SMALL COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
Richard W. Snibbe, Pietro Belluschi [foreword]
Richard W. Snibbe, Pietro Belluschi [foreword]: SMALL COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS. New York: Reinhold Publishing Company [Progressive Architecture Library], 1956. First edition. Quarto. Black cloth stamped in white. Printed dust jacket. Olive endpapers. 216 pp. 200 black and white images. Jacket shelfworn and rubbed with a small gouge to front panel. Spotting to rear panel. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. A very good copy in a very good dust jacket.
9 x 12 hardcover book with 216 pages and over 200 black and white images. Photographs by Julius Schulman, Hedrich-Blessing, Dearborn-Massar, and Ezra Stoller among many others.
This is one of my all-time favorite Mid-Century Modern architectural anthologies -- there is so much more variety in this volume than in similar residential anthologies of the era. If you have any doubts about what we’ve lost through homogenization in this country, one look at this book will convince you that “Retail” and “Soul” were not mutually exclusive terms. Did you know that Gyorgy Kepes designed a mural for the Radio Shack in Cambridge, Massachusetts? It’s long gone, along with nearly every other structure in this wonderful book. From the cover: “A pictorial collection of one hundred projects for small business built in the last fifteen years on four Continents, with a challenging Introduction, foreword by Pietro Belluschi and critical commentary on each design.”
- Plant: Nurseries, Farm Buildings, Flower Shops
- Play: Theatres, Bars, Recreation
- Work: Factories, Offices
- Eat: Restaurants
- Go: Railroad Stations, Airline Offices, Service Stations
- Stop: Hotels, Apartments
- Spend: Shops, Showrooms
- Save: Banks
- Mend: Clinics
- End: Mortuary
Includes work by Harris Armstrong, Edward Larabee Barnes, Bessetti & Morse, William Beckett, Pietro Belluschi, Mischa Black, Campbell & Wong, Eduardo Catalano, Caudill, Rowlett, Scott, & Assocs., Chiarelli & Kirk, Stiles Clements, Mario Corbitt, Frederick Emmons, Fehr & Granger, Bertrand Goldberg, Lothar Gotz, Chalfant Head, A. Quincy Jones, Morris Ketchum, Carl Koch, Fred Langhorst, Wendell Lovett, Roberto Menghi, Germano Milono, Peter Moro, L. L. Rado, Antonin Raymond, Mario Righini, Rafael Soriano, Bruce Walker, Harry Weese, William Wilson Wurster, Gyorgy Kepes (mural), Ladislav Sutnar, Alvin Lustig, Eero Saarinen, Rowen Maiden, Louis Schulman, Richard Neutra, Marcel Breuer, Pietro Belluschi, John Lautner, Mario Gaidano, Holabird & Root, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, Charles Eames, Leo Lionni, Carl Koch, and A. Quincy Jones among many others.