James Stirling: Revisionary Modernist is a critical analysis of one of the best known but least studied architects of the post-war period, and it provides a close reading of six of Stirling's seminal projects from the 1950s through the 1970s: the Flats at Ham Common (1958), the Churchill College Competition (1959), the Leicester Engineering Building (1963), the Florey Building at Oxford (1971), the Nordrhein-Westfalen Museum, Düsseldorf (1975), and his entry to the Roma Interrotta competition (1978). The central argument of the book is that Stirling remained a committed modernist during this period, even as he engaged in what he termed "a dialogue with architectural tradition." This interpretation challenges the widely held misconception that Stirling "turned" to postmodernism in the later part of his career, arguing instead that Stirling revisioned historical sources from his earliest works and that his modernism was deeply dependent on history.

A licensed architect, critic, and historian, Amanda Reeser Lawrence is an assistant professor of design at the School of Architecture at Northeastern University. Lawrence received a PhD in architectural history and theory from Harvard's Graduate School of Design, an MArch from Columbia University's GSAPP, and a BA (summa cum laude) in architectural history from Princeton University. Lawrence is cofounder and coeditor of the award-winning architectural journal PRAXIS, the only non-commercial architectural publication of contemporary American architecture. Lawrence's research focuses on a close reading of architectural form—both contemporary and historical—with a particular interest in theorizing the role of influence.