Download or read book Norman Bel Geddes Designs America written by Donald Albrecht and published by Harry N. Abrams. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the career of one of the twentieth century's foremost theatrical and industrial designers. This book outlines the career of this complex and influential man through approximately fifty projects, bringing together never before exhibited drawings, models, photographs and films. Norman Bel Geddes was an innovative stage designer, director, producer, architect, industrial designer, futurist and urban planner. His professional credo was to simplify, to unify, to use form to communicate and, at times, shape function and to question the status quo. His research based approach to problem solving followed by his complete re imagining of a design problem, as if starting from scratch, resulted in the creation of a new, ideal product. hroughout his multi faceted career, Bel Geddes was a paradoxical figure made up of equal parts visionary and pragmatist, naturalist and industrialist, democrat and egoist. A number of products and practices now taken for granted can be traced directly back to Bel Geddes. His impact on the American landscape ranges from the U.S. federal highway system to all weather sports stadiums, revolving restaurants, modular domestic appliances and stylish home entertainment systems.

Download or read book The Man Who Designed the Future written by B. Alexandra Szerlip and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before there was Steve Jobs, there was Norman Bel Geddes. A ninth-grade dropout who found himself at the center of the worlds of industry, advertising, theater, and even gaming, Bel Geddes designed everything from the first all-weather stadium, to Manhattan's most exclusive nightclub, to Futurama, the prescient 1939 exhibit that envisioned how America would look in the not-too-distant 60s. In The Man Who Designed the Future, B. Alexandra Szerlip reveals precisely how central Bel Geddes was to the history of American innovation. He presided over a moment in which theater became immersive, function merged with form, and people became consumers. A polymath with humble Midwestern origins, Bel Geddes’ visionary career would launch him into social circles with the Algonquin roundtable members, stars of stage and screen, and titans of industry. Light on its feet but absolutely authoritative, this first major biography is a must for anyone who wants to know how America came to look the way it did.

Download or read book Magic Motorways written by Norman Bel Geddes and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2011-03-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Download or read book Miracle in the Evening written by Norman Bel Geddes and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-02 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MIRACLE IN THE EVENING is the autobiography of one of the most brilliant stage and industrial designers of our time. Norman Bel Geddes’ story is the drama of a young man who, having worked his way through school, climaxed a brilliant career with ideas that gave birth to some of the most spectacular theatrical productions of the last half century. Through Norman Bel Geddes’ story, as through the theater itself, pass the many colorful personalities of our age, lending brilliance and scope, good humor and compelling human interest. The life story of this ingenuous man is filled with names of the glittering and the great, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Madame Schumann-Heink (his first portrait-sketch was of this famous contralto), Will Rogers, Charlie Chaplin, David Belasco, Horace Liveright, J. Walter Thompson, Walter Chrysler, Harold Ross, and many others—a fascinating story of a man who has more than once created for audiences a MIRACLE IN THE EVENING.

Download or read book Norman Bel Geddes written by Nicolas P. Maffei and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Norman Bel Geddes has long been considered the 'founder' of American industrial design. During his long career he worked on everything from theatre design, world fairs and cars to houses and product and packaging design. Nicolas P. Maffei's magisterial biography draws on original material from the archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, and places Bel Geddes' work within the fast-changing cultural and intellectual contexts of his time. Maffei shows how Bel Geddes' futuristic but pragmatic style – his notion of 'practical vision' – was central to his work, and highly influential on the professional practice of American industrial design in general.

Download or read book Horizons written by Norman Bel 1893-1958 Geddes and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2023-07-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bel Geddes was a pioneering industrial designer, whose work spanned the fields of architecture, theater, transportation, and more. In this beautiful book, he reflects on his life and career, tracing the evolution of his ideas and the impact of his designs. With stunning photographs and insightful commentary, Horizons is a testament to Geddes's vision and creativity, and a celebration of his enduring legacy. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book Follies of God written by James Grissom and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This remarkably illuminating portrait of Tennessee Williams lifts the veil on the heart and soul of his artistic inspiration: the unspoken collaboration between playwright and actor. At a low moment in Williams’s life, he summoned to New Orleans a young twenty-year-old writer, James Grissom, who had written him a letter asking for advice. After a long, intense conversation, Williams sent Grissom on a journey on his behalf to find out if he or his work had mattered to those who had so deeply mattered to him. Among the more than seventy women and men with whom Grissom talked were giants of American theater and film: Lillian Gish, (“the escort who brought me to Blanche”), Jessica Tandy (the original Blanche DuBois on Broadway), Eva Le Gallienne (“She was a stone against which I could rub my talent and feel that it became sharper”), Maureen Stapleton, Julie Harris, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, John Gielgud, and many more. Follies of God provides dazzling insight into how Williams conjured the dramatic characters and plays that so transformed American theater.

Download or read book A Project for a Theatrical Presentation of the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri written by Norman Bel Geddes and published by . This book was released on 1924 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Design History written by Dennis P. Doordan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996-03-06 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: his anthology compiled from volumes 3-10 of Design Issues, includes material from areas seldom discussed in existing surveys and will facilitate the general discourse within the design community on a wide range of conceptual and methodological issues of contemporary design history. Design history has emerged in recent years as a significant field of scholarly research and critical reflection. With their interest in the conceptualization, production, and consumption of objects (large and small, unique or multiple, anonymous or signed) and environments (ephemeral or enduring, public or private), design historians investigate the multiple ways in which intentionally produced objects, environments, and experiences both shape and reflect their historical moments. This anthology compiled from volumes 3-10 of Design Issues, includes material from areas seldom discussed in existing surveys and will facilitate the general discourse within the design community on a wide range of conceptual and methodological issues of contemporary design history. Individual essays investigate various aspects of design in the modern era. They provide fresh insights on familiar figures such as Harley Earl and Norman Bel Geddes and shed new light on neglected aspects of design history such as the history of women in early American graphic design or the history of modern design in China. The essays are grouped in three broad categories: Graphic Design, Design in the American Corporate Milieu, and Design in the Context of National Experiences. Contributors David Brett, Bradford R. Collins, Dennis P. Doordan, David Gartman, Gyorgy Haiman, Larry D. Luchmansingh, Roland Marchand, Enric Satué, Mitchell Schwarzer, Paul Shaw, Svetlana Sylvestrova, Ellen Mazur Thomson, Matthew Turner, John Turpin, Shou Zhi Wang. A Design Issues Reader

Download or read book Wonderstruck written by Brian Selznick and published by Scholastic. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ben's story takes place in 1977 and is told in words. Rose's story in 1927 is told entirely in pictures. Ever since his mother died, Ben feels lost. At home with her father, Rose feels alone. When Ben finds a mysterious clue hidden in his mother's room, both children risk everything to find what's missing.

Download or read book Voiture Minimum written by Antonio Amado and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-02-11 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A colorful account of Le Corbusier's love affair with the automobile, his vision of the ideal vehicle, and his tireless promotion of a design that industry never embraced. Le Corbusier, who famously called a house “a machine for living,” was fascinated—even obsessed—by another kind of machine, the automobile. His writings were strewn with references to autos: “If houses were built industrially, mass-produced like chassis, an aesthetic would be formed with surprising precision,” he wrote in Toward an Architecture (1923). In his “white phase” of the twenties and thirties, he insisted that his buildings photographed with a modern automobile in the foreground. Le Corbusier moved beyond the theoretical in 1936, entering (with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret) an automobile design competition, submitting plans for “a minimalist vehicle for maximum functionality,” the Voiture Minimum. Despite Le Corbusier's energetic promotion of his design to several important automakers, the Voiture Minimum was never mass-produced. This book is the first to tell the full and true story of Le Corbusier's adventure in automobile design. Architect Antonio Amado describes the project in detail, linking it to Le Corbusier's architectural work, to Modernist utopian urban visions, and to the automobile design projects of other architects including Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright. He provides abundant images, including many pages of Le Corbusier's sketches and plans for the Voiture Minimum, and reprints Le Corbusier's letters seeking a manufacturer. Le Corbusier's design is often said to have been the inspiration for Volkswagen's enduringly popular Beetle; the architect himself implied as much, claiming that his design for the 1936 competition originated in 1928, before the Beetle. Amado Lorenzo, after extensive examination of archival and source materials, disproves this; the influence may have gone the other way. Although many critics considered the Voiture Minimum a footnote in Le Corbusier's career, Le Corbusier did not. This book, lavishly illustrated and exhaustively documented, restores Le Corbusier's automobile to the main text.

Download or read book Eugenic Design written by Christina Cogdell and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1939, Vogue magazine invited commercial designer Raymond Loewy and eight of his contemporaries—including Walter Dorwin Teague, Egmont Arens, and Henry Dreyfuss—to design a dress for the "Woman of the Future" as part of its special issue promoting the New York World's Fair and its theme, "The World of Tomorrow." While focusing primarily on her clothing and accessories, many commented as well on the future woman's physique, predicting that her body and mind would be perfected through the implementation of eugenics. Industrial designers' fascination with eugenics—especially that of Norman Bel Geddes—began during the previous decade, and its principles permeated their theories of the modern design style known as "streamlining." In Eugenic Design, Christina Cogdell charts new territory in the history of industrial design, popular science, and American culture in the 1930s by uncovering the links between streamline design and eugenics, the pseudoscientific belief that the best human traits could—and should—be cultivated through selective breeding. Streamline designers approached products the same way eugenicists approached bodies. Both considered themselves to be reformers advancing evolutionary progress through increased efficiency, hygiene and the creation of a utopian "ideal type." Cogdell reconsiders the popular streamline style in U.S. industrial design and proposes that in theory, rhetoric, and context the style served as a material embodiment of eugenic ideology. With careful analysis and abundant illustrations, Eugenic Design is an ambitious reinterpretation of one of America's most significant and popular design forms, ultimately grappling with the question of how ideology influences design.

Download or read book Art and Appetite written by Annelise K. Madsen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-10 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Food has always been an important source of knowledge about culture and society. Art and Appetite takes a fascinating new look at depictions of food in American art, demonstrating that the artists' representations of edibles offer thoughtful reflection on the cultural, political, economic, and social moments in which they were created. Using food as an emblem, artists were able to both celebrate and critique their society, expressing ideas relating to politics, race, class, gender, and commerce. Focusing on the late 18th century through the Pop artists of the 20th century, this lively publication investigates the many meanings and interpretations of eating in America. Richly illustrated, Art and Appetite features still life and trompe l'oeil painting, sculpture, and other works by such celebrated artists as William Merritt Chase, John Singleton Copley, Elizabeth Paxton, Norman Bel Geddes, Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Wayne Thiebaud, Roy Lichtenstein, and many more. Essays by leading experts address topics including the horticultural and botanical underpinnings of still-life paintings, the history of alcohol consumption in the United States, Thanksgiving, and food in the world of Pop art. In addition to the images and essays, this book includes a selection of 18th- and 19th-century recipes for all-American dishes including molasses cake, stewed terrapin, rice blancmange, and roast calf's head. "--

Download or read book American Streamlined Design written by David A. Hanks and published by Flammarion. This book was released on 2005-08-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The twentieth century loved machines and the speed they made possible. Speeding cars, trains, and planes promised to conquer space and time; their aerodynamic styling and metal skins embodied a new and modern beauty, one that especially enchanted American designers from the late 1920s through the 1950s. Streamlining became the popular American style for all sorts of objects: from toy scooters to typewriters, from power tools to teakettles." "This book celebrates this beauty as epitomized by the work of Raymond Loewy, Kem Weber, Henry Dreyfuss, Norman Bel Geddes, as well as in works by many lesser-known industrial designers whose products are presented here for the first time. The book also demonstrates the resurgence of interest in streamlining among international vanguard designers from the 1980s to the present." "This volume is illustrated with patent drawings and period photographs showing how these dynamically styled objects were used. The one hundred eighty objects presented here, drawn from the Eric Brill Collection (recently donated to the American Friends of Canada) and supplemented by pieces from the Stewart Collection at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, were photographed for this book. A full bibliography, biographies of the designers, and index complete the study."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Pantomime written by Karl Toepfer and published by Vosuri Media. This book was released on 2019-08-19 with total page 1320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers perhaps the most comprehensive history of pantomime ever written. No other book so thoroughly examines the varieties of pantomimic performance from the early Roman Empire, when the term “pantomime” came into use, until the present. After thoroughly examining the complexities and startlingly imaginative performance strategies of Roman pantomime, the author identifies the peculiar political circumstances that revived and shaped pantomime in France and Austria in the eighteenth century, leading to the Pierrot obsession in the nineteenth century. Modernist aesthetics awakened a huge, highly diverse fascination with pantomime. The book explores an extraordinary variety of modernist and postmodern approaches to pantomime in Germany, Austria, France, numerous countries of Eastern Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Chile, England, and The United States. Making use of many performance and historical documents never before included in pantomime histories, the book also discusses pantomime’s messy relation to dance, its peculiar uses of music, its “modernization” through silent film aesthetics, and the extent to which writers, performers, or directors are “authors” of pantomimes. Just as importantly, the book explains why, more than any other performance medium, pantomime allows the spectator to see the body as the agent of narrative action.

Download or read book America Goes Modern written by Nonie Gadsden and published by MFA Publications. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How design made America modern: masterpieces of furniture, metalware and plastics from the early 20th century During the 1920s and 1930s, the speed of modern life in the United States, accelerated by advances in transportation, communication, technology and advertising, changed how people lived their lives, and the objects they chose to live with. A new profession emerged to help American manufacturers and consumers navigate the overwhelming transitions of the era. Through the power of design--form, color, ornament and materials--the earliest industrial designers created a modern aesthetic that came to represent American hopes, dreams and fantasies. America Goes Modernexplores these designers' achievements through close examination of selected masterworks. Each of these exceptional objects offers a window into the social, cultural, technological and economic world in which they were made and used. The book features sleek furniture, vibrant ceramics, streamlined metalwares and innovative plastics from the leading designers of the era. Designers include: Norman Bel Geddes, Manning Bowman Company, Jules Buoy, Donald Deskey, Paul Frankl, Earl Harvey, Ianelli Studios, Belle Kogan, William Lescaze, Erik Magnussen, Peter Muller Munk, Gilbert Rhode, RumRill Art Pottery, Victor Schreckengost, Walter Dorwin Teague, The Hall China Company, Harold Van Doren, John Vassos, Kem Weber, Western Coil and Electric Company and Russel Wright. Photographers and painters include: Berenice Abbott, Arthur Dove, Archibald Motley, Alvin Langdon Coburn, M. Murray Lebowitz, Norman Lewis, Max Weber, Margaret Bourke-White, Henry Callahan and Alfred Stieglitz.

Download or read book Horizons Classic Reprint written by Norman Bel Geddes and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Horizons Horizons was written by Norman Bel Geddes in 1932. This is a 319 page book, containing 68519 words and 73 pictures. Search Inside is enabled for this title. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.