History of Modern Architecture and Urbanism

The product of thirteen years of work, A History of Modern Architecture and Urbanism (1800–1991) offers a comprehensive synthesis spanning approximately two centuries on a complex subject intertwining fields such as history, technology, sociology, and aesthetics. The author, Michel Ragon, examines the transformations undergone by the understanding of urbanism, which was approached as an art of regulation before the industrial revolution, and the emergence of the urban working class and its housing problems within their historical context. The book elaborates on how modern urban planning thought was shaped in an effort to provide solutions to the growth crisis that emerged with industrial civilization.

Written from the perspective of the inseparable relationship between architecture and urbanism, the work discusses aesthetic and architectural methods that emerged with the use of new building materials such as metal and reinforced concrete. The approaches of theoretical architects like Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier, as well as important movements such as Bauhaus, functionalism, and the International Style, are evaluated along with their projects and applications. Enriched with chronological tables, photographs, and drawings, the book reveals the architectural and urban planning journeys in cities such as Barcelona, Moscow, Vienna, Chicago, Paris, and Brasília, along with their successes and failures.