Découverte de Longview

First edition. One of 200 numbered copies on Madagascar, after 10 copies on Imperial Japan.

Longview, Washington State, is one of the first cities to be designed from start to finish on the drawing board and then executed exactly to plan (thanks to Robert A. Long's capital), unlike most towns and cities that develop slowly and grow naturally. But Longview was a special city and had to house 14,000 workers for the timber industry.

The city was completed in 1923 and a few years later Luc Durtain wrote a documentary-like story about it: Découverte de Longview. The dynamic woodcuts by the Belgian artist Frans Masereel and the typography are as modern as the city of Longview itself. Each page is framed with a decorative border that incorporates the American flag. At the end, Durtain tells you that you can hear the hyenas and wolves from your tent at night.

Luc Durtain is the pseudonym of the Parisian Andre Nepveu, throat doctor and author. He wrote several books about his field and gained some fame for his socialist tinged stories. He was interested in the individual who has to adapt time and again to a rapidly changing environment. His stories spread across all continents; Durtain regularly packed his bags to discover new cultures. Those trips took him to America, the Soviet Union and Asia, and he reported on the innovations and the risks involved. Fashion phenomena, social issues, passion and human behavior were his themes. (cfr. Collection Koopman, Koninklijke Bibliotheek NL)