Space as Membrane

Space as Membrane is a translation of Siegfried Ebeling’s 1926 essay Der Raum als Membran. Read and praised by Mies van der Rohe, denounced by Walter Gropius, and presaging some of the technological innovations introduced across the Atlantic by Buckminster Fuller, the essay has been the subject of a number of recent commentaries, yet the text itself remained unread, due to the scarcity of the original publication. This book includes the full 1926 text, supplemented by critical essays and original drawings by Ebeling, as well as a brief biography of the German architect.

The book’s design is an updating of the original, which was carefully studied from a copy at the British Library. Torbjörn Olsson’s version of Kumlien and Paul Renner’s Futura are used to set the translated essay, while Radim Peško’s Larish Neue is used for the contemporary contributions. The book is printed in black and white throughout, the one exception being a reproduction of the original primary-coloured cover.