Internationale Architektur, Bauhausbücher 1, by Walter Gropius, designed by L. [László] Moholy-Nagy and Farkas Mólnar. Munich: Albert Langen Verlag, 1925. German. First soft cover edition.
"International Architecture" is the first publication out of fourteen books in the series "Bauhausbücher" initiated and edited by the architect Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school for design and architecture and one of the pioneers of the International Style. The series was co-edited by the artist László Moholy-Nagy (see next item).
A short introduction by Gropius explains the principles of the International Architecture versus the old architecture: "Study of the photographs of this book will reveal that strict utilization of time, space, material, and money in industry and management decisively determine the factors of the physiognomy of the modern building-organism: exactly cut form, singleness in multiplicity, organization of all parts of the building for the functioning of the building complex, the street, and traffic, concentration on typical plan forms, their development and repetition. A new will is discernible, to design the buildings of our environment from inner laws, without lies or gaming…". The book features more than one hundred photographs and drawings of residential, trade, industrial and public buildings – all in the International Style – in Germany, Holland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, France, United States, and more. The architects featured include Walter Gropius, Adolph Meyer, Erich Mendelsohn, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Henry van de Velde.
106, [1] pp, 23 cm. Good-fair condition. Some stains and creases to leaves. Pen inscription at the beginning of the book. Original cover is torn in two and lacks parts of the spine and one flap. Tears and open tears to cover.