Modern Architecture - A Critical History

A masterpiece of modern architectural history is now in Turkish!

Kenneth Frampton's comprehensive work, Modern Architecture - A Critical History, which marked a turning point by bringing a new paradigm to architectural historiography, has taken its place among the books that Arketon has brought to Turkish architectural literature. Frampton expanded the scope of his work to a global dimension by adding a new chapter titled "World Architecture and the Modern Movement" to the fifth edition of the book in 2020, which is considered the most important history of modern architecture written to date, thus reaching a volume that reflects its scope. This expanded latest edition of the book has been translated into Turkish. Modern Architecture was translated by Haluk Uluşan, and the editorial work was carried out by Amber Niksarlıoğlu Eroyan, Pınar Gökbayrak, and Semire Bayatlı.

Aykut Köksal, the general editor of Arketon Publications, says in the book's foreword: "First published in 1980, Modern Architecture has become one of the cult texts of recent historiographers since its publication, and it has become inevitable for all historiographers to follow Frampton's path or to grapple with him. Frampton, whose historical reading is situated in a broad cultural context, brings a critical perspective to architectural historiography that views the ideological, economic, and social context in a global framework, with references ranging from Walter Benjamin to Jürgen Habermas. 'Critical regionalism,' which is included in subsequent editions and has become the main concept of Frampton's critical perspective, makes an important contribution to architectural theory by combining with one of the turning points of 20th-century architecture. In the years when the anonymous emptiness of late modernism gave way to the lack of control of post-modernism, 'critical regionalism' puts forward an argument that goes beyond a shallow regionalism, bringing together the universalist dimension of modernism with the data of place, culture, climate, and topography.

In the preface to the fourth edition of the book in 2007, Frampton notes that an unsettling Eurocentric bias is evident in all accepted histories of modern architecture, from Gustav Adolf Platz to Reyner Banham. Subjecting his own work to self-criticism in this context, the author expands the scope of his work by adding a major chapter to the latest edition of the book in 2020, and embarks on presenting a concise history of global modern architecture.

Modern Architecture, an iconic work of modern architectural historiography, gains a contemporary dimension in this latest form. With the new perspectives it brings to architectural historiography, this book is one of the best, if not the best, books available to begin examining the global history of contemporary world architecture."