As I Was Saying

Colin Rowe has achieved legendary status as one of a handful of outstanding studio teachers of architecture and urban design to emerge within the last two generations. Since the publication of his first essay, "The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa" (1947), he has commanded the attention of legions of students and colleagues who came to question, as did he, the eternal verities of modern architecture as propounded by the giants of the early twentieth century. Rowe's writings reveal a powerful insight and a dispassionate, authoritative intelligence that mark him as one of the preeminent architectural thinkers of this perplexing half-century. Divided into three books, in more or less chronological order, As I Was Saying includes articles, essays, eulogies, lectures, reviews, and memoranda; some have appeared only in obscure periodicals, and many have never been published at all. Also included is a retrospective view of selected work of the Urban Design Studio at Cornell and other projects by Rowe and his students and colleagues.