BOOKS | THE BAUHAUS WEIMAR DESSAU BERLIN CHICAGO (1969)

Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago

✍ 1969: Hans M. Wingler

(1969: MIT Press; ISBN 026223033x)

Designed by Muriel Cooper:

This is the one book I fetishize (thus my very serious attempt to make it look sexy whilst  photographing it).

It was a major expense back in the day. I got a discount on it, though — I was working as a Library Assistant at the Vancouver Public Library and saved, maybe, 25%. It’s one of my oldest books.

It’s also the “Most Pure” book in my collection. Muriel Cooper’s perfect design is zen-like. Slipping the huge volume into its minimalist slipcase feels like engaging in part of an elaborate Shinto rite.

The Bauhaus changed the design destiny of the twentieth century. Its influence continues to shape our material lives.

This tome (6.5 kg and 670 pages) was first published in 1962 in Berlin. MIT Press worked the translations, and this version was launched in 1969. It quickly became the ne plus ultra amongst the plethora of books on the Bauhaus that would follow in its wake. It’s still in print, but I haven’t read any hoopla about its 40th birthday in English, so this is my tribute to a book that changed my life.

One of my private treasures.

MURIEL COOPER: POLYMATH EXTRAORDINAIRE