Design for a democratic society was a matter of urgency in bombed-out postwar Europe. Swiss
sociologist journalist professor and founding father of strollology Lucius Burckhardt
(1925-2003) pioneered the interdisciplinary analysis of man-made environments and thereby
highlighted both the visible and invisible aspects of our cities and social relations. Acutely
aware of how our interventions and decisions shape the world and how the changing world in
turn shapes us his life-long focus was not only the prerequisites of architecture urban
planning and design but also their long-term impact. Teaching and practice still owe much to
his work. Thus the first selection of Lucius Burckhardt's texts to appear in English
introduces his groundbreaking theory of environmental design in retrospective tribute to a
prescient thinker.
