Paper Architecture (2017)

Paper Architecture (2017)
Karen Wirth
H230 x W130mm, 24 pages
Acquired from Journal of Artists’ Books 42 (Fall 2017)

Photographic images by Karen Wirth from Ayvalik, Amsterdam, Florence, Istanbul, New York City, Rome, San Diego and Venice. The photos are collaged, and the work is based on an architectural installation at the Minnesota College for Art and Design that included a large-scale book. Photos of the book: Books On Books Collection.

Architecture has long played an inspirational role in Karen Wirth’s portfolio. In 2000, she designed the Open Book Gail See Staircase at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and stations for the Hiawatha Light Rail, both in Minneapolis. In 2008, she produced Archidrawings, a series of collaged altered pages from the booklet, Architectural Drawings in the Bodleian Library.

More recent is Archabet: An Architectural Abecedarium (2025) on display in the Outlook Gallery, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 12 April – 8 June 2025. A 6-foot high drum leaf bound book, its collage of digital photographs of building façades taken over 20 years of travel, showing details and structures that mimic letter forms, surrounds extracts from Johann David Steingruber’s Architectonisches Alphabet (1773). This alphabet book of cityscapes takes up the gallery’s street-level window inviting the viewer into the space of the book.