Bernard Rudofsky. A Humane Designer

First monograph dedicated to the Austrian-born architect Bernard Rudofsky (1905-1988). It deals with the thought and work of the Austrian-born architect and author, who became a US citizen after having lived in Italy and Brazil. He designed modernist buildings in the 1930s (Villa Oro, Napoli; Casa Frontini and Casa Arnstein, São Paulo), innovative clothing in the 1940s (including the Bernardo Sandals), and many provocative exhibitions and publications in Europe and the United States (including Architecture without Architects at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1964; Sparta/Sybaris at the Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 1987). Rudofsky's teachings were mainly addressed to non-specialists, and books such as Architecture without Architects, not to mention the most famous one, dedicated to "spontaneous architecture", achieved great critical and public success: the original edition sold more than 100,000 copies; it was translated into Japanese and many European languages; it left an ideal and formal mark on contemporary architecture. Streets for People had a similar influence on the quality of public space. A large part of his heterogeneous intellectual production was dedicated to the in-depth study - through comparative intercultural studies and design research - of the theme of the quality of domestic living. The monograph includes a brief biographical note, a critical essay, an anthology of thirteen of Rudofsky's writings (some of which were unpublished), a summary of 69 non-literary works and other apparatus (bibliography). The text is accompanied by a selection of 301 images (39 in colour), more than half of which were unpublished.