She has a reputation for reserve: for being likable but shy and thin-skinned, and not at all comfortable with the personal impact of having created a modernmyth, sold four hundred and fifty million books, and inspired more than six hundred thousand pieces of Harry Potter fan fiction, a total that increases by at least a thousand stories a week.
Anyone who doubts that this has been a century of spectacular architectural achievement as well as radical technological change need only visit the Alvar Aalto show that has just opened at the Museum of Modern Art here for evidence that shatters the myth that modern architecture failed.