Martin Kohlrausch: Brokers of Modernity East Central Europe and the Rise of Modernist Architects, 1910-1950. Leuven University Press 2019. ISBN: 9789462701724 (open access)

The story of modernist architects in East Central Europe

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of modernist architects. Brokers of Modernity reveals how East Central Europe turned into one of the pre-eminent testing grounds of the new belief system of modernism. By combining the internationalism of the CIAM organization and the modernising aspirations of the new states built after 1918, the reach of modernist architects extended far beyond their established fields. Yet, these architects paid a price when Europe’s age of extremes intensified.  Mainly drawing on Polish, but also wider Central and Eastern European cases, this book delivers a pioneering study of the dynamics of modernist architects as a group, including how they became qualified, how they organized, communicated and attempted to live the modernist lifestyle themselves. In doing so, Brokers of Modernity raises questions concerning collective work in general and also invites us to examine the social role of architects today.

Martin Kohlrausch is professor of European Political History and head of the research unit Modernity and Society at the KU Leuven.

Ebook available in Open Access.