Building a New Europe: Portraits of Modern Architects

Architect, designer and architectural critic, George Nelson (1908-1986) who was a graduate of Yale College in 1928 and Yale School of Architecture in 1932 was a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome when he wrote a series of articles for Pencil Points in 1935 and 1936 about the state of European architects and their architecture during the politically and artistically crucial years that he lived in Europe.  A feat for the young aspiring architect, Nelson wrote twelve essays that are published in this book on the architects: Marcello Piacentini, Italy; Helweg-Moeller, Denmark; Luckhardt Brothers, Germany; Gio Ponti, Italy; Le Corbusier, France; Ivar Tengbom, Sweden; Mies Van der Rohe, Germany; Giuseppe Vaccaro, Italy; Eugene Beaudouin, France; Raymond McGrath, England; Walter Gropius, Germany, and Tecton, England.
The book also includes a provocative essay by architectural historian and Vincent Scully Visiting Professor at Yale, Kurt W. Forster about George Nelson, situating him both in an architectural and cultural context.  The publication is a significant contribution to the scholarship of modern architecture as while it includes three well-know architects Le Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe, and Waler Gropius it presents the work of many lesser-known architects in the turbulent wartime, when many lives and thus careers were cut short.  It brings to light the period from the perspective of an outsider who worked to bring to the fore European modern architecture to an American audience, while at the same time influencing the editorial direction of the journal Pencil Points.