Roots of contemporary American architecture; a series of thirty-seven essays dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Contains an introductory essay and biographies of the twenty-nine writers whose work appears herein.

Preface to the new edition -- A backward glance / by Lewis Mumford -- What the American tradition is not -- The birth of a new world -- Domestic forms and regional adaptations -- The architecture of interregnum -- The contribution of the machine -- The social conception of architecture -- The impact of the universal -- I. Sources of form -- Form and function / by Horatio Greenough -- A new scale of values / by Calvert Vaux -- Love of the work / by James Jackson Jarves -- Towards the organic / by Louis Henri Sullivan -- II. Roots in the region -- Early foundations / by Henry David Thoreau -- Rural adaptation / by Andrew Jackson Downing -- Frederick Law Olmsted's contribution / by Lewis Mumford -- The regionalism of Richardson / by Lewis Mumford -- Nature as architect / by Frank Lloyd Wright -- Environment as a natural resource / by Benton MacKaye -- III. The role of the machine -- The development of modern style / by Joseph Warren Yost -- The Brooklyn Bridge as a monument / by Montgomery Schuyler -- The art and craft of the machine / by Frank Lloyd Wright -- Craftsmen : machines : speed / by Frederick Lee Ackerman -- Machinery and the modern style / by Lewis Mumford -- The balloon frame and industrialization / by Sigfried Giedion -- IV. Integration in Chicago -- The Chicago renascence / by Montgomery Schuyler -- The economics of steel frame construction / by Montgomery Schuyler -- The first skyscraper / by Col. W.A. Starrett -- Function and environment / by Dankmar Adler -- The Chicago period in retrospect / by Louis Henri Sullivan -- V. Client, architect, and house -- Client and architect / by Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer -- The equipment of the architect / by John Wellborn Root -- Character and style / by John Wellborn Root -- The naturalization of the house / by John Burroughs -- Simplicity and domestic life / by Gustav Stickley -- The post-modern house / by Joseph Hudnut -- VI. Social responsibilities -- What is a house? / by Charles Harris Whitaker. The sad story of American housing / by Henry Wright -- New towns for new purposes / by Clarence S. Stein -- Towards a new physical world / by Catherine Bauer -- VII. The search for the universal -- The language of form / by Claude Bragdon -- The basis of universalism / by Lewis Mumford -- The international style / by Henry-Russell Hitchcock Jr. and Philip Johnson -- The example of Frank Lloyd Wright / by Walter Curt Behrendt -- Composition of modern architecture / by Matthew Nowicki -- Function and form / by Matthew Nowicki -- Biographical sketches.