The Hero of Doubt: Selected Writings by Ernesto Nathan Rogers

The first English anthology of the writings of a critical figure in the history of modern architecture in Europe.

The first English anthology of the writings of the British-Italian architect, editor, critic, and educator Ernesto Rogers (1909-1969), The Hero of Doubt showcases the intellectual power and scope of one of the most influential yet, paradoxically, unrecognized exponents of the modern movement in Europe. These essays, edited by Roberta Marcaccio and newly translated from the Italian, reveal how, more than any other architect of the twentieth century, Rogers positioned himself as a mediator between the heroic generation of the modern masters and the younger intellectuals who went on to shape the contextualist turns of architectural postmodernism in the 1970s.

The texts in this volume cover a period of 33 years, from Rogers’s initial adherence to fascism and his subsequent struggle as a Jewish intellectual after the proclamation of the racial purity laws, to his poignant post-war reflections on the issues of reconstruction, the education of the architect and, more broadly, the architect’s role in society. Tracing his nuanced critique of the excesses and inadequacies of both fascism and the utopianism of modernism, the writings show how, over time, Rogers’s ideas resonated through the post-war cultural scene in Italy and beyond. In sum, they fill an obvious lacuna within the history of the modern movement and provide a more layered understanding of postmodernity.

Roberta Marcaccio is an educator, editor, and research and communication consultant, whose writing has been featured in books including The Last Grand Tour, Architects After Architecture, Real Estates, and Erasmus Effect.