

How can we begin to look back at modern architecture today? In this book, Colin Rowe leads us through the development of twentieth-century architecture designated as 'modern', in a series of essays which trace the themes of Epistemology, Eschatology, Iconography, Mechanism and Organism in their relation to architecture. The Architecture of Good Intentions is an attempt to articulate the complex of opinions, aims and visions promulgated at the beginning of this century, which, at the time, elicited a revolution in the art of building. In further studying the various climates of opinion back to their first visible adumbrations, Rowe offers a possibility of situating modern architecture within a historical, ideological and aesthetic tradition.

An insightful, lively and provocative analysis, reflecting the author's articulate passion fro modern architecture, The Architecture of Good Intentions is certain to be a key work for all architects and those with an interest in modern architecture and architectural aesthetics.