Arts & Architecture 1945-1954: The Complete Reprint

On Saturday I finally received my personal bargain of the year: the complete reprint of the first 10 years of the Arts & Architecture magazine which I bought at the online sale of well-known publisher Taschen at a 75% discount. Ever since the beginning of my love for architecture, the postwar architecture in the United States in general and the architectural idiom present throughout California in particular keep on fascinating me. Therefore I had to have the reprint of A&A!
As the title already indicates, the first 10 year's issues are accurately reproduced and housed in a folder for each year. Arts & Architecture is most famous for its Case Study House Program, initiated by founder edito-in-chief John Entenza, which initially sought to promote affordable housing for America's middle class but ended up as a series of single-family homes for the well-to-do's. Nonetheless the program has helped promote the magazine, modern architecture, and the architects involved with the program, among them Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, and Ralph Rapson. Its overall significance in promoting modern architecture, design, and lifestyle, cannot be underestimated and receives further evidence by the illustruous range of guest commentators which includes heavyweights of modernism like Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Harry Seidler.

Unfortunately the pictures I took only provide a partial impression of the visual pleasure of the books...