Wasmuth portfolio

The portfolio Wasmuth (1910) is a collection in two volumes of 100 lithographies of the work of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 - 1959).

It was published in Germany under the title Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwurfe (buildings and projects carried out) in 1910 by the editor Berliner Ernst Wasmuth, with in accompaniment a monograph by Wright. It contained plans and prospects (linear only) for its work between 1893 and 1909. It was the very first publication of any kind of the work of Wright in the world since it had not published anything during the twenty previous years of work to the the United States.

The importance of this portfolio came from the bond which it creates between architecture American pionnière of Wright and the very first generation of architects Modernes in Europe. Wright made a turn of one year old Europe, of October 1909 in October 1910, partly to promote its portfolio.

The early influence of Wright on the north of Europe does not suffer from doubt: it is known that Le Corbusier had a copy of it; the Austrian architects Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra, emigrated both with the the United States with an aim of working at Wright; and a glance with the town hall of Hilversum made by Willem Marinus Dudok in 1924 betrays its origins. During the publication of the portfolio, three eminently influential architects of the 20th century (Le Corbusier, Ludwig Crumbs van der Rohe and Walter Gropius) were all working as assistant in the workshop of Peter Behrens in Berlin, where, it appears, the workshop stopped working during the day when it accepted the portfolio. If this history is true, that shows the immediate impact of the architecture of Wright in the European circles of the time, as from the moment when Behrens probably received a copy of the Wasmuth portfolio, at best a few days or weeks after its publication.

Forever desired Wright to admit that the exchanges were done in the two directions, and claimed not to have retained anything of its last years in Europe. However the work of a specialist in Wright, Antony Alofsin, suggests that Wright was enormously influenced by the work of the Wiener Secession. In return, a few years after, the Dutch movement De Stijl taken again design of Wright. The greatest figures of Stilj recognize some influence of Wright.

About the half of the images of the Wasmuth portfolio is due to the work of the architect Marion Mahony Griffin, an assisting time of Wright, whose graphic style was for much in the success of the publication.

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