A very rare treasure for connoisseurs of Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werksttte (Vienna Secession), which Hoffmann founded with his fellow artists, such as Gustav Klimt, in the late 19th century. This book is an in-depth examination of the Sanatorium Purkersdorf, a spa that the Austrian architect Hoffmann designed near Vienna in 1904-05 and filled with the Secession's geometric, practical, yet strikingly beautiful chairs, benches, tables, chests, lighting fixtures, and other furnishings. It was the first expression of the Secession's concept of a "Gesamtkunstwerk" (unified work of art) and a forerunner to the streamlined modern design that was to sweep Europe and the US in the 1920s and '30s. Published by Galerie Metropol, which was a legendary purveyor of Secession decorative arts in New York and Vienna in the 1980s (and which lent some of its pieces to the landmark Museum of Modern Art exhibition "Vienna 1900" in 1986). Text in German and English.

　　Very good condition overall. Dust jacket: edge wear, wrinkling along spine, small tears (0.125") around top of spine, very light foxing along inside spine and top. Cover: foxing and toning along spine and back cover, foxing on inside covers, slight wrinkling on front cover. Book: foxing on top of title page along top page edges, some signature breaks, one page loose. Inside otherwise excellent.

　　By Gunter Breckner

　　Softcover, with dust jacket

　　164 pp, b/w photographs

　　Galerie Metropol (undated, ca. 1985)

　　12 x 8.375 x 0.5"