SPACE, TIME AND ARCHITECTURE
The Growth of a New Tradition
Sigfried Giedion, Herbert Bayer [Designer]
Sigfried Giedion: SPACE, TIME AND ARCHITECTURE [The Growth of a New Tradition]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941. First edition. Quarto. Navy cloth titled in red. Printed dust jacket. 601 pp. 321 black and white illustrations. Dust jacket, book design and typography by Herbert Bayer. Arthur A. and Elaine Lustig Cohen Bookplate to front pastedown. Red ink to jacket spine faded to brown and light wear to edges. Rare in the first edition and doubly so with an intact example of the Bayer photomontage dust jacket. A nearly fine copy in a very good dust jacket.
7.25 x 10 hardcover book with 601 pages with 321 black and white photographs, floorplans, diagrams, charts, etc. This book is based on Giedion’s Harvard Charles Eliot Norton Lectures for 1938 –1939. A beautifully realized cornerstone modernist title. The subtitle refers to Giedion's conviction that the modern movement was the logical outcome of what he saw as a linear historical development. To make his case he gives his version of the history of architecture, and a big portion deals with the industrial era and how new technologies changed architecture and society as a whole. In addition to expounding on architecture's history, he addresses key architects and their notable achievements.
First published in 1941, this monumental work has been a milestone in architectural theory. After surveying the modern age's European heritage, Giedion hones in on the demand for morality in Architecture, American developments, space-time in art (cubism , futurism), architecture (the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe & Aalto) and construction and city planning.
Contents: History, Our Architectural Inheritance, Evolution Of New Potentials, Iron Column , Steel Frame, Technology, The Great Exhibitions, Eiffel Tower, Demand For Morality In Architecture, Brussels, Victor Horta , Otto Wagner, Ferroconcrete , A.G. Perret, Tony Garnier, American Development, Industrialization, Chicago School, Sullivan, Chicago's World Fair, Frank Lloyd Wright, Space-Time In Art, Architecture And Construction, Cubism , Futurism, Bridges Of Robert Maillart, Walter Gropius, Post War , The Bauhaus , Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Finland, Organic Town Planning, City Planning In The 19th C, City Planning As A Human Problem, Space-Time In City Planning, Index
Contains work by the following architects, designers, artists and assorted forward-thinkers: Le Corbusier, Theo van Doesburg, Otto Wagner, August Perret, Richard neutra, H. H. Richardson, Mies van der Rohe, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kasmir Malevich, Walter Gropius, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer, Pierre Jeanneret, W. Van Tijen and many others.
First edition by Sigfried Giedion (1888 – 1968 ) the Bohemian-born Swiss historian and architecture critic. His ideas and books, Space, Time and Architecture, and Mechanization Takes Command, had an important conceptual influence on the members of the Independent Group at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the 1950s era. He was the first secretary-general of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne [CIAM]. He has also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He was a cool dude and knew everybody.
Of all the artists to pass through the Bauhaus, none lived the Bauhaus ideal of total integration of the arts into life like Herbert Bayer (1900 - 1985). He was a graphic designer, typographer, photographer, painter, environmental designer, sculptor and exhibition designer. He entered the Bauhaus in 1921 and was greatly influenced by Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky. He left in 1923, but returned in 1925 to become a master in the school. During his tenure as a Bauhaus master he produced many designs that became standards of a Bauhaus "style." Bayer was instrumental in moving the Bauhaus to purely sans serif usage in all its work. In 1928 he left the Bauhaus to work in Berlin. He primarily worked as a designer and art director for the Dorland Agency, an international firm. During his years at Dorland a Bayer style was established. Bayer emigrated to the United States in 1938 and set up practice in New York. His US design included work for NW Ayers, consultant art director for J. Walter Thompson and design work for GE. From 1946 on he worked exclusively for Container Corporation of America (CCA) and the Atlantic Richfield Corporation. In 1946 he moved to Aspen to become design consultant to CCA. In 1956 he became chairman of the department of design, a position he held until 1965. He was awarded the AIGA medal in 1970. Bayer's late work included work for ARCO and many personal projects including several environmental designs.