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book (design) story #58

josef luitpold:
der entwurzelte baum

büchergilde gutenberg, berlin, 1926
printer: buchdruckwerkstätte g.m.b.h., berlin
size: 31 x 22 cm
designer: otto rudolf schatz

now for something completely different – although a japanese influence is also evident in this book (as it was in the previous book story): here we have japanese style bookbinding – a pouch book bound with a flat cord in the "yamato toji" style.

graphic artist otto rudolf schatz (1900-1961) and writer josef luitpold stern (1886-1966) both originated from vienna. both worked for socialist publications, and ran into trouble with the nazis in the 1930s. schatz spent 1944-45 in a camp because he wouldn't separate from his jewish wife.

it is designed as a "block book" in pre-gutenberg style – both the illustrations and the text are woodcut.

the whole design is expressionist – actually quite close to the style of the early, craft-orientated (weimar) bauhaus: johannes itten, lyonel feininger and others experimented with expressive calligraphic typography – they also used uppercase, with an archaic "v"-shaped "u".

the impressum states that the book was printed directly from the wooden plates in 1926.