Schocken Department Store, Stuttgart, Germany

This drawing made by Charles in charcoal and watercolor depicts the Schocken department store in Stuttgart, which he would have seen on his honeymoon in 1929. Charles and his first wife, Catherine Dewey Woermann, married on June 7, 1929, and then traveled to England, France, Belgium, and Germany, where they saw examples of both classic and modern architecture. Charles recorded some of what he saw in a series of sketches. The Schocken department store, with its modern architecture, was not only a destination for shopping. It became a pilgrimage site for the architects Charles considered “great,” including Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Following in their footsteps, Charles visited Erich Mendelsohn’s innovative building and illustrated its rounded glass façade. When he returned to the United States, he turned the drawing into a print that could be reproduced in multiple.