[CZECH AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE] MSA. Mezinárodní soudobá architektura. Internationale Architektur der Gegenwart. L'architecture internationale d'aujourd'hui. Mezhdunarodnaia sovremennaia arkhitektura. Vols. 1–3 (1929–1931, all published).

Prague: Odeon, 1929–1931. Square octavos (ca. 23.7 × 18.5 cm). Original pictorial wrappers; 176, 295, and 148 pp. Profusely illustrated throughout with reproductions from photographs, plans, and architectural drawings. Illustrations captioned in Czech, French, and German. In protective mylar sleeves. Minor wear, soil, and occasional tiny nicks to wrappers; final volume with trace of private label to base of spine and inside front wrapper; overall a very good set. Item #54529

A complete set in three volumes of the Czech yearbook on international modernist architecture, directed and published by the designer and typographer Karel Teige and primarily inspired by the work of Le Corbusier. The editors planned to publish two to four titles per year, but only three appeared in total.

Volume 1 is an anthology focused on European designers and architectural theorists, which surveys the various experiments and achievements of modern design and architecture. It covers topics such as "Architecture and urbanism", "Industrial construction methods", "Home and palace", and "Constructions of the future" and features texts by Le Corbusier, M. Ginzburg, Adolf Loos, Hannes Meyer, Mies van der Rohe, Mart Stam and many others. Volume 2 is Karel Teige's study "Moderní architektura v Československu" (Modern architecture in Czechoslovakia), which emphasizes the contribution of Czech and Czech-born architects in the twentieth century. Volume 3 is a work by Josef Havlíček and Karel Honzík entitled "Stavby a plány" (Constructions and plans), with an epilogue by Teige. Havlíček and Honzík were affiliated with the Devětsil group and considered by Teige to be the most avant-garde of contemporary Czech architects. Their work showed the influence of Russian experiments with communal housing as well as the Bauhaus in Dessau. For Teige, who had lectured at the Bauhaus one year before this third volume was published, an important task was to develop an architecture for a new social and political order, which no longer privileged the bourgeois family. Thus, children were to be raised by the collective. Havlíček and Honzík's agency presented the first such "Koldom" (collective house) in the present work on pages 45 to 62, which was formally aligned with the work of Le Corbusier.

Scarce complete and in the original wrappers.

Price: €4,000.00

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