Lost German Color of 1927

JF Ptak Science Books    Quick Post

[Part of the series on Color and its Abuses, as with an example of "When Color is Best in Black-and-White", here.]
Nothing quite says no-color as German deep noir of the mid- and late-1920's.  These movies can be so deep and contrasted, so very black-and-white, with such stark Moon-like shadows, no dawn or dusk just night and day, that it can make you forget that outside of the photographs and movies that people were moving around in great swirls of color.  And nothing quite helps you to remember this than by having a look at a book like one below, a DIY piece printed in Berlin in 1927, the Farbige Wohraume¹.

It is of interest here because in addition to blueprints and sections of the furniture to be built, there are associated illustrations showing the completed work placed in a decorated room.  And it just so happens that these rooms are highly, colorfully decorated--not that there's so much in the room, per se, but there is definitely a lot of color. [This book is available from our blog bookstore, here.]

Notes:

1. Farbige Wohnräume, 24 Tafeln farbig dargestellter neuzeitlicher Räume (5 Wohn-, 6 Speise-, 6 Herren-und 7 Schlafzimmer) mit den einzelnen Nöbeln im Masstab 1:20. Dazu weitere 24 Tafeln mit den zur Anfertigung erforderlichen Grund- und Aufrissen und Detailschnitten einschliessich der Sitzmöbel.  Berlin,  Verlagsanstalt Deutschen Holzbeiter Verbanes GMBH. Rebound in library cloth, very nice, workable copy.  37x26cc, 24 color plates of room designs, followed by 24 heavy leaves of associated blueprints printed front and back, these showing a profile of the furniture to be constructed on recto and some cutting instructions on verso.  The color illustrations of the furniture in a room setting is correlated with the blueprints in rear, each of the color plates with a corresponding sheet of blueprints.  Only four copies located in WorldCat: Yale, University of Illinois, Grand Rapids Public Library, and Cornell.