The book is about new machines in the beggining of twentieth century and

its relation to art and architecture. Reyner Banham called as First Machine
Age earlier twentieth century. He tried to understand and to analyze
designs and products of this age in terms of paintings, sculptures, industrial
designs and architectural projects. There was a completely different
understanding of art at that time. Architects and some artists wanted to
adapt themselves to new machines. They aimed to renovate their
strategies and designs by the help of machines. Also, architects wanted to
create an International Style in architecture.He wanted to analyze new
movements and architects perpectives to architecture in this new century.
Twentieth century could be refered as New Century because people
started to use some machines in their daily lives and in lots of fields for the
first time.

Buku ini membahas tentang mesin baru pada awal abad ke-20 dan
Hubungannya dengan seni dan arsitektur. Reyner Banham disebut sebagai
'First Machine Age' awal abad ke-20. Ia mencoba memahami dan
menganalisa desain dan produk zaman ini dalam hal lukisan, pahatan,
desain industri dan proyek arsitektur. Ada pemahaman seni yang sama
sekali berbeda pada saat itu. Arsitek dan beberapa seniman ingin
menyesuaikan diri dengan mesin baru. Mereka bertujuan merenovasi
strategi dan desain mereka dengan bantuan mesin. Juga, arsitek ingin
menciptakan Gaya Internasional dalam arsitektur. Dia ingin menganalisis
gerakan baru dan perspektif para arsitek terhadap arsitektur di abad baru
ini. Abad ke-20 bisa disebut sebagai 'New Century' karena orang mulai
menggunakan beberapa mesin dalam kehidupan sehari-hari mereka dan di
banyak bidang untuk pertama kalinya.

Reyner Banhams book of 1960, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age,
like his essays and lectures around which much of the Groups thinking was
centred, was sympathetic to the insights of Futurism and praised the designs
of the Futurist architect Antonio SantElia while criticizing the better known
names of the Modern Movement. His book was the result of a doctoral
dissertation prepared for the Courtauld Institute during the previous decade
and working on it had produced several influential lectures, helped by his role
as an assistant editor of Architectural Review. In short, Theory and
Design may be said to have deconstructed the aesthetic of the
International Style long before Banhams student, Charles Jencks, published
his more famous book, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, in 1977, in
which he announced the death of modern architecture with a photo of the
demolition in 1972 of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing estate in St. Louis.