This month’s cover image shows a detail from a plate depicting the façade of a library building in architect Robert Mallet-Steven’s Une cité moderne. The 32 designs included in this rare work from 1922 show from the architect morphing aspects of the Secessionist style of Josef Hoffmann and that of Dutch practitioners of De Stijl into his own kind of luxurious modernism. Mallet-Steven’s realized buildings include the Villa Noailles, setting of the surrealist Man Ray’s film Les Mystères du Château de Dé, and the Villa Poiret, home of prominent fashion designer Paul Poiret.

Held in the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections at Northwestern University Libraries, this portfolio’s imaginary buildings also relate to Mallet-Steven’s work as a set designer.