Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural Modernism (Writing Architecture)
"Most recent critiques of the histories of Modernism in architecture have tended to focus on overlooked sources or to fault historians on their documentation and their loyalties. Anthony Vidler breaks with this now conventional genre as he depicts the ballet of ideals and illusions shaped by the trajectories of three generations of authors. The role models essential to the intellectual affirmation of Emil Kaufmann, Colin Rowe, Reyner Banham, and Manfredo Tafuri are unmasked, while secret inspirations such as Le Corbusier's Toward an Architecture are revealed. A fascinating, epic, conversation across the seas, which has shaped the discourse of contemporary architecture."--Jean-Louis Cohen