The book begins by surveying the counter culture of the 1960s, when Jane Jacobs and Robert Venturi called for a more complex urbanism and architecture. It concludes by showing how such demands began to be realized by the 1990s in a new architecture that is aided by computer design - more convivial, sensuous, and articulate than the Modern architecture it challenges. Promoted by such architects as Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, and Peter Eisenman, it has also been adopted by many schools and offices around the world. Charles Jencks traces the history of computer design which is, at its heart, built on the desire for an architecture that communicates with its users, one based on the heterogeneity of cities and global culture.