LIVING SPACES
Interiors Library Volume One
George Nelson
George Nelson: LIVING SPACES [Interiors Library Series Volume One]. NYC: Whitney, 1952. First Edition. Small folio. Blue cloth stamped in white. Photographically printed dust jacket. 146 pp. 232 black and white photographs and diagrams. Jacket lightly worn along top edge with a chipped spine heel. Rear panel with small chips to top edge and a short, closed tear along bottom edge. One of the nicest copies of this title I have handled. A nearly fine copy.9.25 x 12.25 hardcover book with 146 pages, with 232 black and white photos and floorplans. This book is the Bible of postwar american interior design: beautiful photography by the best in the field: Julius Shulman and Heidrich Blessing, etc.
LIVING SPACES was George Nelson's attempt to sell modern housing to America and it is a lavish production. Designed by the Office of George Nelson, the book itself is extremely well-designed and thoughtfully assembled. Drop-dead gorgeous photography, selected from the archives of Interiors magazine (who sponsored the publication of all four volumes in their Interiors Library Series). No other book dedicated to postwar American housing can hold a candle to this exquisite volume. I am not exaggerating.
Architects and designers represented in Living Spaces include Gordon Drake, Marcel Breuer, Richard J. Neutra, Architects Collaborative, Greta Magnusson Grossman, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, F.R.S. Yorke, Gropius, Harry Seidler, Samuel Glaberson, Charles Eames, Harold M. Schwartz, Twitchell and Rudolph, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, J.R. Davidson, Curtis and Davis, Campbell and Wong, Philip Johnson, L. Canella, R. Fontana and R. Radici, Ward Bennett, Breger and Salzman, Paolo Chessa, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Oscar Stonorov, Russel Wright, John Campbell, Robert Rosenberg and New Design, Luigi Ghidini and Guglielmo Mozzini, I. M. Pei, Lamantia and McCoy, Antonio Lombardini, White and Hermann, Harry Seidler, Paul Laszlo, George Nelson, Jan Ruhtenberg, Alexander Girard, Finn Juhl, Waltner Bogner, Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames, Gruen and Krummeck, Ain, Johnson and Day, Carl Anderson and Ross Bellah, Twitchell and Rudolph, Craig Ellwod, White and Hermann, Oscar Stonorov, Dan Kiley, Robert Carson, Hugh Stubbins, Jr., Franco Albini, Eliot Noyes, Felix Augenfeld, A. Quincy Jones, Bogner and Richmond, Baldwin - Machado, Paul Laszlo, Katz Waisman Blumenkrantz Stein Weber Architects Associated, Michael Goodman, Augusto Romano, Marianne Strengell, Paul Beidler, Philip Johnson, Wallace Heath, Henry Hebbein, and J. Stanley Sharp.
Manufacturers and Distributors represented in Living Spaces include California Contemporary, Inc.; Drexel; Dunbar; Glenn of California; Kaplan Furn. Company; Knape & Vogt Mfg. Company; Knoll Associates; Herman Miller Furniture Company; Jens Risom Design Inc.; Van Keppel-Green; Widdicomb Furniture Company and many others.
"George Nelson was an outstanding designer. We all know that. But my hunch is that, in a hundred years, he'll be even better remembered for his thinking and writing about design." -- Stanley Abercrombie, architect and writer
Even if he had never designed a single piece of furniture or a wall clock, George Nelson (1908 - 1986) would be remembered as one of the founding fathers of American Modernism. The Hartford nativešs writing celebrated American Design with messianic zeal and pedagogical insight. Every book Nelson authored is a true classic in every sense of the word.
Spreads from this volume can be viewed here.
out of stock