Summary
John Summerson: The Classical Language of Architecture
In this book I have collected a series of six lectures broadcast on the BBC in 1963, which appear here almost unchanged. I do not feel the need to apologize for this, because the pleasure with which I did those shows is inseparable for me from the enjoyment of their subject matter that I want to convey to my readers. The book would lose a lot by removing the spoken radio-phone idiom.
I still had to rework something. In the shows and in the first edition of the book, the language of the classics somehow vaguely merges into the language of the Modern Movement. Opinions about that movement, about its nature and principles, and even about the entire development process of modern architecture, have radically changed in recent times, so in accordance with that change, I wrote a few paragraphs in the last chapter.
BBC accompanied the original series of broadcasts with an illustrated book. All the illustrations that were in the booklet are reproduced in this book, and I added almost sixty new ones to them, in the hope of enhancing the impression of layers, variety and richness of my theme. (Author)
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