Despite the extensive bibliography on Mendelsohn and the more limited one on Wijdeveld, there is no other serious study which looks at the topic in the way this book does, throwing new light on the lives of these two visionary architects, and their times. The study is unique in that it focuses on the troubled relationship between Mendelsohn and Wijdeveld not only as colleagues and friends (a friendship which includes their wives), but as complex, at times enigmatic, personalities. This intimate portrait is set against the unfolding drama of Europe in an age of turmoil. Mendelsohn was a German-Jew, Wijdeveld a Dutch Catholic married to a Jewish wife, and their personal stories must be read in the context of what were for the Jewish people the seminal events of the period: the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, the rise of National Socialism, Germany s dominion over Europe, and the catastrophe of the Holocaust.The book, both in its wide-ranging content and its style, should attract a diverse audience. For academics it is a scholarly, fully-researched work; for the wider readership of professionals, and laymen it is a moving and gripping narrative.
It is directly relevant to those concerned with the history of art and architecture, especially the development of the modern movement in the first half of the 20th century. It should interest those concerned with the richness of personal biography in all its aspects: family origin, marriage, education, politics, ideology, religion. For the anthropologist and sociologist there is the question of the interaction of cultures and cultural adaptation. Finally, the book should be of considerable interest to those concerned with the history of the Jewish people, and with problems of Jewish identity, assimilation, intermarriage, and anti-Semitism, in the first half of the 20th century.