Unpublished writings of Colin Rowe-letters, essays, lectures, and a postcard-clarify his thinking on key concepts while revealing his wit and erudition. Unpublished writings of Colin Rowe-letters, essays, lectures, and a postcard-clarify his thinking on key concepts while revealing his wit and erudition. Colin Rowe (1920-1999) was one of the great architectural historians of the twentieth century, publishing the influential works The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (1976) and Collage City (1978). While his written work was rigorous and authoritative, his lectures and letters were more casual, "carefully careless," both witty and erudite. I Almost Forgot gathers twenty-three such writings-letters, essays, lectures, a postcard, and a eulogy. Both edifying and entertaining, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, occasionally scathing, they fill in personal details and clarify key concepts in Rowe's work. In these writings, Rowe tells of the "Corbu superstructure upon a beaux-arts base" that refugee Polish architects and their students introduced to his alma mater, the University of Liverpool, in the early 1940s. He characterizes his controversial essay "The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa" as a "pretty clever but, otherwise, perfectly innocent little article," and reports that Le Corbusier's Villa Schwob "played an entirely disproportionate role in my mental life." Rowe's voice and opinions are strong in his discussions of architecture, current events, and his own life and work. Each piece begins with a brief introduction by the volume editor. The writings are illustrated by images of Rowe's drawings, letters, and postcards; photographs and drawings of Rowe's only built work; and illustrations chosen by Rowe for lectures.

Table of Contents:
Preface ix Acknowledgments xix 1 Letters to the Editor 1 2 Two Letters to Mark Girouard (28 and 29 November 1972) 5 3 Excursus on Contessa Priuli-Bon (c. 1997-98) 11 4 Intellectual vs. Intelligent (1990s) 31 5 What Did Colin Rowe Design? 35 6 Letter to William H. Jordy (14 September 1954) 45 7 Letters to Louis I. Kahn (7 February 1956) 49 8 Letter to Alvin and Elizabeth Boyarsky (29 October 1958) 55 9 Letter to Alan Colquhoun (2 May 1973) 63 10 Even the Villa Schwob (25 November 1974) 69 11 Program: Fact or Fantasy? (18 March 1975) 91 12 On Bernhard Horsli and the Graphic Redesign of Collage City (September 1996) 123 13 Letter to Rodolfo Machado (1 November 1984) 133 14 Postcard to J. O. Mahoney (24 April 1984) 137 15 Memorandum: "English Architecture" Lecture Course (24 December 1986) 139 16 Letter to Mark Hinchman (20 January 1996) 145 17 A Nostalgia for the Avant-Garde (c. 1996) 155 18 Letter to David Rowe (20 March 1996) 161 19 William Wetmore Story (28 April 1996) 171 20 The Tyranny of the Coffee Table (28 April 1996) 177 21 'History' and 'Theory': Two Contradictory Categories? (26 June 1997) 205 22 Eulogy for Werner Seligmann (6 December 1998) 225 23 The Existential Predicament 233 Editor's Notes 241 Biographical Notes 285 Select Published Colin Rowe 297 Illustration Credits 303 Index 307