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Associate Manager for Acquisitions Holly Philips, Volunteer Diane De Fazio, and Metadata and Collections Librarian William Blueher discuss Watson Library's burgeoning collection of American trade binding.
Fashion designer Iris van Herpen is widely recognized as one of fashion’s most talented and forward-thinking creators who continuously pushes the boundaries of fashion design.
Image 1 of 1 from gallery of 400 Years of American Housing. Photograph by Pop Chart Lab
When I first started working with stone back in my late teens, I quickly developed a passion for it. All of a sudden I started noticing ston...
The Fox Theater I, Oakland New York-based French photographer Franck Bohbot traveled to California to spotlight the most amazing movie theaters, big and
philip jarmain presents 'american beauty' at the meridian gallery, san francisco. the series of images document the rapid destruction of detroitʼs early twentieth-century buildings.
The American Radiator Building (since renamed to the American Standard Building) is a landmark skyscraper located at 40 West 40th Street, in midtown Manhattan,
Wiki: Hugh Ferriss (1889 – 1962) was an American delineator (one who creates perspective drawings of buildings) and architect. According to Daniel Okrent, Ferriss never designed a single noteworthy building, but after his death a colleague said he 'influenced my generation of architects' more than any other man. Ferriss also influenced popular culture, for example Gotham City (the setting for Batman) and Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Ferriss was trained as an architect at Washington University in his native St. Louis, Missouri, but, early in his career, began to specialize in creating architectural renderings for other architects' work rather than designing buildings himself. As a delineator, his task was to create a perspective drawing of a building or project. This was done either as part of the sales process for a project, or, more commonly, to advertise or promote the project to a wider audience. Thus, his drawings frequently were destined for annual shows or advertisements. As a result of this his works were often published (rather than just given to the architect’s client) and Ferriss acquired a reputation. After he had set up as a free-lance artist he found himself much sought after. In 1912, Ferriss arrived in New York City and was soon employed as a delineator for Cass Gilbert. Some of his earliest drawings are of Gilbert’s Woolworth Building; they reveal that Ferriss’s illustrations had not yet developed his signature dark, moody appearance. In 1915, with Gilbert’s blessing, he left the firm and set up shop as an independent architectural delineator. In 1914, Ferriss married Dorothy Laphan, an editor and artist for Vanity Fair. By 1920, Ferriss had begun to develop his own style, frequently presenting the building at night, lit up by spotlights, or in a fog, as if photographed with a soft focus. The shadows cast by and on the building became almost as important as the revealed surfaces. He had somehow managed to develop a style that would elicit emotional responses from the viewer. His drawings were being regularly featured by such diverse publications as Century, the Christian Science Monitor, Harper's Magazine and Vanity Fair. His writings began to also appear in various publications. He executed the 1922 drawing for the Chicago Tribune Competition that won the event for Howells and Hood. In 1916, New York City had passed landmark zoning laws that regulated and limited the mass of buildings according to a formula. The reason was to counteract the tendency for buildings to occupy the whole of their lot and go straight up as far as was possible. Since many architects were not sure exactly what these laws meant for their designs, in 1922 the skyscraper architect Harvey Wiley Corbett commissioned Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of the zoning law. These four drawings would later be used in his 1929 book "The Metropolis of Tomorrow". Hugh Ferriss' archive, including drawings and papers, is held by the Drawings & Archives Department of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. Every year the American Society of Architectural Illustrators gives out the Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize for architectural rendering excellence. The medal features Ferriss’s original "Fourth Stage" drawing, executed in bronze.
A long-awaited exhibition about Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen continues its tour, now in the US.
The Pan-American Exposition of the World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York was honored by the United States Postal Service celebrating then, modern technology. Technical data... Flat Plate printing, 200 Subject Plates, Double-line Watermark, Perforation 12 and designed by R. Ostrander Smith. Engravers: Vignette: 1¢ by G.F.C. Smillie, 2¢-10¢ by Marcus Baldwin and Lyman F. Ellis. Frame: 1¢ by Robert Ponickau, 2¢-10¢ by Marcus Baldwin and Lyman F. Ellis. Lettering and Numerals: Lyman F. Ellis. The Pan-American Exposition Stamps of 1901 The 1¢ Fast Lake Navigation The one cent stamp portrays the steamship "City of Alpena" which operated along the Great Lakes. The stamp was printed in two steps, first the vignette, the illustration of the steamship, was printed in black and then the frame surrounding it was printed in green. The 2¢ Fast Express The two cent stamp portrays the "Empire State Express" out of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroads. Politics played a key role in the choice of the design, honoring a New York commercial venture. The 4¢ Automobile The four cent stamp portrays an electric automobile, or more appropriately an "Electric Vehicle Service" as illustrated in the turn of the century Baltimore and Ohio Railroad flyer from which the engraving of the stamp was based, complete with Capitol Dome in the background. There has been some debate as to whether this stamp was the first U.S. stamp to depict a living person. It is argued that the 2¢ Trans-Mississippi stamp holds that distinction and there is merit in Gary Griffith's argument that the two men depicted in the "front" seat are both chauffeurs and that the man in the passenger compartment is actually the "first living man" depicted on a U.S. stamp - Samuel P. Hege. The 5¢ Bridge at Niagara Falls The five cent stamp portrays what was then the largest single span steel bridge in the world, traversing the Niagara Falls. If you look closely you can see two trolley cars crossing the bridge linking the U.S. and Canada. Niagara Falls was of course an integral part of the World's Fair in Buffalo, and the hydroelectric power that it delivered turned on the spectacular "City of Lights", the most breath-taking display of electric light to date, and certainly one of the highlights of the Fair. The 8¢ Canal Locks at Sault de Ste. Marie The eight cent stamp portrays the canal locks at Sault de Ste. Marie. As with the "Bridge at Niagara Falls" stamp, this stamp illustrates a spirit of international co-operation, with the sister cities Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan and Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario sharing the honors. The locks were a great engineering feat and did much to promote commerce in the Midwest, providing navigational links between Lake Superior and Lake Huron and therefore the rest of the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. The 10¢ Fast Ocean Navigation The ten cent stamp portrays the American Liner steamship, St. Paul, with a touch of artistic license. The St. Paul's claim to fame was that it was the first commercial ship to be commissioned as a warship during the Spanish-American War, still fresh in the minds of the designers of this series.
It’s easy enough to get Art Nouveau and Art Deco confused, probably owing to the fact that they both start with ‘art’. But Art Nouveau and Art Deco are actually two very distinct design movements, with very distinct looks, that appeared around the turn of the 20th century. After perusing this brief disambiguation, you may not be an expert on design history — but you can casually drop these two descriptors into conversations, and your friends are sure to be impressed.