Ernst Wasmuth Verlag

Ernst Wasmuth Verlag GmbH & Co. is a publisher based in Tübingen, in southern Germany. The themes of architecture, archaeology, art and design are the key topics of the publishing house, which was established in Berlin in 1872.

Ernst Wasmuth Verlag GmbH & Co.
Founded1872
FounderErnst Wasmuth
Country of originGermany
Headquarters locationTübingen
DistributionBrockhaus Kommissionsgeschäft (Germany)
Distributed Art Publishers (US)[1]
RIBA Book Distribution (UK)[2]
Publication typesBooks
Nonfiction topicsarchitecture, archaeology, art and design
Official websitewasmuth-verlag.de

History

On May 1, 1872 in Berlin, Ernst Wasmuth (1845-1897) opened a bookstore devoted to architecture, which he soon expanded into publishing. Some of the books he published became classics, including works by Hermann Muthesius and Frank Lloyd Wright. Early in the company history, Wasmuth began to publish two magazines, Der Städtebau (Urban development) and Architektur des XX. Jahrhunderts (Architecture of the 20th Century).

Wasmuth's periodical Architecture of the 20th Century is a valuable source of imagery for turn-of the century German architecture

In 1875, Ernst Wasmuth's younger brother, Emil, entered the business. He died in 1894. In 1905 the company began to publish Georg Dehio's Handbook of German Art History (Der Dehio), which was issued annually to 1928. From 1913 to 1943 Emil Wasmuth's son Günther ran the business in Berlin. Günther Wasmuth founded Wasmuth's Monatshefte für Baukunst (Monthly Architectural Bulletins) in 1914, edited by city planner and author, Werner Hegemann. From 1919 to 1926, Gunther's brother, Ewald Wasmuth, also worked at the company. He left publishing to focus on his own pursuits as a philosopher and translator of such writers as Blaise Pascal.

The publishing house was completely destroyed in an Allied bombing raid in 1943, including the company archive.[3] After World War II, Günther Wasmuth re-established the business in Tübingen while a Wasmuth Antiquarian business was opened in Berlin. The publisher continued to focus on the fields of architecture, art and archeology, to which it now added scientific works and illustrated books. Günther Wasmuth died in 1974. Ernst J. Wasmuth has been the managing director of the company since 1990.

In 1942, a branch of the company opened in Zurich under the name "Fretz & Wasmuth". The publisher produced books for the zones of occupation in Germany that could find no publisher at the time because their authors were discredited. That included, for example, the autobiography of Hans Bernd Gisevius, an avid leader of Nazi injustice, who later became a resistance member by its own account. The company prospects suffered in West Germany after 1945 to 1961 when new editions of earlier publications created larger readerships.

Wasmuth Portfolio
Main article: Wasmuth Portfolio

This was the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's first publication anywhere in the world, as Wright had not published any of his work in his twenty previous years of activity in the United States. It contains plans and linework perspectives of buildings he designed between 1893 and 1909. It is thought that his book, published in German, had an influence on Dutch and German architects in the 1920s; a notable example is the work of the Modernist architect Willem Marinus Dudok.

Orbis Terrarum

Arguably one of its most enduring projects was its series of photo books published in the 1920s under the collective series name of Orbis Terrarum (The World). The company hired noted photographers to visit countries around the world and produced high quality reproductions of the finished products. Following are the titles and the photographer. The list may be incomplete:

Title Year of Publication Photographer(s) Notes
Architecture and landscape in China - A journey through twelve provinces 1923 Ernst Boerschmann
Picturesque Great Britain – The Architecture and the Landscape 1926 Emil Otto Hoppé Sold more than 100,000 copies.[3]
Picturesque Mexico 1925 Hugo Brehme An "expanded and refocused version" of Brehme's 1923 book of the same title.[4] Also published in German, French and Spanish.
Canada: Landscape and Lives 1926 Various resident photographers. Text by Louis Hamilton
The Fifth Continent [Australia] 1931 Emil Otto Hoppé "The first nationwide collective portrait of the young nation"[5]
Yugoslavia (Selections) 1926 Kurt Hielscher
Das Romantische Amerika 1927 Emil Otto Hoppé Sold more than 100,000 copies. An important Modernist view of America.[3] Published as Romantic America: Picturesque United States by B. Westermann Co.
Egypt: architecture, landscape, life of the people (Internet Archive) 1929 Herbert Ricke, Ludwig Borchardt, Alfred Buckham, Lehnert and Landrock and others Text by Ludwig Borchardt and Herbert Ricke
Picturesque Greece: architecture, landscape, life of the people (Internet Archive) 1928 Hanns Holdt and others Text by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Germany 1925 Kurt Hielscher Text by Gerhart Hauptmann
Italy (Selections) 1925 Kurt Hielscher Text by and Wilhelm von Bode
Scandinavia 1924 Valdemar Rordam, Ernst Klein and Theodor Caspari
North Africa 1924 Lehnert and Landrock
Picturesque Palestine, Arabia and Syria: The Country, The People and the Landscape 1925 Karl Gröber
India 1928 Martin Hürlimann
France (Selections) 1927 Martin Hürlimann Introduction by Paul Valéry
Indochina (Selections) 1929 Martin Hürlimann
Austria 1928 Kurt Hielscher
The unknown Spain. Architecture, landscape, people life 1922 Kurt Hielscher
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References
  1. "Our Representatives". Wasmuth - en version. Retrieved 2018-02-11.
  2. "Featured Publishers | RIBA Bookshops". Retrieved 2018-02-11.
  3. Graham Howe, "E.O. Hoppé’s Pioneering Business Models" in PhotoResearcher No. 23, April 2015, pp. 52-65
  4. Mexico: Aukunst - Landschaft - Vvolksleben, Modernism 101
  5. E.O. Hoppe Estate Collection

Sources
  • Eva-Maria Neubert, "100 years of publishing Ernst Wasmuth" in: stock sheets for the German Book Trade, vol. 28, 1972, p. 819f; with 1 facsimile
  • N.N., 125 Years Wasmuth. Catalog 9798 (= part of the library of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association e.V.), in: Company chronicle, P. III-XIV, as well as the main Wasmuth Publications from 1872 to 1997, p. XV XXVIII, Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1997
  • Roland Jaeger, "The countries of the earth in the image. The series Orbis Terrarum in publishing Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin, and in the Atlantis Verlag, Berlin/Zurich" in: Manfred Heiting, Roland Jaeger (eds.): Autopsy. German Photo-books 1918 to 1945. Volume 1. Steidl, Göttingen 2012, p. 98 131.
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