Association copy of an important early study of the Gläserne Kette, the utopian correspondence circle initiated by Bruno Taut in late 1919. Square 8vo (8.75 × 8.75 inches), pictorial wrappers over flexible covers, 142 pages, illustrated with 42 b/w plates reproducing drawings and projects by members of the circle. Text in German. Published by Akademie der Kunste/Stadtisches Museum Leverkusen in conjunction with a 1963 exhibition jointly held in Berlin and Schloss Morsbroich. Organized by architect and architectural theorist Oswald Mathias Ungers, whose concluding text characterizes the surviving documents as an “Architektur-Poesie.” Inscribed on the front free endpaper by Ungers and his wife to Arthur A. Cohen and Elaine Lustig Cohen: “For Arthur + Elaine / from / Lo + Mathias / 06/24/83.” With the Arthur A. Cohen–Elaine Lustig Cohen ex-libris on the facing pastedown.
Writing under pseudonyms, Taut, Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun, Hans and Wassili Luckhardt, Hermann Finsterlin, Wenzel Hablik, Max Taut, and their colleagues exchanged visions of crystalline cities, glass palaces, communal buildings, and fantastic architectures largely liberated from the practical constraints of construction. Their drawings and correspondence constitute a foundational body of modernist visionary architectural thought.
The presentation gives this copy particular resonance. Ungers inscribed it twenty years after publication, together with his wife, to Arthur A. Cohen and Elaine Lustig Cohen. Arthur Cohen was a writer, publisher, art dealer, and distinguished collector of twentieth-century art; Elaine Lustig Cohen was among the significant American graphic designers of the postwar period and an important collector and scholar of the European avant-garde; together, the Cohens operated the fabled Ex Libris bookstore. The association thus joins a principal interpreter of Germany's visionary architectural avant-garde with two American figures deeply engaged in the preservation, interpretation, and transmission of European modernist art and design.
Minor bumping to extremities. Light bumping and rubbing to dust jacket, with 1” close tear near spine head.
Association copy of an important early study of the Gläserne Kette, the utopian correspondence circle initiated by Bruno Taut in late 1919. Square 8vo (8.75 × 8.75 inches), pictorial wrappers over flexible covers, 142 pages, illustrated with 42 b/w plates reproducing drawings and projects by members of the circle. Text in German. Published by Akademie der Kunste/Stadtisches Museum Leverkusen in conjunction with a 1963 exhibition jointly held in Berlin and Schloss Morsbroich. Organized by architect and architectural theorist Oswald Mathias Ungers, whose concluding text characterizes the surviving documents as an “Architektur-Poesie.” Inscribed on the front free endpaper by Ungers and his wife to Arthur A. Cohen and Elaine Lustig Cohen: “For Arthur + Elaine / from / Lo + Mathias / 06/24/83.” With the Arthur A. Cohen–Elaine Lustig Cohen ex-libris on the facing pastedown.
Writing under pseudonyms, Taut, Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun, Hans and Wassili Luckhardt, Hermann Finsterlin, Wenzel Hablik, Max Taut, and their colleagues exchanged visions of crystalline cities, glass palaces, communal buildings, and fantastic architectures largely liberated from the practical constraints of construction. Their drawings and correspondence constitute a foundational body of modernist visionary architectural thought.
The presentation gives this copy particular resonance. Ungers inscribed it twenty years after publication, together with his wife, to Arthur A. Cohen and Elaine Lustig Cohen. Arthur Cohen was a writer, publisher, art dealer, and distinguished collector of twentieth-century art; Elaine Lustig Cohen was among the significant American graphic designers of the postwar period and an important collector and scholar of the European avant-garde; together, the Cohens operated the fabled Ex Libris bookstore. The association thus joins a principal interpreter of Germany's visionary architectural avant-garde with two American figures deeply engaged in the preservation, interpretation, and transmission of European modernist art and design.
Minor bumping to extremities. Light bumping and rubbing to dust jacket, with 1” close tear near spine head.
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