The biography 'Mart Stam. Poet of steel and glass' sketches a broad picture of the person and the work of the Dutch architect Mart Stam (1899-1986) in order to promote understanding of this work. The book focuses mainly on the question, which circumstances guided his career. Mart Stam was born in Purmerend on August 5, 1899. In the 1920s and 1930s he became a well-known architect and theoretician of the Nieuwe Bouwen movement. He was a man of principle and a communist. The difficult conditions in which large sections of the population lived contributed to his social commitment. His dwellings for the low-income were innovative. Stam was also considered an innovator in interior and industrial design. Functionalism and minimalism were always paramount, and his famous backless chair was the first worldwide.