Light, Air and Openness

This groundbreaking book takes a fresh look at the new architecture which appeared across Europe and North America in the first half of the 20th century.

Employed for almost all types of building, it was stripped, plain (often pure white), with wide windows, flat roofs and prominent balconies, terraces and roof gardens.

Iconic buildings such as the Bauhaus at Dessau, the Villa Savoye on the outskirts of Paris, the Penguin Pool at London Zoo, and the Zonnestraal Sanatorium in The Netherlands remain modern not only as monuments to past utopias but also as a focus for today’s debates on the role of contemporary architecture in the pursuit of ‘healthy living’.

Individual buildings, including both little-known and more familiar examples in Europe and the United States by architects such as Adolf Loos, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Lubetkin and Neutra, are examined here within the context of class and social control, luxury and austerity, race and colonialism.

Many of these buildings are now considered classics, legally protected from demolition or alteration. This has provoked renewed interest in their origins and how their architects and contemporary commentators perceived them.

Illustrated with many unusual photographs, some that capture the buildings in their early states, Light, Air and Openness is an original and refreshing reinterpretation of the modern movement in architecture and design.

Paul Overy is Senior Research Fellow in the history and theory of modernism at Middlesex University, London. His publications include books on the De Stijl group, Wassily Kandinsky, Norman Foster, and the architecture and furniture of Gerrit Rietveld