Linoleum: History, Design, Architecture: 1882-2000

It seems impossible that the history of modernism can be retold through a single material, yet Linoleum: History, Design, Architecture, 1882-2000 does just that. The product of a forum at the Weissenhof Institute in Stuttgart, this exhaustive survey of linoleum, in its recollection of architects such as Peter Behrens and Mies van der Rohe, reminds us that 20th-century designers had a desire to incorporate everyday materials in their designs and to play a part in the design of these materials. Along with contemporary and historical essays on interior decoration and architecture, it includes a passage from Agatha Christie, an essay on typography, and a history of the linocut in modern art. While the book has enormous breadth in subject, it does not in geography: its histories are mostly centered in and around Germany, and its language, mostly translated, is sometimes tedious. Still, it is a unique book and an engrossing demonstration of how a material can influence the movement that gave birth to it. --Juliette Cezzar