Dandanah, the fairy palace : building blocks of solid glass / invented by Blanche Mahlberg ; models and designs by Bruno Taut.

Title & Author:

Dandanah, the fairy palace : building blocks of solid glass / invented by Blanche Mahlberg ; models and designs by Bruno Taut.

Publication:

[Germany?] : [publisher not identified], [1919-1920]

Description:

1 set of building blocks (62 pieces) : glass, color ; in wood box 28 x 28 x 4 cm + 7 sheets

Restrictions:

For special consultation only.

Notes:
Title from label mounted on box.
Box and sheets are octagonal; sheets consist of 1 packing plan + 6 colour lithographed design sheets.
Solid glass blocks, in clear, blue, red, yellow, and green colours, manufactured by Luxfer - Prismen Gesellschaft Berlin.

Exhibitions:

Exhibited: "L'architecture et son image: quatre siècles de répresentation architecturale: œuvres tirées des collections du Centre canadien d'architecture = Architecture and its image: four centuries of architectural representation: works from the collection of the Canadian Centre for Architecture", Centre canadien d'architecture, May 7-Aug, 7, 1989; Dallas Museum of Art, spring 1990.
Exhibited: "Les jouets et la tradition moderniste = Toys and the modernist tradition", Centre canadien d'architecture, Dec. 15, 1993-May 1, 1994.
Exhibited: "Cosmos: du romantisme à l'avant-garde, 1999 = Cosmos: from romanticism to the avant-garde, 1999", Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, June 17-Oct. 17, 1999.
7 sheets: Exhibited: "Los juguetes de las vanguardias = Toys of the Avant-Garde", Museo Picasso Malaga, Oct. 4, 2010-Jan. 30, 2011.
Box and blocks: Exhibited: "404 error : the object is not online" = "Erreure 404 : l'objet n'est pas en ligne", Centre canadien d'architecture, Nov. 11, 2010-Feb. 13, 2011.
Box and 7 sheets: Exhibited: "Century of the child : growing by design 1900-2000", Museum of Modern Art, July 24-Nov. 5, 2012.

Summary:

With its dazzling glass components in modified geometric shapes, this set is a partial realization in miniature of the idea of a world given new life by glass architecture, expressed verbally by Paul Scheerbart in his "Glasarchitektur" of 1914, and visually by Bruno Taut in his "Alpine Architecture" of 1919. The blocks permit a variety of structures easily associated with Taut's real "Glass House", the pavilion erected at Cologne for the German Werkbund Exhibition in 1914 and bearing some of Scheerbart's mottoes about glass.

Resources:
Image
Image

Form/genre:

Glass (material) Building blocks.
Building blocks.

Added entries:

Mahlberg, Blanche.
Taut, Bruno, 1880-1938.
Luxfer-Prismen Gesellschaft.

Holdings:

Location: Library cage plus 23236
Call No.: TS2301.T7.G5 Z9 1919
Notes: FOR SPECIAL CONSULTATION ONLY
Status: Available

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