Sigfried Giedion

Descripción

The architectural and cultural historian Sigfried Giedion (1888-1968) was a contemporary of the pioneering generation of modern architects - the generation of Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. After studying art history with Heinrich Wolfflin, Giedion followed a polemical career that went far beyond the conventional bounds of academia. He defined the historical context and significance of the modern movement, proclaiming its goals and chronicling its progress. As General Secretary of the CIAM (International Congress for Modern Architecture) he was the organisational and theoretical focus of the modernist debate for over forty years. His book Space, Time and Architecture has been enormously influential for successive generations of architects and historians, and this and other writing provide the basis for an intellectual biography of Giedion that is of fundamental importance to the understanding of architectural modernism.