Oase, journal for architecture is now approaching its twenty-fifth year, so the panel were surprised to find that none of the past seventy issues has ever been selected as one of the Best Dutch Book Designs. There must be a very good reason for selecting number 71, then, and at first sight there isn’t. As always, this issue has been produced with care and dedication, very probably with a limited budget. The concept, long ago developed with revolutionary elan, has amply demonstrated its long shelf-life. The typography may have been modified to meet the standards of today, but nothing has radically changed. Full colour is now one of the options but colour has been kept to strips of merging colours in the fore-edge margin; the existing concept has been upheld.

The cover is handsome enough, but over the years we have had dozens of fine covers from Oase, each one with new styling for the title.

In the end it was decided that issue 71 should be selected as a way of recognizing the achievements of the entire series. Indeed, the concept developed for Oase could be said to have been in at the birth of the famous ‘Dutch Design’. In any event it was a source of inspiration for many a graphic designer and furnished the formal elements for large numbers of architecture-related publications. Oase could no longer be ignored.