Modern Gardens 1935

KUMPÁN, Josef. Novodobé zahrady. [Modern Gardens] Praha: Nákladem Vydavatelství národohospodářských publikací V. J. Procházka, [1935]. 4to. 95 pp. Richly illustrated throughout with architectural drawings, garden plans, and black-and-white photographs. Includes period advertisements at the rear. Printed by Knihtiskárna Prometheus, Praha VIII. Original publisher’s pale green cloth, gilt titles to upper cover and spine. Binding lightly rubbed and a bit spotted, corners very slightly bumped. Interior clean and bright, with only a discreet contemporary ownership inscription to title-page. Overall a very good copy. An important and scarce Czech work on modern garden architecture by Josef Kumpán (1891–1961), one of the leading interwar landscape architects of Czechoslovakia. Profusely illustrated with plans and photographs of contemporary villas, gardens, and recreational spaces, it reflects the strong influence of functionalism and modernist aesthetics in the 1930s. A key source for the history of European landscape and garden design between the wars. Inv. H9ho