Travaux d'architecture : Leon Daures, Albi
Strasbourg, France: EDARI, 1933. Softcover. Brown wraps with brown design and text on cover. 42 pp. Chiefly bw illustrations. VG- some wear on wraps, spine with minor rips, spot on back cover. Some marks on cover page, all else excellent. Item #209086
"The young architect, trained at the beginning of the century and settled in the Albi region upon graduating from the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, could not help but be troubled by his first encounters with man's oldest material. Brick had long ago inspired the creation of vaults; more recently, its marriage with stone had allowed for the richest syntheses. Brick had not only provided an element of the picturesque; in Languedoc and northern Italy, its richness of color and simplicity of line had combined elegance with rigidity of form.
But in the 19th century, brick had been considered a material without nobility, and in the Albi region, the brilliance of facades had almost everywhere disappeared beneath the grayness of characterless plaster.
Mr. Leon Daures made these observations at a time when a renovation of housing and public monuments was being prepared. He thus considered the facilities that brick provided for a modern use of the semicircular arch, notably in the layout of the openings, bringing a new picturesque quality to the most modest facades." - translated from preface.
OCLC: 32831462
Price: $150.00