Author Description

There is no shortage of books about Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, or De Stijl. This one is different, however, in a number of ways. First, it does not treat them as separate subjects, but in relation to each other. While their response to De Stijl throws some new light on Le Corbusier and Mies, it is De Stijl above all, that can be more sharply defined in relation to them. Second, the purpose of the study is to excavate the philosophical foundations of the work, rather than merely to describe and discuss the work itself. Third, it looks for connections between the aims and ideals of the 1920s and such post-modern concerns as the creation of habitable places and the survival of the historical city. The book's central theme is the striving for universality as opposed to the individual and the particular.