ABSTRACT
Published in 1925, Werner Hegemann’s Amerikanische Architektur und Stadtbaukunst found in part its origins in The American Vitruvius. An Architect’s Handbook of Civic Art, expounding many of the same themes and using many of the same illustrations.1 It also had a significant antecedent in L’Architecture aux États-Unis, a major work by the Parisian architect/garden designer/planner Jacques Gréber (18821962). Issued in 1920, this survey presented in two folio volumes had a much shorter text and fewer illustrations than its German counterpart. Nonetheless, its level of comprehensiveness and accuracy with regard to several topics, including American achievements in the fields of civic art and affordable suburban housing, set new standards in France.2 Gréber’s book became a reference work quoted by his countrymen for its “technical competence.”3 Its large photographs, many of them of remarkable quality, were often reprinted. Some of them found their way in the Lexicon der Baukunst published in 1932 by Wasmuth, Hegemann’s erstwhile employer.4
