While many authors have discussed the environmental planning methodology outlined by Ian McHarg in Design with Nature, little attention has been paid to the influence of modern architecture upon that planning and design manifesto. This article addresses that deficiency by examining three early articles by McHarg—"Open Space and Housing" (1955), "The Court House Concept" (1957), and "The Humane City" (1958). These articles situate McHarg’s promotion of open space, and his environmental activism, in relationship to an ambitious intellectual and political rationale that is firmly rooted within the functional, social, aesthetic, and heroic traditions of architectural modernism.