Czech Cubism: Architecture, Furniture, Decorative Arts, 1910-1925 - Hardcover

In Paris at the beginning of the 20th century, a dialogue between Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque gave rise to a new artistic language - Cubism. Between 1910 and 1914 avant-garde architects in Prague, including Josef Gocar, Pavel Janak, Vlatislav Hofman and Josef Chochol, seized on this new aesthetics and made it their own, translating it into architecture. Rejecting Otto Wagner and the Vienna school of rationalists, they sought to create a visionary architecture which animated matter with the creative spirit. Artistic form replaced construction, function and material as the most important factor in architectural design. Many Cubist architects turned to applied art as a means of trying out their visions "in miniature", designing startling and vibrant furniture which is characterized by exaggerated angles, cut-off corners and sloping planes. After years of neglect while Czechoslovakia was under Communist rule, the work of the Cubists was rediscovered towards the end of the 1970s, and Czech Cubism is now recognized as one of the century's most influential design movements. This book contains illustrations of over 300 projects and artefacts included in an exhibition on Czech Cubism in the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein. With plans, photographs and sketches from the fields of architecture, furniture design, ceramics and graphic design, it provides a comprehensive overview of this design movement. Edited and compiled by Alexander von Vegesack of the Vitra Design Museum, it includes introductory essays by eight experts.