WRIGHT, Frank Lloyd (1869-1959).
Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe. Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1910.

2 portfolios, 2° (614 x 388 mm) and one text volume 4° (360 x 264 mm). 60 lithographed plates (of 72) and 22 (of 28) with tissue overlays some marginal dampstaining, see below). Text in English and German lacking 8 German text leaves). Text and plates bound in a modern quarter leather binding and housed in a large leather chest resembling a Prairie Style house (700 x 470 x 400 mm) by the Czech bookbinder Jan Sobota (1909-2001).

FIRST EDITION of Wright's scarce "Wasmuth Portfolio." The Wasmuth portfolio was a collaborative effort between Ernst Wasmuth, a Berlin publisher, and Frank Lloyd Wright. It was Wasmuth's idea to publish a complete folio of Wright's work to date. The project was completed during Wright's first trip to Europe in 1909, and was published in 1910. The collection of Wright's houses and commercial buildings received far more attention and praise in Europe than in the United States, and some contemporary architects called it "the most important book of the century." The Wasmuth lithographs brought Wright's distinctive Prairie Style to the attention of European modernists Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ("Wright's work presented an architectural world of unexpected force, clarity of language and disconcerting richness of form") and Le Corbusier, who were then starting their careers.

Wright returned to the United States in 1911, and settled in Taliesin, were he stored the plates of the portfolio for the American distribution. In 1914 a fire destroyed the building and the Wasmuth portfolio "went up in smoke when Taliesin burned. Some thirty copies only were saved. The pile in the basement smouldered and smoked for three days after the house had burned to the ground." (Wright in his Autobiography.
This set is housed in a Prairie Style house chest, by the Cezch bookbinder Jan Sobota. Sobota graduated at the School of Applied Arts in Prague in 1957, and majored in Bookbinding in 1969. For many years he worked in the United States, and became the director of the Conservation Laboratory at Bridwell Library of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He returned to the Czech Republic to teach bookbinding in his studio in Loket. Sobora lectured and taught on bookbinding in the United States and in Europe, and his work was exhibited in 32 individual and countless group exhibitions.

This first edition and all early editions of the Wasmuth Portfolio are very scarce. According to American Book Prices Current only 3 other copies of this work have sold at auction in at least 30 years. Sweeney 87.