Pedestrian modern : shopping and American architecture, 1925-1956 / David Smiley. [electronic resource]

By:

Smiley, David J, 1958-

Material type: Text

9780816684212 (e-book)

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Electronic books.

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Pedestrian modern : shopping and American architecture, 1925-1956.DDC classification:

725/.2109730904 23

LOC classification:

NA6212 .S65 2013

Online resources:

Click to View

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Centers and Peripheries -- 1. The Store Problem -- 2. Machines for Selling -- 3. "Park and Shop" -- 4. Pedestrianization Takes Command -- 5. The Cold War Pedestrian -- 6. The Language of Modern Shopping -- Conclusion: Pedestrian Modern Futures -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index.

Summary: " Too close to the wiles and calculations of consumption, stores and shopping centers are generally relegated to secondary, pedestrian status in the history of architecture. And yet, throughout the middle decades of the twentieth century, stores and shopping centers were an important locus of modernist architectural thought and practice. Under the mantle of modernism, the merchandising problems and possibilities of main streets, cities, and suburbs became legitimate--if also conflicted--responsibilities of the architectural profession. In Pedestrian Modern, David Smiley reveals how the design for places of consumption informed emerging modernist tenets. The architect was viewed as a coordinator and a site planner--modernist tropes particularly well suited to merchandising. Smiley follows this development from the twenties and thirties, when glass and transparency were equated with modernist rationality; to the forties, when cities and congestion presented considerable hurdles for shopping district design and, at the same time, when modern concerns about the pedestrian deeply affected city and neighborhood planning; to the early fifties, when both urban shopping districts and suburban shopping centers became large-scale modernist undertakings. Although interpreting the tools and principles of modernism, designs for shopping never quite shed the specter of consumption. Tracing the history of architecture's relationship with retail environments during a time of significant transformation in urban centers and in open suburban landscapes, Smiley expands and qualifies the making of American modernism. "-- Provided by publisher.

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 5 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Ebook	TUS: Midlands, Main Library Athlone Online	eBook (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available

Includes bibliographical references and index.

" Too close to the wiles and calculations of consumption, stores and shopping centers are generally relegated to secondary, pedestrian status in the history of architecture. And yet, throughout the middle decades of the twentieth century, stores and shopping centers were an important locus of modernist architectural thought and practice. Under the mantle of modernism, the merchandising problems and possibilities of main streets, cities, and suburbs became legitimate--if also conflicted--responsibilities of the architectural profession. In Pedestrian Modern, David Smiley reveals how the design for places of consumption informed emerging modernist tenets. The architect was viewed as a coordinator and a site planner--modernist tropes particularly well suited to merchandising. Smiley follows this development from the twenties and thirties, when glass and transparency were equated with modernist rationality; to the forties, when cities and congestion presented considerable hurdles for shopping district design and, at the same time, when modern concerns about the pedestrian deeply affected city and neighborhood planning; to the early fifties, when both urban shopping districts and suburban shopping centers became large-scale modernist undertakings. Although interpreting the tools and principles of modernism, designs for shopping never quite shed the specter of consumption. Tracing the history of architecture's relationship with retail environments during a time of significant transformation in urban centers and in open suburban landscapes, Smiley expands and qualifies the making of American modernism. "-- Provided by publisher.

Description based on print version record.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2015. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries.