A new edition, fully illustrated in color, of one of the most widely read books on modern design Nikolaus Pevsner's landmark work was first published in 1936. It remains as stimulating and challenging today as it was then. Pevsner saw Modernism as a synthesis of three main sources: William Morris and his followers; the work of the 19th-century engineers; and Art Nouveau. All these form the essential background to the work of the early Modernists, with their rejection of ornament, their use of new materials and their commitment to "utility" and the machine age. Pevsner looks at the early masters of the movement, such as Voysey and Rennie Mackintosh in Britain; Sullivan and Lloyd Wright in America; and Loos and Wagner in Vienna, ending in 1914, with Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus movement representing design's most radical break with the past. This new edition of this classic work is fully illustrated in color, with new feature spreads on the key protagonists and movements and a new introduction by Professor Richard Weston.

Nikolaus Pevsner (1902–1983) was one of the 20th century's most learned and stimulating writers on art and architecture. He is best known for his celebrated series of guides, The Buildings of England (46 volumes, published 1951–74) acknowledged as one of the great achievements of 20th-century scholarship. He was also founding editor, in 1953, of The Pelican History of Art. Richard Weston is a professor of architecture and coeditor of the journal Architectural Research Quarterly.