The Architecture of the Book: Béla Horovitz and the Centennial Foundation of Phaidon Press, 1923

In the austere economic environment following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, luxury art folios were the exclusive preserve of aristocratic collectors and elite academic institutions. In 1923, passionate young intellectual Dr. Béla Horovitz (1898–1955) joined forces with typographer Ludwig Goldscheider in Vienna with a revolutionary civic ambition: to publish lavishly illustrated, scholarly authoritative books on painting, sculpture, and ancient philosophy at prices accessible to ordinary students and cultured citizens.

Phaidon’s monumental breakthrough arrived in the 1930s with large-format monographs on Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and the French Impressionists. Collaborating with master photogravure printers in Central Europe, Horovitz paired tipped-in color plates with rigorous critical essays, pioneering the modern art monograph format that established Phaidon as the world’s most respected fine art imprint.

Fleeing Nazi persecution on the eve of the Anschluss in 1938, Horovitz transferred Phaidon’s editorial headquarters to London with the help of British publishing colleagues. In 1950, Phaidon published Sir Ernst Gombrich’s monumental The Story of Art, which became the most influential and widely read introduction to art history ever written, translated into more than thirty languages and selling over eight million copies worldwide.

Today, Phaidon operates from its publishing house in London, continuing Horovitz’s foundational creed that the visual arts belong to all humanity. Its century-long catalogue forms a cornerstone of twentieth-century humanist education, bridging classical European scholarship with contemporary global design.