New at Pentagram
Pentagram Papers 37: Forgotten Architects
In the 1920s and early 1930s, German Jewish architects created some of the greatest modern buildings in Germany, mainly in the capital Berlin. A law issued by the newly elected German National Socialist Government in 1933 banned all of them from practicing architecture in Germany. In the years after 1933, many of them managed to emigrate, while many others were deported or killed under Hitler’s regime. Pentagram Papers 37: Forgotten Architects is a survey of 43 of these architects and their groundbreaking work.
The paper is based on the extensive research of architect Myra Warhaftig, who sadly passed away last Tuesday, 4 March at age 78. Warhaftig spent twenty years investigating the fates of these architects and only recently published her findings in her book German Jewish Architects Before and After 1933: The Lexicon. An exhibition based on her work is set to open at the Jewish Museum Berlin later this year. David Sokol has written about Warhaftig and her project in an article published today in the Jewish culture blog Nextbook.
Forgotten Architects was designed by Justus Oehler and Christiane Weismüller in our Berlin office. We have adapted its content for a minisite here.
Pentagram Celebrates Julius Shulman and ‘The Russian Garbo’
On Wednesday night Pentagram Architects hosted a party to celebrate famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman’s 97th birthday and the publication of Pentagram Papers 38: The Russian Garbo, which features Shulman’s photographs of the Sten-Frenke House. The Santa Monica residence was designed by Richard Neutra in 1934 for the Ukrainian émigré actress Anna Sten (“The Russian Garbo”) and her husband, Dr. Eugene Frenke, and was restored by James Biber and his team at Pentagram Architects in 2005. Shulman, who photographed Neutra-designed houses for forty years, remarkably did not shoot the Sten-Frenke House until after the restoration was complete.
Continue reading "Pentagram Celebrates Julius Shulman and ‘The Russian Garbo’"
Berlin Launch for Pentagram Papers 37
Pentagram’s Berlin office hosted a party last night to celebrate the launch of Forgotten Architects, Pentagram Papers 37. The guest of honor was architect Dr. Myra Warhaftig, whose compendium German Jewish Architects Before and After 1933 was the inspiration for Forgotten Architects, the latest in the series of self-published points of view known as the Pentagram Papers. Forgotten Architects surveys the work of German Jewish architects who disappeared during the years of the Third Reich and is accompanied by rarely seen photographs of their residential and commercial work.
Among the 100 guests who attended were Dr. Ulrich Klopsch, director of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Dr. Lieselotte Kugler, director of the Museum für Kommunikation and Dr. Rainer Rother, director of the Deutsche Kinemathek Museum für Film und Fernsehen. After an introduction and welcome by Pentagram partner Justus Oehler and a speech by Berlin’s State Secretary of Culture, André Schmitz, the guests enjoyed food, drinks and a special exhibition the Pentagram Berlin team organized for the evening.
State Secretary of Culture, André Schmitz welcomes guests.
Justus Oehler, Dr.-Ing. Myra Warhaftig, André Schmitz, State Secretary of Culture.
‘Papers’ Celebrated at SFMOMA
The Pentagram Papers was feted at SFMOMA.
Pentagram’s San Francisco office celebrated the publication of The Pentagram Papers with a lecture, book signing and party at SFMOMA on Friday, 30 March. John McConnell, partner emeritus and the Papers’ originator, and Kit Hinrichs, the book’s designer, gave a talk about the Papers before joining Lorenzo Apicella and Robert Brunner to sign copies of the new book. The event was sponsored by Bombay Sapphire.
Photos after the jump.
‘Papers’ Signing With Kit Hinrichs
Kit Hinrichs discusses the origin of the Pentagram Papers and signs copies of the new book at an evening presented by AIGA/LA. Thursday, 15 March from 7 pm at the Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. Event registration and details here.
City ‘Papers’
The Pentagram Papers is featured in Metropolis.
Pentagram Papers 35: Tin Tabernacles
Pentagram Papers 35, “Tin Tabernacles and Other Buildings,” looks at the unusual corrugated-iron structures that served as expeditious architecture in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and that still dot the landscape in Britain, Australia and other parts of the world. The paper features the photography of Alasdair Ogilvie, who has been documenting the structures for 25 years. It was designed by David Hillman.
Check out a slideshow of the paper here.
‘Papers’ Chased
The Pentagram Papers has been recommended by Very Short List.
The Pentagram Papers Book
Since 1975 Pentagram has issued the Pentagram Papers, our limited edition series of booklets that examine “curious, entertaining, stimulating, provocative, and occasionally controversial points of view” related to design. Published once or twice a year, the Papers have been distributed exclusively to our friends and clients. Now, just in time for Pentagram’s 35th anniversary, the Papers have been collected and make their public debut in a new book, The Pentagram Papers, out now from Chronicle Books in the US and coming in February from Thames and Hudson in the UK.
Each Pentagram Paper explores a unique topic of interest—from the lights of London’s famed Savoy hotel to the pop architecture of Wildwood, New Jersey; from the mailboxes of rural Australia to the classroom aids of Mexico. The Pentagram Papers includes a detailed discussion of the series’ origins, reproductions of the 35 entries so far, and tucked in the back, a complete new paper, Marks of Africa, number 36 in the series.
Pentagram Papers 34: Monografías
(Click image for larger view)
Michael Bierut and his team have designed the latest Pentagram Paper, “Monografías: Information Design for the Mexican Schoolroom,” about the illustrated learning aids popular in Mexico. Armin Vit of Speak Up (and Pentagram) contributes an introduction about his own youthful monografía mania: “That evening, walking to the papelería with my mom I was about to discover monografías for the first time. I would then use them every year from third grade to high school and for every class from biology to world history—some I used so much, I had them memorized.”
Join us for a launch party for the paper tonight from 7 to 9 pm at Under the Volcano, 12 East 36th St., New York City.
More images after the jump.
Syndication feed