Journeys of the Mind: Architecture and Design
From early pattern books to today's four-color monographs, architects and designers document everything from classical interiors of the ancient world to the latest in building plans.
Illustrated London News. "Grand Panorama of the Great Exhibition of All Nations."
Friends of the Library Fund, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Library
a commemorative for the 1851 Great Exhibition held in London (commonly
known as the Crystal Palace Show), this 29-foot scroll depicts the
interior scenes and pavilions of the fair. Developed by the staff of the
Illustrated London News, the engraved images convey the grandeur
and expanse of this unique historic event, which inspired the United
States and other European countries to mount their own international
Le garde meuble (The furniture repository)
Published between 1839 and 1935, this highly influential serial
helped disseminate French design throughout Europe and America. Each issue
of Le garde meuble contained nine plates illustrating the latest in
interiors and furniture. Because of the quality of the plates, designers
were able to replicate intricate details and patterns.
|Giuseppe Galli Bibiena (1696-1757) |
Architetture, e prospettive (Architecture, and perspective)
Augsberg: Andrea Pfeffel, 1740.
Gift of Abram S. Hewitt, 1931
Italian designer Galli Bibiena employed intricate systems of perspective
to create dramatic illusionary theater sets and festival decorations for
the royal families of Austria and Germany. In Architetture, he
documents the ostentatious styles of the period with 50 engravings of
altars, palace interiors, and theater sets, many of them for religious
festivals in Vienna.
|Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) |
Urformen der kunst (Art forms in nature)
Berlin: E. Wasmuth, [1928?].
Pierpont Morgan Fund
Around 1918, Blossfeldt used a microscopic lens to make detailed
photographs of plant forms against a stark background. Stripped of their
naturalistic quality, the plants appeared to be man-made cast-iron forms.
The creation of this book coincided with the birth of the Bauhaus school
of design, which emulated machine-like forms and stripped objects of
ornamentation that did not contribute to their function. Design schools
adopted Blossfeldt's work as a pattern book for natural forms for many
|Albrecht Dürer (1471-1582) |
Institutionum geometricarum (Geometric instruction)
Paris: Christian Wecheli, 1535.
Gift of the Burndy Library
Albrecht Dürer, the famous German artist, was intensely interested in
mathematics and its relation to art theory. In 1525, he published his work
on the basic mathematics he felt an artist should know, including the
construction of curves, polygons, bird’s-eye and profile elevations, and
polyhedra. The Smithsonian Libraries copy is the 1535 Latin translation.
Dürer’s theoretical work was widely studied for centuries to come.
|Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656-1723)
Entwurff einer historischen Architectur (A plan of civil and historical architecture)
Leipzig: [no publisher given], 1725.
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, principal architect for the
Austrian court, developed residences, theaters, and churches in a Baroque
style that soon found imitators throughout the Habsburg empire. In the
Entwurff, he attempted the first comparative history of the
world's major structures from antiquity to the 1700s, including plans and
elevations from ancient Greece and Rome. Fischer was among the earliest
writers to describe and illustrate non-Western structures from the Middle
and Far East, for which he used Nieuhof's travel guide (on view in the
"Journeys over Land and Sea" section of the exhibition) as one source of
information. Fischer’s overview of a number of ornamental styles inspired
design revivals in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
|E. A. Séguy (active 1900-1925) |
[Paris: Tolmer, about 1925].
This splendid example of a pattern book features some 20 plates with two
types of illustrations: realistic depictions of butterflies and
transformations of butterflies into abstract forms and ornamental
patterns. Séguy achieved the exceptional vibrancy and color of these
prints by using the pochoir process, a method of stenciling. Séguy
intended the book to be an inspiration for designers, especially those
specializing in wall coverings and textiles.
|André Vera |
Le nouveau jardin (The new garden)
Paris: Émile-Paul Éditeur, 1912.
The brothers André and Paul Vera, designers in the Art Moderne style, here
present their concepts for very formal gardens emphasizing clarity,
harmony, distinctive proportions, and bold color. Their plans encompassed
gardens of various sizes and purposes, such as a trellised garden and
gardens for beekeeping and fruit cultivation. While their ideas were in
direct contrast to the curvilinear Art Nouveau designs of the day, they
were very much in keeping with some theories of Le Corbusier, the Machine
Age architect who was then developing his formal aesthetic. However, the
use of woodblock prints for the illustrations gives this book a
|Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-about 1604)
[The Hague]: Hendrik Hondius, 1615.
Mary Stuart Book Fund
Vredeman de Vries, a Dutch painter and architect, wrote and illustrated
what became one of the major guidebooks on perspective for designers,
painters, and architects. Perspective had been a part of the education of
such professionals since the Renaissance. The book includes a number of
scenes and projections employing one- and multi-point perspective. These
were essential demonstrations for artists of the day, including the Dutch
painter Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), who was said to have a copy in his
|Wilhelm Zahn (1800-1871) |
Ornamente aller klassischen Kunstepochen (Ornaments of all classical periods in art)
Berlin: G. Reimer, 1843.
Traveling in Italy in the 1820s, Zahn recorded ornamental patterns at
Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as the interiors of the 16th-century
Palazzo Del Te in Mantua designed by Giuliano Romano. He published
Ornamente, with its copious examples of classical, medieval, and
Renaissance ornament, to educate designers in the neoclassical and