Abstract

This is a work that is extremely interesting, instructive--and problematic. Its authors are two architectural historians and theoreticians who are dissatisfied with both the modern notion of historical progress and the postmodern notion of sheer historical flux as they impact architectural theory and practice. For both moderns and postmoderns, the past is a matter of antiquarian curiosity at best. The authors aim at securing, from the study of the past, principles for the education of "citizen-architects" who will connect person to person and human beings to the world. Both stand in some way under the acknowledged influence of Leo Strauss, who viewed "Western civilization in its premodern integrity" as the creative tension between Athens and Jerusalem. They embody this tension in the structure of the book, where the odd chapters display van Pelt's orientation toward Jerusalem and its prophetic tradition, while the even chapters show Westphal's orientation toward Athens and the philosophic tradition.