Castel Beranger

Book Description

Paris: Librarie Rouam,. 1899. Oblong Folio. H Portfolio Box.. Fine.. Fine. Oblong folio, publisher's portfolio box with folding flaps and ties; cloth spine and decorated boards, cover with Art Nouveau architectural design in gilt. Portfolio a little rubbed; the most negligible foxing to contents of a book always found foxed. Color printed title page with lettering within decorative cartouche. 65 plates in black/white and color reproducing every detail of the house: plans, drawings and interior and exterior decoration; sculpture, ironwork, mosaics, windows, glass work, fireplaces, wall paper and hangings, stone and ceramic work, furniture, etc., all designed by Guimard. The names of all the suppliers are given as well as the artist who created the plates from photographic negatives and Saude who printed them in a chromolithographic technique called "gelatine printing." Guimard composed the typography and lay-out. A spectacular documentation of the masterpiece of the architect and designer (who created the entrances of the Paris Metro). The apartment block of luxury flats stands in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and is stunning in its originality and intensity. Harvard, Turn of a Century, 69. Schmutzler, Art Nouveau, p. 167. MoMA 1970 exhibition catalogue:"With the outfitting of this one apartment house, Guimard came close to achieving. the total modernization of French decorative arts. the influence of the building and the book was enormous.".

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