A groundbreaking reevaluation of paleolithic art through the lens of modernism, from the acclaimed historian of art and architecture In The Beginnings of Art, Sigfried Giedion, best known as a historian of architecture, shifts his attention to art and its very origins. Breaking with an earlier, materialistic approach, he explores paleolithic art by bringing abstraction, transparency, and simultaneity into play as modern art has revealed them anew. Focusing on the dual concepts of constancy and change, he examines paleolithic paintings, engravings, and sculpture, as well as modern art and recent examples of “primitive art.” He argues that the two keys to the meaning of prehistoric art are the symbol, portraying reality before reality exists, and the animal as humankind’s superior in the unified primordial world in which both human and animal were embedded. The result is a highly original and important study of prehistoric art.

Sigfried Giedion's small but vocal manifesto Befreites Wohnen (1929) is an early manifestation of modernist housing ideology and as such is key to the broader understanding of the ambitions of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) and the debate on the industrialization of construction processes and its impact on public housing at the beginning of the twentieth century. An important step in Giedion's rise as one of the foremost propagators of modern architecture, this manifesto is based on the argumentative power of visual comparisons, and is the only book the art historian both authored and designed. Along a facsimile edition in German, Giedion's Befreites Wohnen is presented here for the first time in English translation (by Reto Geiser and Rachel Julia Engler). It is completed with annotations and a scholarly essay that anchors the work in the context of its time and suggests the book's relevance for contemporary architectural discourse.

A milestone in modern thought, "Space, Time and Architecture" has been reissued many times since its first publication in 1941 and translated into half a dozen languages. In this revised edition of Mr. Giedion's classic work, major sections have been added and there are 81 new illustrations.

The chapters on leading contemporary architects have been greatly expanded. There is new material on the later development of Frank Lloyd Wright and the more recent buildings of Walter Gropius, particularly his American Embassy in Athens. In his discussion of Le Corbusier, Mr. Giedion provides detailed analyses of the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, Le Corbusier's only building in the United States, and his Priory of La Tourette near Lyons. There is a section on his relations with his clients and an assessment of his influence on contemporary architecture, including a description of the Le Corbusier Center in Zurich (designed just before his death], which houses his works of art. The chapters on Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto have been brought up to date with examples of their buildings in the sixties. There is an entirely new chapter on the Danish architect Jorn Utzon, whose work, as exemplified in his design for the Sydney Opera House, Mr. Giedion considers representative of post-World War II architectural concepts.

A new essay, "Changing Notions of the City," traces the evolution of the structure of the city throughout history and examines current attempts to deal with urban growth, as shown in the work of such architects as Jose Luis Sert, Kenzo Tange, and Fumihiko Maki. Mr. Sert's Peabody Terrace is discussed as an example of the interlocking of the collective and individual spheres. Finally, the conclusion has been enlarged to include a survey of the limits of the organic in architecture.

An original account of ancient Egyptian and Sumerian architecture from the acclaimed architectural historian In The Beginnings of Architecture, Sigfried Giedion examines the architecture of ancient Egypt and Sumer. These early builders expressed an attitude of immense force when they confronted their structures with open sky. Giedion argues that it was during these periods that the problem of constancy and change flared up with an intensity unknown in any other period of history, and resolved eventually into the first architectural space conception, the automatic, psychic recording of the visual environment.

First published in 1948, Mechanization Takes Command is an examination of mechanization and its effects on everyday life. A monumental figure in the field of architectural history, Sigfried Giedion traces the evolution and resulting philosophical implications of such disparate innovations as the slaughterhouse, the Yale lock, the assembly line, tractors, ovens, and "comfort" as defined by advancements in furniture design. A groundbreaking text when originally published, Giedion's pioneering work remains an important contribution to architecture, philosophy, and technology studies.