José Luis Sert

An analysis of Spain's greatest modern architect.
José Luis Sert (1902-1983), architect and town planner, friend and collaborator of Le Corbusier, member of CIAM, and founder of the Grupo Este of the GATEPAC in Barcelona, took the Spanish architectural avant-garde of the thirties as the starting point for his work. Sert left Spain in 1939 to settle in the United States, where he eventually suceeded Walter Gropius as head of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Among Sert's most representative works are the Fundación Joan Miró and the Dispensari Antitubercolosi in Barcelona, the Fondation Maeght at Saint-Paul-de-Vence in France, the American Embassy in Baghdad and town plans for several cities in South America, including Medellín, Bogotá, Lima and Havana. Through careful archival research, the author has assembled the entire legacy of Sert's projects and has reconstructed the profile of one of the greatest Spanish architects of the twentieth century. The book also conveys an excellent overview of the avant-garde art and architecture movements of the time, with illustrations of important CIAM meetings, art, sculpture and architecture by artists who influenced Sert.