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book (design) story #213

ernesto n. rogers, jürgen joedicke:
pier luigi nervi

editions vincent, fréal et cie, paris, 1957
size: ?? x ?? cm
designer: max huber

italian engineer pier luigi nervi (1891-1979) is famous for his constructions based on reinforced concrete and prefabricated elements. this monograph was originally published by hatje (germany) and by niggli (switzerland) with german and french texts. this is an identically designed edition for france with essays in french and the picture section with german and french captions.

the dustjacket shows a spectacular montage of overlapping rectangles and monochrome photos printed in different colors. it somewhat reminds of richard paul lohse's jackets such as this.

it was designed by a swiss artist who exhibited with the allianz group in the 1940s (together with lohse, max bill, and others), although he spent most of his life as a successful graphic designer in italy: max huber (1919-1992) is credited on the jacket's rear flap.

the layout of the inner pages is typical for (swiss) books on modern architecture: wide page format, photos and captions arranged in a grid-based layout, sans-serif type.

below the famous stadio communale of florence, engineered by nervi in 1931.

reinforced concrete can look so light and beautiful ...