The evolution of modern architecture has been inextricably entangled in issues of politics, nationalism, and the environment, creating a tension between local context and global development that is unresolved to this day. In this context, few writers have exerted as much influence on architectural theory and practice as Kenneth Frampton. In this illustrated volume, twenty-nine contributors from around the world amplify and pay tribute to his writing and thought. Intended for all those concerned with the built environment, this book offers further evidence of how this scholar, humanist, and teacher has shaped our understanding of the working reality of the architect. The premise of Modern Architecture and the Lifeworld is rooted in Frampton’s understanding of how architecture must engage with both cultural and constructional imperatives; and it addresses strategies for grappling with contemporary concerns such as regional identity amid urban globalization, and tectonic culture and landform in the construction of place.

Emilio Ambasz is an Argentinian architect and award-winning industrial designer. From 1969 to 1976 he was curator of design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has taught at Princeton University and the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, Germany.

Wiel Arets is a Dutch architect and architectural theorist, urbanist and industrial designer, and the former dean of the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam, and the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University. From 2007 to 2014 he served as the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, producing numerous exhibitions on historical and contemporary architectural topics.

Karla Cavarra Britton is professor of art history at Diné College on the Navajo Nation, and has written extensively about modern and contemporary sacred architecture.

Brad Cloepfil is an American architect and educator, and principal of Allied Works Architecture of Portland, Oregon, and New York City. Among his best-known works are the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; the University of Michigan Museum of Art; the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver; and the National Music Centre of Canada in Calgary.

Jean-Louis Cohen is a French architect and architectural historian specializing in modern architecture and city planning. Since 1994 he has been the Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are the founding partners of Grafton Architects, Dublin, and professors at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio. They were the inaugural recipients of the RIBA International Prize, curators for the 16th International Exhibition of Architecture at the 2018 Venice Biennale, winners of the RIBA Gold Medal in 2020, and winners of the 2020 Pritzker Prize.

Kurt W. Forster is a Swiss and American art and architecture historian, author, educator, critic, and lecturer who has directed numerous research institutes. He is visiting professor emeritus at the Yale School of Architecture, and has taught at Stanford University, MIT, ETH Zurich, and Bauhaus University in Weimar.

Steven Holl is a New York-based architect and watercolorist, and professor of architecture at Columbia University. Among his most recognized works are designs for the 1996 St. Ignatius Chapel in Seattle, the 2007 addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, and the 2009 Linked Hybrid mixed-use complex in Beijing.

Harry Francis Mallgrave is distinguished professor emeritus at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he was also the director of the International Center for Sustainable New Cities. He has worked as an architect, translator, editor, and award-winning scholar.

Michael A. Manfredi and Marion Weiss are cofounders of WEISS/MANFREDI. Weiss is the Graham Chair Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design, and Manfredi is a senior design critic at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. They have received numerous awards for their design work, including the New York AIA Gold Medal.

Justin Fowler is visiting assistant professor of architecture and director of the Portland Architecture Program at the University of Oregon's School of Architecture & Environment.

Robert M. Maxwell was an Anglo-Irish author, architect and teacher. In London he taught at the Architectural Association and University College London. For eleven years he also taught at Princeton University, where he became dean of architecture in 1982. He died in January 2020.

Robert McCarter is an architect, author of twenty-two books, and the Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture at Washington University, St. Louis.

Mary McLeod is professor of architecture at Columbia University, where she teaches architectural history and theory. Her research and publications have focused on the history of the modern movement and on contemporary architecture theory, examining issues concerning the connections between architecture and politics.

Rafael Moneo is a Spanish architect who has taught in the School of Architecture in both Barcelona and Madrid, and was chair of the architecture department at Harvard’s GSD in 1985. He received the 1996 Pritzker Prize and RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2003.

Joan Ockman is an architectural educator, historian, writer and editor. She is senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design, and previously taught at Columbia University where she was director of the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.

Ken Tadashi Oshima is professor in the department of architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle. He has taught at Harvard’s GSD and Columbia University, and from 2003 to 2005 was a Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in London.

Juhani Pallasmaa is a Finnish architect, writer, and former professor of architecture and dean of the School of Architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. He was also director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture (1978–83), and rector of the Institute of Industrial Design Helsinki.

Alberto Pérez-Gómez is an eminent architectural historian, and the Saidye Rosner Bronfman Professor of the History of Architecture at McGill University. He is the author of numerous books, and is well known as a theorist with an orientation rooted in a phenomenological approach to architecture.

Richard Plunz is a professor of architecture at Columbia University, and is the founding director of the Urban Design Lab, a research unit of the Earth Institute. He received the Andrew J. Thomas award from the American Institute of Architects for his pioneering work in housing design and research.

Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe are Canadian architects and founding partners of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, a Toronto-based practice established in 1994. Shim currently serves on the Aga Khan Architecture Award steering committee, and teaches at the University of Toronto and Yale School of Architecture. They have won many Canadian architecture awards, including 14 Governor General’s Awards.

Ashley Simone is a designer, writer, photographer, and educator. She was editor of Kenneth Frampton’s A Genealogy of Modern Architecture, and teaches at the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute, and for the College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona.

Robert A.M. Stern is a New York-based architect, professor, and author. He is the founding partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects. From 1998 to 2016 he was dean of the Yale School of Architecture.

Anthony Vidler is an architectural critic and historian. He has taught at Brown University; The Cooper Union; University of California, Los Angeles; Cornell; Princeton; and Yale univerisities; and he is dean emeritus of The Cooper Union.

Leopoldo Villardi is architectural research specialist at Robert A.M. Stern Architects, where he has collaborated on the preparation of numerous publications, courses, and seminars.

Wang Shu is a Chinese architect based in Hangzhou, Zheijang Province. He is the dean of the School of Architecture of the China Academy of Art. Wang Shu and his wife, Lu Wenyu, founded Amateur Architecture Studio in 1997. He won the Pritzker Prize in 2012.

Wilfried Wang is the O’Neil Ford Centennial Professor in Architecture at the University of Texas, Austin. He is a recognized author, editor, and competition juror, and is a registered architect in Berlin and, with Barbara Hoidn, founder of Hoidn Wang Partner, Berlin.