GOLDMANNS GROSSER WELTATLAS

Herbert Bayer

Herbert Bayer [Designer]: GOLDMANNS GROSSER WELTATLAS. Munich: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, 1955. Text in German. Folio. Tan cloth stamped in gold. Printed dust jacket. Decorated endpapers mirroring jacket design. 324 pp. Maps, diagrams and illustrations. Index. A nice copy of the German-language variant of Bayer's tour-de-force WORLD GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS [Chicago: Container Corporation of America, 1953]. Tips lightly bruised. A very good or better copy in a very good or better dust jacket with a couple of short, closed tears.

11.25 x 16 hardcover book with 324 pages, including Table of contents, maps, charts, illustrations and an enormous (99-page) index. Illustrated throughout with color maps, renderings, free drawings, photography & montage. This book is a triumph of the Bauhaus ideology of clarity put into practice. It is also a high point of contemporary book design and production, courtesy of Bayer and the Italian craftsmen at the Instituto Geografico De Agostini, Novara.

Bayer supervised a team of three designers (Martin Rosenzweig, Henry Gardiner and Masato Nakagawa) over a five-year period in order to produce the WORLD GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS for the CCA's 25th anniversary in 1953. CCA Chairman Walter Paepcke wanted Bayer to produce an atlas that reflected the new geopolitical realities of post-WWII life. In order to achieve this lofty goal, Bayer travelled throughout Europe searching out suitable maps and data, producing a re-examination of the classic atlas with Bauhaus clarity and concision. Jan Van Der Mack noted Bayers "fascination with the shape of the earth resulted in an extensive use of pictorial and diagrammatic representations in the section of geomorphology" (Cohen p.237).

For the German-language edition, Bayer worked with Wilhelm Goldmann and Professor L. Visintin; together they divided the atlas into the following categories:

• Astronomie
• Geologie
• Geographie
• Klimakunde
• Wirtschaft
• Bevölkerungskunde

In doing so, Bayer's clarity of vision set a benchmark for information graphics that has yet to be equalled. According to Bayer: " Successful map study provides two kinds of knowledge: interpretation of landscape, and human development in the physical setting... swiftly spreading global communications and increasing interdependence of all peoples compel us to consider the world as one. This Atlas places emphasis on the physical and material background against which man is set."

Of all the artists to pass through the Bauhaus, none lived the Bauhaus ideal of total integration of the arts into life like Herbert Bayer (1900 - 1985). He was a graphic designer, typographer, photographer, painter, environmental designer, sculptor and exhibition designer. He entered the Bauhaus in 1921 and was greatly influenced by Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky. He left in 1923, but returned in 1925 to become a master in the school. During his tenure as a Bauhaus master he produced many designs that became standards of a Bauhaus "style." Bayer was instrumental in moving the Bauhaus to purely sans serif usage in all its work. In 1928 he left the Bauhaus to work in Berlin. He primarily worked as a designer and art director for the Dorland Agency, an international firm. During his years at Dorland a Bayer style was established. Bayer emigrated to the United States in 1938 and set up practice in New York. His US design included work for NW Ayers, consultant art director for J. Walter Thompson and design work for GE. From 1946 on he worked exclusively for Container Corporation of America (CCA) and the Atlantic Richfield Corporation. In 1946 he moved to Aspen to become design consultant to CCA. In 1956 he became chairman of the department of design, a position he held until 1965. He was awarded the AIGA medal in 1970. Bayer's late work included work for ARCO and many personal projects including several environmental designs.

Spreads from this volume can be viewed here.

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