Josep Lluis Sert

This book examines the emergence and evolution of the discipline of urban design as articulated through the work of Josep Lluis Sert (1902-1983), one of its most influential practitioners. Sert came to international attention in the 1930s and '40s as a leading young European architect active in the new discourse of modern architecture. Noted for his city planning and urban development projects in Europe, South America, and the United States, the master plans of his later career were significant for their integration of natural landscape features into the urban building scheme. Sert's academic career included an extraordinarily productive tenure as Dean of Harvard University's Graduate School of Design (1953-1969), where he founded and directed the Department of Urban Design. With essays by leading scholars and a wide selection of archival materials, illustrations, plans, and maps, this book provides a timely look at the man who advocated the idea of 'urban consciousness' and an architecture that dealt with the total environment, well before these concepts became commonplace.