Anthony Fontenot's staggeringly ambitious book uncovers the surprisingly libertarian heart of the most influential British and American architectural and urbanist discourses of the postwar period, illuminating the unexpected philosophical common ground between enemies of state support, most prominently the economist Friedrich Hayek, and numerous notable postwar architects and urbanists like Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Reyner Banham, and Jane Jacobs. In drawing a host of surprising connections between the cultural shift away from the state and the evolution of the aesthetics of the non-planned built environment, 'Non-Design' thoroughly recasts conventional views of postwar architecture, urbanism, and both liberal and libertarian philosophies. |