Martin Rauch, Refined Earth

A book for practical work and information. The main focus is on the many years of experience that this builder in clay has acquired, organized according to the themes: floor, wall, opening, ceiling. These four chapters in the middle of the book are deliberately designed in black and white, structured by generously sized introductory pictures and axonometric plan drawings. The plans, which were produced especially for the book, play a leading role in the explanations. Thin strips running along the edges of the pages at different positions in the core book guide the reader. In the volume of the book itself the strips create a striking sectional image – in the list of contents they form thematically based pictograms. Colour illustrations surround the core content: a series of pictures of completed buildings at the front, photos of building processes and the workshop at the back. The horizontal texture of layers of rammed earth is cut into the dust cover. You feel tempted to run your finger across this image in order to make the cut paper and the lettering printed on it move. On the cover the tactile quality of this building material is both echoed and honoured.