Werner Hegemann And The Search For Universal Urbanism

Book excerpt: "Werner Hegemann (1881-1936), a German-born multidisciplinary critic of the built environment, was well known in Europe and the United States in his lifetime. A critic rather than a designer, he did not fit easily into any school or category. To those seeking to promote modernism, Hegemann was something of an awkward figure - influential and undoubtedly authoritative but unorthodox. Today, however, when studies of modernism have largely shed their proselytizing role, he is of great relevance. Our interest now is less in those who proposed the answers than in those who asked the questions - and particularly the way in which those questions were framed. For this Hegemann is a key figure." "Based on documentation largely unavailable in English - including Hegemann's published and unpublished writings, his correspondence, his diaries, the author's interviews, archival materials lent to her by Hegemann's widow, and the author's own substantial collection - this is the first comprehensive study of Hegemann for historians, architects, and urbanists."--BOOK JACKET.