EVERYDAY ART QUARTERLY No. 5
A Guide To Well Designed Products
Hilde Reiss [Editor]
Hilde Reiss [Editor]: EVERYDAY ART QUARTERLY [A Guide To Well Designed Products]. Minneapolis; Walker Art Center, Fall 1947, Number 5. Original edition. Slim quarto. Stapled photo illustrated thick wrappers. 24 pp. 30 black and white images. Articles and advertisements. A very influential publication, quite uncommon. White wrappers rubbed and vertically creased [from mailing?]. Typed address to rear panel, along with an illegible inkstamp. A very good copy.
8.5 x 11 scarce softcover magazine with 24 pages and 30 black and white images. This issue is devoted to Idea House II: ". . . these six houses are designed for standard construction with readily available materials. One house has been designed by students of the University of Minnesota School of Architecture; the other five by the following Minneapolis architects: Gerhardt Brandhorst, Elizabeth and Winston Close, Humphrey and Hardenbergh, Long and Horschov, Harlan E. McClure." Also includes vintage ads for Dunbar Furniture, Knoll Associates, Kurt Versen, Chrysler, etc.
Everyday Art Quarterly offers a magnificent snapshot of the blossoming modern movement after World War II. A very desirable, truly amazing vintage publication in terms of form and content: high quality printing and clean, functional design and typography and excellent photographic reproduction make this a spectacular addition to a midcentury design collection.
- A Man's House is His Art
- IDEA HOUSE II Floor Plans
- Ideas Behind the Idea House
- The 4-in-1 Living Area
- The Bed-Sitting Room
- The Children's Apartment
- Baths, Storage, Utility Room
- Gas in the Modern Home
- The Stairhall-Picture Gallery
- Construction, Materials, Equipment
- Everyday Art in the Magazines
- Everyday Art on Exhibition
- Addresses
Manufacturers and artists utilized in the homes' interiors include Isamu Noguchi, George Nelson, Versen, von Nessen, Harry Weese, Alvar Aalto, Charles Eames, Eva Zeisel, Herman Miller, Knoll Associates, Lillian Garret, and Angelo Testa among others.
From "A Man's House is His Art" by Alexandra Griffith Winton [Journal of Design History, 2004, 17(4): 377-396]: "Idea Houses I and II, two houses built by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 1941 and 1947, were the first functional modern homes built by an American museum. The houses were conceived and built during an extreme housing shortage brought on by the Great Depression and exacerbated by the Second World War. Unlike commercial model homes of this period, these houses were designed by architects retained by the Walker, with furnishings and home products selected by the curatorial staff. Rather than product placement, the purpose of the exhibitions was to promote awareness and appreciation of modern home design by presenting the houses as source material for visitors' own potential building projects: literal houses of ideas."
Everyday Art Quarterly was published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis starting in 1946. The editorial focus aimed to bring modern design to the masses through thoughtful examination of household objects and their designers. Everyday Art Quarterly was a vocal proponent of the Good Design movement (as represented by MoMA and Chicago's Merchandise Mart) and spotlighted the best in industrial and handcrafted design. When the magazine became Design Quarterly in 1954, the editors assumed a more international flair in their selection of material to spotlight.