The Architectural Review, Nov. 1933, “Electricity”
The futuristic cover to the special subject issue of the Architectural Review in November 1933 that covers the subject of electricity. As the cover suggests the magazine deal with the modernity of electricity both in terms of its impact on industrial architecture, such as in power generating stations and the National Grid components, as well as the impact of electricity as a power source, for lighting and heating, on domestic, commercial and industrial architecture. The articles are amazing.
The cover is signed “Van der Horst” and I know who I would like this to be but – the dates may be a little early for the Dutch modernist photographer and designer Henk van der Horst (1912–1942) as in 1933 he was still studying at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in Den Haag. But it is very much his style of work with photomontage and industrial subjects. Van der Horst was murdered by the Nazis, dying in a concentration camp in Poland having been arrested and deported for participation in the Dutch resistance.
Addendum: I suspect it is the British photographer Adrian Van Der Horst who did other works for AR around this time.
The magazine title is lettering, patterned after Cassandre’s Art Deco masterpiece Bifur, which was issued as foundry type by Deberny & Peignot in Paris in 1929.
