The Appian Way

Adolph Appia and the Scenography of Modern Architecture

Author Ross Anderson
Publisher Park Books
Place of publication Zürich
Year 2025
Number of pages 436

Art and Culture Books

The Appian Way

A Life Behind the Scene

Ross Anderson

01/10/2025

Orfeo ed Euridice, 1912 © Bibliothèque de Genève

One of the few surviving photographs of Adolphe Appia shows the ageing scenographer seated at his drawing board, captured in a moment of repose. Wearing a striped nautical pull marin and a canvas jacket, he gazes past lightly patterned curtains towards the distant horizon. Most of the room is lost in shadow as the light from the window falls on him. Heavily bearded and greying at the temples, there is something of the solitary prophet or ancient mariner about his bearing...