Mertins has interesting things to say on every theme he touches

Review of "Architecture Words 7: Modernity Unbound" by Detlef Mertins. The book brings together several essays by Mertins that sympathetically re-examine central ideas of early Modernism from a historical perspective and in terms of their relevance to contemporary practice, and is highly recommended. Flowing freely across divides constructed by many mainstream histories, Mertins shows, for example, how organic/biotechnical ideas generally associated with German Expressionism helped form the so-called "rational" tradition. Early thinking and key influential texts on glass and transparency are considered, and the thought of Sigfried Giedion in particular is rehabilitated. Mertins also charts an interest in organically-inspired "self-generation" from early Modernism to contemporary architects such as Foreign Office and Lars Spuybroek; explores the "Pervasive Plasticity" made possible by concrete and parametric design methods; and offers a persuasive counterblast to critics of Mies's Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. He has interesting things to say on every theme he touches and stands in a long line of engaged historian-critics who simultaneously shed light on the past while pointing the way forward. (Quotes from original text)