The architect, editor, critic, proselytizer, and educator Ernesto Nathan Rogers (1909–1969), a founder of the Milan-based Studio BBPR (established 1932), made key contributions to expanding the appreciation of modern architecture within Italy and beyond. Known for his pivotal role within the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), Rogers is also notorious for his heated exchanges with Reyner Banham on the subject of neo-Liberty, famously played out on the pages of the magazine Casabella-continuità, which Rogers edited between 1953 and 1965. Yet, despite this very public role, and despite his powerful influence on more prominent figures such as Aldo Rossi and Robert Venturi, Rogers remains relatively unrecognized in the historiography of twentieth-century architecture. The Hero of Doubt addresses this oversight by making a collection of his writings available for the first time to an English-speaking audience. The selected texts, drawn from different moments of Rogers’ life, are accompanied by a biographical note, a critical essay, and an afterword—the latter two by distinguished scholars Joan Ockman and Kurt Forster—together with a number of archival drawings and photographs.

Roberta Marcaccio is an editor, educator at the Architectural Association (AA), and a researcher collaborating with various architectural practices. After studying at the Politecnico di Milano and the AA, she covered various editorial roles and teaching positions, while also working for a number of design studios and completing a Research Fellowship in the Built Environment, awarded by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Her writings on historical and emerging modes of practice have featured in AA Files, Blueprint, and in the books Real Estates (Bedford Press, 2014), and Erasmus Effect (Quodlibet, 2014). She coedited an issue of Architectural Design, “The Business of Research” (Wiley, 2019), as well as the book Architects After Architecture (Routledge, 2020), and is editing an English language collection of work by Ernesto Nathan Rogers (MIT Press, 2022).