Oblong Folio (366 x 492mm); library stamp (Ville de Geneve- Bibliotheque- Ecole des Beaux-Arts- Annule) – which confirms the deaccessioning of the volume. Signed dedication of author to M. Miller on title-page, portrait of Trachsel by Ferdinand Hodler Title page in red and black, half title in red, 50 large plates in heliotype in various single colors in tones of black, blue, sepia, violet on white. Bound in publisher's red three quarter cloth over boards by Villain. Excellent.

Dedication copy of a rare suite of large fantastic utopian architectural designs of surprising modernity for the time by the Swiss symbolist artist, architect and poet Albert Trachsel (1863-1929), considered by Vivien Greene, in her catalog for the 2017 Guggenheim exhibition in New York City, the “Edgar Allan Poe of Architecture”. This work is strongly influenced by Trachsel’s Parisian connection with the Symbolist and Rosicrucian “milieu”. In this album, he creates an “architectural poem” where the traditional verbal structure is replaced by fantastic architectural projects depicting his vision of an ideal humanity whose dreams, ideas, emotions and feelings are represented by his visionary architectural projects.

A landmark of symbolist architecture, the work was published in 140 copies (40 copies on Japan paper and 100 regular copies; ours is one of the latter). In addition to the 50 large illustrations, the book contains a prologue in verse by Mathias Morhardt, a historical and interpretive preface by Trachsel, and a portrait of Trachsel by the renown Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler.

In Paris, Trachsel exhibited at the Salon of the Rose-Croix, and together with the young Picasso at the Galeries Serrurier, Paris (1905). 

OCLC lists 5 US copies: Columbia, Yale, Getty, NGA and the Wolfsonian.

* Bénézit (vol. 9, p. 257); Vivien Greene, Mystical symbolism: The salon of the Rose-Croix in Paris, 1892-1897 (Guggenheim exhibition catalog, 2018).

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