Learning from the 2023 Book Fair

This year's New York International Antiquarian Book Fair is my third, following the 2022 book fair and, just days before lockdown, the 2020 book fair. Three hardly makes me an expert, even in my specialization of architecture books, but it does help with gauging the value given to books on the subject and getting a sense of how architecture books are seen within the wider rare books market. Generally, "rare" equates with "old" first editions that have signatures and, in some cases, limited print runs. The last, in the realm of architecture, points to anything pre-capital-M-modern but also, ironically, architecture books in general, since they tend to have limited print runs compared to fiction — compared to anything but artist books, really — and usually just one printing. But the small print runs of architecture books do not equate to high asking prices, as could be grasped by the smattering of architecture books that I came across at the 2023 edition of the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair — at the Park Avenue Armory until Sunday. The ones on display are a narrow bunch, tending almost exclusively toward big-name architects from the 20th century (Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Venturi Scott Brown) and old Europeans (Alberti, Palladio, Vitrivius, Piranesi). Along these lines, below are some things I learned while browsing the booths at this year's book fair trying to find some architectural gems.

Lesson 1: Corbu is (still) king.

If one architect appeared more than any other in my quick scan of the booksellers' offerings yesterday afternoon, it was definitely Le Corbusier; he made roughly fifty books in his lifetime, so that's hardly a surprise. It also helps that it's been a half-century since his death and, even with a lot of criticism of his legacy in recent years, he seems more popular than ever in rare book circles. A few of the Corbu books I came across:

Johnson Rare Books & Archives has a first edition of Des Canons, Des Munitions? Merci! Des Logis... S.V.P. from 1937, complete with a typed signed letter by Corbu. It is going for $7,500.

Ursus Books is selling an "incredibly rare first edition of Le Corbusier's legendary Farbenklaviatur [Color Keyboards ...] the first of the two collections of colors which he designed for the Salubra wallpaper company" in 1931. Birkhäuser did a reproduction about 25 years ago that can be found for a few hundred dollars, but a first edition at Ursus will put you back $22,500.

Those offerings pale in comparison to one of the 250 copies of La Poème de l'Angle Droit from 1955; Bernett Penka Rare Books on the Arts and Visual Culture has it, complete with an original case, for $50,000.

Lesson 2: Old + European = Rare + Valuable.

While walking the aisles of the fair, it felt at times that "architecture" was limited to old treatises, pattern books, etchings, and the like, all coming from Europe centuries ago. Large folios opened to drawings were in many glass cases, standing out as skilled and (once) influential creations but also anachronistic images of what many people think buildings should be: classical. Traditionally, architecture libraries — be they institutional, professional, or private — have been practical: providing guidance and inspiration for architects. Outside of a few architectural historians, that's not the case with books like these, which are prized for their age, scarcity, and beauty, not their practicality to architects. And even if architects still used them, such as those at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, they'd probably use reprints rather than valuable 500-year-old originals. 

Ursus Books makes another appearance here, this time with a portfolio (ca. 1810) of 24 plates by Antoine Joseph Gaitte of Claude Nicholas Ledoux's 18th-century toll-gates in Paris. Price: $8,500.

Books — or, more accurately, scrolls — of Vitruvius's foundational text on architecture, De architectura, don't exist, so later Renaissance versions of it are prized, such as this one edited by Fra Giovanni Tacuino in 1511. Erasmushaus is selling it for $65,000. (The Basel-based bookseller also has a first edition of Palladio's Quattro Libri for $66,000.)

The enduring legacy of Giovanni Battista Piranesi is evident in "The Grand Tour" booth of Mayfair Rare Books & Manuscripts, which has a folio with 20 etched plates of Paestum (ca. 1778) going for €25,000.

Lesson 3: Architects love certain artists and designers.

Audience is always important when it comes to book sales. If we lump architects together as one audience, I'd argue that they purchase books outside of architecture as often as they amass books on architecture. Books on art and design are high among the former, with very particular artists and designers — ones with shared affinities for form, space, texture, etc. — standing out over others. A couple are below, plus one surprise (to me).

In his lifetime Massimo Vignelli designed many architecture books, though in NYC he is known for his redesign of the MTA subway map in the 1970s. Never widely implemented, the Vignelli Map made a comeback this century for the MTA's Weekender website, and in recent years I've seen it popping up in stations. Still, seeing an original map from 1978 at Geographicus Rare Antique Maps made me stop in my tracks (no pun intended). How much? $7,500.

Architects love artists who trained as architects, and right up top is Gordon Matta-Clark, who sliced and cut open buildings, documenting the transient (de)constructions in photographs. A book of his I'd heard about but hadn't seen in person is Walls Paper, which the artist made from photographs of partially demolished buildings in the Bronx in the early 1970s (he died in 1978 at just 35 years old). He colored the b/w photos and then cut the pages in the middle so juxtapositions are created as one flips through it. Two copies were on display at the fair: at Sims Reed Ltd. ($5,000) and Jeff Hirsch Books ($3,000).

Who is this Utopian architectural designer that Vivien Greene supposedly called the "Edgar Allan Poe of Architecture"? I'd never heard of Albert Trachsel before coming across this signed copy of Les Fêtes réelles, an "architectural poem" he made in 1897. Martyan Lan is selling it for $9,500. 

Lesson 4: Learning from Las Vegas is the architect's "one book."

If there is one book today that every architect should have, it's not Le Corbusier's Vers une architecture or Koolhaas and company's S,M,L,XL or even Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language. It's Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. (No explanation needed on its importance and influence, I hope, but here's something I wrote about it five years ago.) Heck, most architects already have the book, but I'm referring to the 1972 first edition, not the 1977 paperback. It's big, expensive (even the facsimile edition put out by MIT Press in 2017 is $100), and rare.

I'm lucky enough to have a first edition, but mine is lacking the glassine jacket that Johnson Rare Books & Archives has on display next to Corbusier's Munitions. That's not an original box at right, but inside the book are the authors' signatures, which brings the price to $3,000.