The Humanists versus the Reactionary Avant Garde: Clashing Visions for Today’s Architecture

The early twentieth century believed that technology would bring a better world. Modernist architects were part of a larger social movement with a vision of a more prosperous high-tech future. Today, we see that we must make selective use of technology, using technologies that are beneficial and controlling those that are destructive. Beginning in the 1970s, postmodern architects were part of a larger social movement to use technology for human purposes.

But today’s avant gardists have rejected this humanist impulse and regressed to the modernist love of technology for its own sake, even if their designs are cold and sterile-and even if their designs are so antihuman that they make people feel sick.

The avant gardists are conservatives, celebrating the status quo of our technological economy. Neotraditional architects are the real progressives, trying to humanize our economy.

With its new view of the history of architecture, its hilarious examples of antihuman avant gardist designs, and its inspiring examples of designs that learn from traditional models, this book will convince you that the emperors of today’s architecture have no clothes.

Among the … books on this topic that I have read, yours is by far the most sophisticated and the most up to date.

–Andres Duany, principal of DPZ Partners

Siegel makes a clear and intelligent case, based not on romantic nostalgia but on the pressing issues of contemporary society. I recommend this book in the strongest possible terms.

–Prof. Nikos Salingaros, author of A Theory of Architecture