Design & Capitalist Development 
 
Manfredo Tafuri. Translated by Barbara Luigia La Penta. 
 
The MIT Press: 1976. First edition. Hardcover in a jacket. Good. Boards faded, underlining throughout. Small wrinkles and stains on jacket's covers. 
 
"There cannot be founded a class aesthetic, art, or architecture, but only a class criticism of the aesthetic, of art, of architecture, of the city itself. A coherent Marxist criticism of the ideology of architecture and urbanism could not but demystify the contingent and historical realities, devoid of objectivity and universality, that are hidden behind the unifying terms of art, architecture, and city. It would likewise recognize the new levels attained by capitalist development, with which recognitions the class movements should confronted. First among the intellectual illusions to be done away with is that which, by means of the image alone, tries to anticipate the conditions of an architecture 'for a liberated society.' Who proposes such a slogan avoids asking himself if, its obvious utopianism aside, this objective is possible without a revolution of architectural language, method, and structure which goes far beyond simple subjective will or the simple updating of a syntax."