home-shopping network

From our trusted antiquarian and to file under the category of there’s nothing new under the Sun/programmers are lazy we’re presented with this clipping from 1916 that allows one to virtually try on clothes and test out different fashions. Not to sound cynical or perennially disappointed, the verdict of the encumbering nature of progress exacting more time and effort that it was meant to save stands today and previsions the paternalistic Internet of Things with the very much overlapping magisteria of gimmickry and marketing that it embraces.

la belle sauvage or salon seléctifs

Designed by pioneering belle époque architect Henri Sauvage (*1873 – †1932) whose colossal public housing projects informed both successive Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements and whose legacy still is relevant and resonant, the 1902 home for contemporary Louis Majorelle (*1859 – †1926) in Nancy near his studio and factory had undergone some major refurbishment and is open—albeit temporarily—to the public before entering next phase of restoration, closing the landmark attraction for another two years, nearly the amount of time its originally construction took.
The exemplary Villa Majorelle was not only a flagship of the new architectural style but also a showcase for Majorelle’s own experimental furnishings (some of which were part of this exhibition) and a gallery for other artistic friends of his.

railbanked or atchison, topeka and santa fe

At its height, the rail network of the United States was somewhere approaching half a million kilometres, with now over half that infrastructure abandoned, superannuated. Maps Mania takes us on a whistle-stop tour on the extensive out-of-service (that is—railbanked, see also) routes. There are a lot of resources to explore here in addition to the interactive maps that give the history of the lines, accompanying blog with lots of images and other depots for departing on virtual journeys.

podium architecture

Though the phenomenon itself is a disheartening trend that well deserves the documentation, we were happy to see our Gentle Author garnering greater notice with an appearance in the BBC and perhaps gain more allies to fight against the ghastly folly of façadism (see also) that’s hollowing out many of the great buildings of central London, leaving just their historic outer shell of the structure.  Though this partial preservation and adaptive use is at least a passing nod to heritage and context, it seems very much like the coulisse, the scenery flats of a theatrical production and having surrendered all their reserve authenticity. 

duplex and double-tone

We appreciated this in depth re-acquaintance with the still in circulation trade magazine The Inland Printer (previously) from Public Domain Review and its dazzling, showcase advertising, meant to underscore the illustrators’ typographic skills and the colour range and technical abilities of the publisher, typified by the marketing campaign of Augustus Jansson (*1866 - †1931) for Queen City Printing Ink Company. Based originally in Cincinnati, the Queen of the West, the company’s reputation, in part bolstered by the popular Art Deco figures of Jansson, allowed it to expand to major cities across America. Peruse a whole gallery of images, a complete colourful menagerie, and Inland Printer’s back catalogue at the links above.

gesamtkunstwerk

Having observed the centenary of the successor Bauhaus movement earlier in the year, it was a real treat to visit the Wiesbaden museum (previously) for a grand and circumspect tour of the age in art and design that came right before with an inspiring exhibition of Jugenstil and Art Deco that for the first time brought together the institution‘s complete endowment of period antiques from the collection of local patron Friedrich Wolfgang Neiss, supplemented with a few objects on loan from Paris and Vienna.

It was not only dazzling with fine and elegant craftsmanship on display—lamps and chandeliers from Louis Comfort Tiffany, Émile Gallé, and the Müller Fréres, porcelain, paintings and furnishings (the individual suites were sort of set up like IKEA showrooms) but also was curated in such a way to address the artists’ philosophy and outlook.  Thematically it was also interesting to note the subject matter being different and unexpected with lots of mushrooms, bats and even jellyfish and mermen appearing throughout the collection aside from mythological and religious allegories.  These images are just a small sampling of the items that caught my eye.

videojuego

We enjoyed perusing this gallery of vintage and antique sporting and summer travel posters going under the hammer. We were especially taken with the vibrant and angular design of artist Josep Renau Montoro exhibited in this 1941 commission for the Revolutionary Games held at the behest of Manuel Áliva Camacho. The artist was most famous for his murals and political propaganda during the Spanish civil war before being exiled first to México and then to East Berlin. There are other painters of note to be found in the auction preview including Sergio Trujillo Magnenat, Boris Artzybaseff and others.

urban dictionary

Our thanks once again to Nag on the Lake for directing our attention to the 1909 compendium of nineteenth century slang by J Redding Ware called “Passing English of the Victorian Era.”
Some gems that ought to revived—though one needs to filter through a lot of phrases that have gladly passed out of fashion—include Puncheous Pilate, defined as the jocose address to another in protest of some small asserted authority, S’elp me, Bob, an appeal to the nearest authority at hand, Totty All Colours, a young person who has contrived to incorporate most of the colours of the rainbow into his or her outfit, and mafficking—that is, to get rowdy in the streets. Page through the dictionary and let us know what antiquated slang we ought to champion.

zsebnaptár

Our friendly stationer Present /&/ Correct shares its discovery of a trove of vintage Hungarian pocket calendars, joyfully illustrated. MėH (Miniszterelnöki Hivatal) is the country’s energy authority. Much more to explore at the link above.

x marks the spot

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we are treated to a rather endearing review of how educational literature, abecedaries broached the subject of that little-used as a leading letter X before the discovery of x-rays or the introduction of xylophones, mostly ingratiating readers in the personages of the Persian King Xerxes the Great (𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠, Ξέρξης) or Xanthippe (Ξανθίππη, meaning Yellow Horse)—Socrates’ supposed scold of a wife—or Xanthus (Ξάνθος, a blond stallion), one of Achilles pair of immortal horses whom Hera temporarily granted the power of speech in order to defend himself when Achilles accused him causing Patroclus’ death on the battlefield, retorting that it was a god that had killed Patroclus and that Achilles would soon follow. There’s numerous examples—some lazier than others—and nonetheless an interesting look at the antepenultimate letter and nineteenth century print.

call sign

Thanks to the always engaging Kottke, we are re-acquainted with the meticulous and dedicated assemblage of mostly defunct corporate logos from graphic design artist Reagan Ray, informed by the public’s captivation with and appetite for Mid-Century Modern and nostalgia for the glory days of air travel, with this curated collection of US regional carriers in what was once a pretty saturated and granular market.
Who knew that Anniston was once headquarters for the commuter airline Alair—AL for Alabama but certainly not the only option for the state? Or that Oakland, California once had Saturn as a carrier? Browse with caution as poking around the various archives and collections could easily turn to an all day distraction.

artist depiction

Paleofuture recommends a new documentary on a trio of artists who while they might have been hitherto mostly nameless have played an oversized role in helping the public to imagine and envision not only space stations and orbiting colonies (previously) but also far off worlds that don’t quite neatly resolve.
Commissioned by NASA, the retro-futurist, Mid-Century Modern style of Chesley Bonestell, Don Davis, Rick Guidice has gone a long way to influence and inform our dreams and expectations of space travel and is a good heuristic tool for talking about science communication and outreach in general. Make some time to get to know better the artists who’ve helped engineer aspirations and imaginations. See a preview and read an excerpt of an interview at the link up top.

cast iron plant

Reputedly pollinated by the same slugs and snails that are the bane of other garden and hot-house cultivars, the resilient houseplant called the Aspidistra elatior (an import from the Far East) became a prop prominently photographed and synonymous with “middle class respectability” for its prevalence in the Victorian Era, all aspirants able to care for a bit of greenery in their homes.
This particularly hardy cultivar’s popularity, however, owed to its ability to weather and withstand neglect and even thrive in the dim and close quarters of city dwellers with the noxious fumes and soot that came from gaslights that otherwise made keeping houseplants a fruitless prospect. This wide-spread obsession even prompted George Orwell to pen a critical commentary with the novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying about a character who attempted for defy the usual social conventions of status and acquisition and was thwarted by society at large for his stepping out of line. The 1936 book—which was not a romcom—was adapted into a 1997 film with Helena Bonham Carter and Richard E Grant that was titled “A Merry War” for US audiences.

urban legend

Our intrepid explorers at Atlas Obscura lead us to a deliriously crowded, Mid-Century Modern style annotated map of New York City, drafted in the early 1950s by Nils Hansell. Filled with local-lore, infamy and tall tales that we cannot necessarily vouch for, “The Wonders of New York” features over three hundred exclusive haunts and happenings of yesteryear to consider, the landscape having transformed considerably despite the layout basically remaining true-to-form.
Visit the link above to zoom in greater detail and discover what’s changed about the character of each neighbourhood. Rogues’ galleries and hyperbole aside, I wonder if in the not so distant future, people will find equally preposterous that a certain quarter had flea circuses, livestock and stevedores.

bekende deense meubelontwerper

I’ve always thought that this fabric wall hanging that came with my furnished workweek apartment was pretty keen and hoped that I might be able to arrange to have it move out with me, when that day comes, but didn’t realise until just recently that it is a piece of Danish graphic designer and interior decorator Verner Panton’s Mira-X Collection.
A student of the psychology and working in the studio of architect Arne Jacobsen, Panton (*1928 – †1998) is probably best known for his line of furniture, including his signature moon lamps and chair still licensed and in production by the company Vitra and for incredibly psychedelic office spaces like the cantina for Spiegel magazine headquarters in Hamburg, executed in the same style as this indoor swimming pool shown at the link.

ausstellung für unbekannte architekten

On this day in 1919, Walter Gropius founded in Weimar the Bauhaus school—a merger of the art academies of the city and grand duchy—as the successor institution to Arts and Crafts studio founded earlier by Belgian Art Nouveau architect Henry Clemens van de Velde, dismissed earlier during the war on account of his nationality, whose new style represented a negotiated compromise between the fine and the applied arts.  A show during the same month called An Exhibition of Unknown Architects, Gropius outlined the goal of the movement (see also here, here, here, and here) to create a new trade association for which there were not the same bars to membership as the guilds of the past, crafting the neologism as the heir of the Bauhütte, the stone masons who managed construction of cathedrals in Gothic times. A huge profusion of art and design came out of this movement and explore a carefully curated archive of resources at Open Culture at the link.

caffettiera

Architect David Chipperfield has redesigned and reissued the iconic Moka Pot for Italian design line Alessi, launching it at the Salone de Mobile of the Milan Design Week.
The original was introduced to the public in 1933, invented by engineer Alfonso Bialetti (*1888 – †1970), this percolator making it possible for more of the coffee-drinking public to enjoy an espresso at home—since previous contraptions were large and unwieldly and not well-suited for domestic use. The trained metal-worker also introduced aluminium for kitchen-use whereas it had not been a common feature beforehand. The redesign is of course informed by Bialetti’s conception but is a hendecagon and closer to circular than the octagon. Perhaps this homage, Alessi being known for commissioning architects to create signature everyday items, will give the struggling Bialetti company the boost to recover and become fiscally solvent again, the once ubiquitous and must-have appliance having lost ground to coffee pads and pods.

textilkunst

Born 5 March 1897, Swiss textile artist Gunta Slölzl (†1983) had a formative and fundamental role in leading the Bauhaus school’s weaving workshop.  Find more posts about the movement and its principals here, here, here and here.
Having joined the movement just after its inception, she became a full master (the first female to achieve this level though the atmosphere was rather lacking in collegiality with most of the directors dismissing fabrics as craft and women’s work) in 1928 and revitalised the weaving and dyeing studios, mentoring many students and experimented with synthetic materials. A gallery of Stölzl’s works can be found here along with other Bauhaus disciplines cab be found at the link here.

form follows function

In the centenary year of the founding of the Bauhaus school and design movement by architect Walter Gropius, an international group of graphic designers, in acknowledgement and homage to their roots and inheritance have taken on the fun task (Bauhaus typography was also gone into some darker places) of remixing contemporary corporate identities and logos and imagining how they might appear had they been commissions and assignments of the original circle of talent.
Until marginalised by the rise of Nazi and ostracised as degenerate art, the movement and philosophy was on the cutting edge of a changing world with artists and designers like Herbert Bayer, Anni Albers, Joseph Albers and Paul Klee embracing a seismic cultural and economic shift at a time when many felt unmoored and regarded with suspicion forces that were poised to upend the old order of things.  Contemplate more modern brand and organisational identities at the link up top.

worshipful company of stationers and newspaper makers

Via the always excellent Boing Boing, we are given a taste of the dazzling collection of ephemera of a confessed letterhead obsessive.
There are quite a few amazing Art Deco specimens to consider that are not only the height of typography but also serves as important historical record of millions of aggregated business correspondence of decades past. A blog, in itself and as a landing page, is certainly informed in terms of layout and format by the sheet banner, masthead, body and background and we bloggers should cultivate such aesthetics.