http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Valerie&feedformat=atomDead Media Archive - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T11:47:22ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.25.2http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6484Dymaxion House2008-12-10T20:19:13Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"</blockquote><br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=The Story of the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
The original conception of the 4D Dymaxion House set the standard of Fuller’s estimations for what new houses should require, making the most out of the materials it was created from, specifically, aluminum and the “economics of mass production” (Baldwin 18). The estimated costs, by pound, to purchase a mass produced house was roughly the same as a car in 1927. The interior features of the 4D Dymaxion house were extremely forward thinking, including a multimedia room, an observation deck, and a garden area. <br />
The Dymaxion house was intended to be entirely autonomous from the municipal system of pipes and wires (Baldwin 28). Through photovoltaic cells, wind generators, micro-hydroelectric systems, locally purified water pumps, and limited exports the autonomous house could be almost entirely off of the grid. Fuller designed an answer for practically every input or output demand a modern house could have, from gardening space to grow your own vegetables, to the clean packaging toilets of the dymaxion bathroom. The 4D Dymaxion House was the ultimate in economical living, minimizing the costs for users and for the environment, however usually at the expense of luxury (or some would say reasonability).<br />
The 4D Dymaxion House ultimately was never out into production because of limited resource availability and astronomical tooling costs to get started. The project was shelved until some outside support or driving motivation to pay the initial costs. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
As is frequently the case with high investment technology, war served as the motivation for the next implementation of the Dymaxion house. World War II saw a huge need for cheap, durable houses which could withstand extreme conditions. To answer this need, the army employed a much less sophisticated version of the 4D Dymaxion House, made of refashioned grain bins. This product was coined the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, and created widespread familiarity with Fuller’s work. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
The Dymaxion House found its new opportunity with the end of the war in sight, when Fuller and Beech Aircraft Co. teamed up to utilize airplane production machinery for a new peace-time goal: affordable, mass produced housing. Beech was happy to provide incentive for it’s workers to stay in their employment post-war, and Fuller was satisfied with an order for two prototypes from the Air Force (Baldwin 44). <br />
The future of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine looked bright, thousands of preorders piled up and the two protypes were in the hands of some of the finest engineers available. Unfortunately, the bubble for the project burst for a few reasons, including poor business practices by Fuller and disputes about tooling costs between Beech Co. and Fuller. The two prototypes were the only Dymaxion Houses ever created, and only one, The Wichita House, was ever lived in. <br />
<br />
<br />
=Failures=<br />
1.The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. <br />
<br />
2. People are unwilling to trust a “grand creator” to define their behavior. People are hesitant to sacrifice flexibility and choice in how they behave and live their life. Even if it was the most perfectly laid out, beautiful, simple dwelling, people will very hesitant to opt out of their decision making process.<br />
<br />
3. An excerpt of Le Corbusier's Vers un'Architectur on Mass-Production Housing<br />
A great era has just begun. There exists a new spirit. Industry, invading like a river that rolls to its destiny, brings us new tools adapted to this new era animated by a new spirit. The law of economy necessarily governs our actions; only through it are our conceptions viable. The problem of the house is a problem of the era. Social equilibrium depends on it today The first obligation of architecture, in an era of renewal, is to bring about a revision of values, a revision of the constitutive elements of the house. Mass production is based on analysis and experimentation. Heavy industry should turn its attention to building and standardizing the elements of the house. We must create a mass-production state of mind: A state of mind for building mass-production housing. A state of mind for living in mass-production housing. A state of mind for conceiving mass-production housing.<br />
<br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, " Thinking Beyond Today," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." </blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or the Eternal Pendulum of Pop Culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of a House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from Fuller's perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
'''<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992''' <br />
<br />
<br /> <br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br /> <br />
<br /> <br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br /><br /> - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
<br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," as device or media which looked to solve problems outside the existing everyman's need. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without first considering the impetus for how the home came to be in its current iteration. In many ways however, the Dymaxison House was the opposite direction American identity. After Fuller failed to market the product in the late 1940s, the 1950 brought rapid suburbanization and a new American ideal, and the concept of pre-fabricated housing remained largely untapped and un-mourned until the recent global economic crisis.]]<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
<br />
Baldwin, J. BuckyWorks. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1996.<br />
<br />
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Your Private Sky: Discourse. Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers.<br />
<br />
Greene, Leonard M. Letter. New York Times. 31 May 1992.<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse <br />
<br />
Robbin, Tony. Engineering a New Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.<br />
<br />
<br />
Rybczynski, Witold. “Architecture View; A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum.” The New York Times. 19 April 1992.<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6462Dymaxion House2008-12-10T05:51:00Z<p>Valerie: biblio</p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"</blockquote><br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=The Story of the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
The original conception of the 4D Dymaxion House set the standard of Fuller’s estimations for what new houses should require, making the most out of the materials it was created from, specifically, aluminum and the “economics of mass production” (Baldwin 18). The estimated costs, by pound, to purchase a mass produced house was roughly the same as a car in 1927. The interior features of the 4D Dymaxion house were extremely forward thinking, including a multimedia room, an observation deck, and a garden area. <br />
The Dymaxion house was intended to be entirely autonomous from the municipal system of pipes and wires (Baldwin 28). Through photovoltaic cells, wind generators, micro-hydroelectric systems, locally purified water pumps, and limited exports the autonomous house could be almost entirely off of the grid. Fuller designed an answer for practically every input or output demand a modern house could have, from gardening space to grow your own vegetables, to the clean packaging toilets of the dymaxion bathroom. The 4D Dymaxion House was the ultimate in economical living, minimizing the costs for users and for the environment, however usually at the expense of luxury (or some would say reasonability).<br />
The 4D Dymaxion House ultimately was never out into production because of limited resource availability and astronomical tooling costs to get started. The project was shelved until some outside support or driving motivation to pay the initial costs. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
As is frequently the case with high investment technology, war served as the motivation for the next implementation of the Dymaxion house. World War II saw a huge need for cheap, durable houses which could withstand extreme conditions. To answer this need, the army employed a much less sophisticated version of the 4D Dymaxion House, made of refashioned grain bins. This product was coined the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, and created widespread familiarity with Fuller’s work. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
The Dymaxion House found its new opportunity with the end of the war in sight, when Fuller and Beech Aircraft Co. teamed up to utilize airplane production machinery for a new peace-time goal: affordable, mass produced housing. Beech was happy to provide incentive for it’s workers to stay in their employment post-war, and Fuller was satisfied with an order for two prototypes from the Air Force (Baldwin 44). <br />
The future of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine looked bright, thousands of preorders piled up and the two protypes were in the hands of some of the finest engineers available. Unfortunately, the bubble for the project burst for a few reasons, including poor business practices by Fuller and disputes about tooling costs between Beech Co. and Fuller. The two prototypes were the only Dymaxion Houses ever created, and only one, The Wichita House, was ever lived in. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Behavioral=<br />
Jesse do you know what is going here or is this happening in other parts of the dossier?<br />
<br />
=Failures=<br />
1.The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. <br />
<br />
2. People are unwilling to trust a “grand creator” to define their behavior. People are hesitant to sacrifice flexibility and choice in how they behave and live their life. Even if it was the most perfectly laid out, beautiful, simple dwelling, people will very hesitant to opt out of their decision making process.<br />
<br />
3. JESSSE? An excerpt of Le Corbusier's Vers un'Architectur on Mass-Production Housing<br />
A great era has just begun. There exists a new spirit. Industry, invading like a river that rolls to its destiny, brings us new tools adapted to this new era animated by a new spirit. The law of economy necessarily governs our actions; only through it are our conceptions viable. The problem of the house is a problem of the era. Social equilibrium depends on it today The first obligation of architecture, in an era of renewal, is to bring about a revision of values, a revision of the constitutive elements of the house. Mass production is based on analysis and experimentation. Heavy industry should turn its attention to building and standardizing the elements of the house. We must create a mass-production state of mind: A state of mind for building mass-production housing. A state of mind for living in mass-production housing. A state of mind for conceiving mass-production housing.<br />
<br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, " Thinking Beyond Today," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." </blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or the Eternal Pendulum of Pop Culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of a House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from Fuller's perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
'''<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992''' <br />
<br />
<br /> <br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br /> <br />
<br /> <br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br /><br /> - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
<br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," as device or media which looked to solve problems outside the existing everyman's need. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without first considering the impetus for how the home came to be in its current iteration. In many ways however, the Dymaxison House was the opposite direction American identity. After Fuller failed to market the product in the late 1940s, the 1950 brought rapid suburbanization and a new American ideal, and the concept of pre-fabricated housing remained largely untapped and un-mourned until the recent global economic crisis.]]<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
<br />
Baldwin, J. BuckyWorks. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1996.<br />
<br />
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Your Private Sky: Discourse. Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers.<br />
<br />
Greene, Leonard M. Letter. New York Times. 31 May 1992.<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse <br />
<br />
Robbin, Tony. Engineering a New Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.<br />
<br />
<br />
Rybczynski, Witold. “Architecture View; A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum.” The New York Times. 19 April 1992.<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6461Dymaxion House2008-12-10T05:50:23Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"</blockquote><br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=The Story of the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
The original conception of the 4D Dymaxion House set the standard of Fuller’s estimations for what new houses should require, making the most out of the materials it was created from, specifically, aluminum and the “economics of mass production” (Baldwin 18). The estimated costs, by pound, to purchase a mass produced house was roughly the same as a car in 1927. The interior features of the 4D Dymaxion house were extremely forward thinking, including a multimedia room, an observation deck, and a garden area. <br />
The Dymaxion house was intended to be entirely autonomous from the municipal system of pipes and wires (Baldwin 28). Through photovoltaic cells, wind generators, micro-hydroelectric systems, locally purified water pumps, and limited exports the autonomous house could be almost entirely off of the grid. Fuller designed an answer for practically every input or output demand a modern house could have, from gardening space to grow your own vegetables, to the clean packaging toilets of the dymaxion bathroom. The 4D Dymaxion House was the ultimate in economical living, minimizing the costs for users and for the environment, however usually at the expense of luxury (or some would say reasonability).<br />
The 4D Dymaxion House ultimately was never out into production because of limited resource availability and astronomical tooling costs to get started. The project was shelved until some outside support or driving motivation to pay the initial costs. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
As is frequently the case with high investment technology, war served as the motivation for the next implementation of the Dymaxion house. World War II saw a huge need for cheap, durable houses which could withstand extreme conditions. To answer this need, the army employed a much less sophisticated version of the 4D Dymaxion House, made of refashioned grain bins. This product was coined the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, and created widespread familiarity with Fuller’s work. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
The Dymaxion House found its new opportunity with the end of the war in sight, when Fuller and Beech Aircraft Co. teamed up to utilize airplane production machinery for a new peace-time goal: affordable, mass produced housing. Beech was happy to provide incentive for it’s workers to stay in their employment post-war, and Fuller was satisfied with an order for two prototypes from the Air Force (Baldwin 44). <br />
The future of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine looked bright, thousands of preorders piled up and the two protypes were in the hands of some of the finest engineers available. Unfortunately, the bubble for the project burst for a few reasons, including poor business practices by Fuller and disputes about tooling costs between Beech Co. and Fuller. The two prototypes were the only Dymaxion Houses ever created, and only one, The Wichita House, was ever lived in. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Behavioral=<br />
Jesse do you know what is going here or is this happening in other parts of the dossier?<br />
<br />
=Failures=<br />
1.The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. <br />
<br />
2. People are unwilling to trust a “grand creator” to define their behavior. People are hesitant to sacrifice flexibility and choice in how they behave and live their life. Even if it was the most perfectly laid out, beautiful, simple dwelling, people will very hesitant to opt out of their decision making process.<br />
<br />
3. JESSSE? An excerpt of Le Corbusier's Vers un'Architectur on Mass-Production Housing<br />
A great era has just begun. There exists a new spirit. Industry, invading like a river that rolls to its destiny, brings us new tools adapted to this new era animated by a new spirit. The law of economy necessarily governs our actions; only through it are our conceptions viable. The problem of the house is a problem of the era. Social equilibrium depends on it today The first obligation of architecture, in an era of renewal, is to bring about a revision of values, a revision of the constitutive elements of the house. Mass production is based on analysis and experimentation. Heavy industry should turn its attention to building and standardizing the elements of the house. We must create a mass-production state of mind: A state of mind for building mass-production housing. A state of mind for living in mass-production housing. A state of mind for conceiving mass-production housing.<br />
<br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, " Thinking Beyond Today," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." </blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or the Eternal Pendulum of Pop Culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of a House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from Fuller's perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
'''<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992''' <br />
<br />
<br /> <br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br /> <br />
<br /> <br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br /><br /> - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
<br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," as device or media which looked to solve problems outside the existing everyman's need. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without first considering the impetus for how the home came to be in its current iteration. In many ways however, the Dymaxison House was the opposite direction American identity. After Fuller failed to market the product in the late 1940s, the 1950 brought rapid suburbanization and a new American ideal, and the concept of pre-fabricated housing remained largely untapped and un-mourned until the recent global economic crisis.]]<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
<br />
Baldwin, J. BuckyWorks. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1996.<br />
<br />
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Your Private Sky: Discourse. Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers.<br />
<br />
Greene, Leonard M. Letter. New York Times. 31 May 1992.<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor<br />
<br />
Robbin, Tony. Engineering a New Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.<br />
<br />
<br />
Rybczynski, Witold. “Architecture View; A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum.” The New York Times. 19 April 1992.<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6460Dymaxion House2008-12-10T05:37:42Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"</blockquote><br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=The Story of the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
The original conception of the 4D Dymaxion House set the standard of Fuller’s estimations for what new houses should require, making the most out of the materials it was created from, specifically, aluminum and the “economics of mass production” (Baldwin 18). The estimated costs, by pound, to purchase a mass produced house was roughly the same as a car in 1927. The interior features of the 4D Dymaxion house were extremely forward thinking, including a multimedia room, an observation deck, and a garden area. <br />
The Dymaxion house was intended to be entirely autonomous from the municipal system of pipes and wires (Baldwin 28). Through photovoltaic cells, wind generators, micro-hydroelectric systems, locally purified water pumps, and limited exports the autonomous house could be almost entirely off of the grid. Fuller designed an answer for practically every input or output demand a modern house could have, from gardening space to grow your own vegetables, to the clean packaging toilets of the dymaxion bathroom. The 4D Dymaxion House was the ultimate in economical living, minimizing the costs for users and for the environment, however usually at the expense of luxury (or some would say reasonability).<br />
The 4D Dymaxion House ultimately was never out into production because of limited resource availability and astronomical tooling costs to get started. The project was shelved until some outside support or driving motivation to pay the initial costs. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
As is frequently the case with high investment technology, war served as the motivation for the next implementation of the Dymaxion house. World War II saw a huge need for cheap, durable houses which could withstand extreme conditions. To answer this need, the army employed a much less sophisticated version of the 4D Dymaxion House, made of refashioned grain bins. This product was coined the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, and created widespread familiarity with Fuller’s work. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
The Dymaxion House found its new opportunity with the end of the war in sight, when Fuller and Beech Aircraft Co. teamed up to utilize airplane production machinery for a new peace-time goal: affordable, mass produced housing. Beech was happy to provide incentive for it’s workers to stay in their employment post-war, and Fuller was satisfied with an order for two prototypes from the Air Force (Baldwin 44). <br />
The future of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine looked bright, thousands of preorders piled up and the two protypes were in the hands of some of the finest engineers available. Unfortunately, the bubble for the project burst for a few reasons, including poor business practices by Fuller and disputes about tooling costs between Beech Co. and Fuller. The two prototypes were the only Dymaxion Houses ever created, and only one, The Wichita House, was ever lived in. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Behavioral=<br />
Jesse do you know what is going here or is this happening in other parts of the dossier?<br />
<br />
=Failures=<br />
1.The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. <br />
<br />
2. People are unwilling to trust a “grand creator” to define their behavior. People are hesitant to sacrifice flexibility and choice in how they behave and live their life. Even if it was the most perfectly laid out, beautiful, simple dwelling, people will very hesitant to opt out of their decision making process.<br />
<br />
3. JESSSE? An excerpt of Le Corbusier's Vers un'Architectur on Mass-Production Housing<br />
A great era has just begun. There exists a new spirit. Industry, invading like a river that rolls to its destiny, brings us new tools adapted to this new era animated by a new spirit. The law of economy necessarily governs our actions; only through it are our conceptions viable. The problem of the house is a problem of the era. Social equilibrium depends on it today The first obligation of architecture, in an era of renewal, is to bring about a revision of values, a revision of the constitutive elements of the house. Mass production is based on analysis and experimentation. Heavy industry should turn its attention to building and standardizing the elements of the house. We must create a mass-production state of mind: A state of mind for building mass-production housing. A state of mind for living in mass-production housing. A state of mind for conceiving mass-production housing.<br />
<br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, " Thinking Beyond Today," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." </blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or the Eternal Pendulum of Pop Culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of a House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from Fuller's perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
'''<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992''' <br />
<br />
<br /> <br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br /> <br />
<br /> <br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br /><br /> - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
<br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," as device or media which looked to solve problems outside the existing everyman's need. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without first considering the impetus for how the home came to be in its current iteration. In many ways however, the Dymaxison House was the opposite direction American identity. After Fuller failed to market the product in the late 1940s, the 1950 brought rapid suburbanization and a new American ideal, and the concept of pre-fabricated housing remained largely untapped and un-mourned until the recent global economic crisis.]]<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
<br />
Baldwin, J. BuckyWorks. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1996.<br />
<br />
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Your Private Sky: Discourse. Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers.<br />
<br />
Robbin, Tony. Engineering a New Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.<br />
<br />
<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor<br />
<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6459Dymaxion House2008-12-10T04:56:29Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"</blockquote><br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=The Story of the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
The original conception of the 4D Dymaxion House set the standard of Fuller’s estimations for what new houses should require, making the most out of the materials it was created from, specifically, aluminum and the “economics of mass production” (Baldwin 18). The estimated costs, by pound, to purchase a mass produced house was roughly the same as a car in 1927. The interior features of the 4D Dymaxion house were extremely forward thinking, including a multimedia room, an observation deck, and a garden area. <br />
The Dymaxion house was intended to be entirely autonomous from the municipal system of pipes and wires (Baldwin 28). Through photovoltaic cells, wind generators, micro-hydroelectric systems, locally purified water pumps, and limited exports the autonomous house could be almost entirely off of the grid. Fuller designed an answer for practically every input or output demand a modern house could have, from gardening space to grow your own vegetables, to the clean packaging toilets of the dymaxion bathroom. The 4D Dymaxion House was the ultimate in economical living, minimizing the costs for users and for the environment, however usually at the expense of luxury (or some would say reasonability).<br />
The 4D Dymaxion House ultimately was never out into production because of limited resource availability and astronomical tooling costs to get started. The project was shelved until some outside support or driving motivation to pay the initial costs. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
As is frequently the case with high investment technology, war served as the motivation for the next implementation of the Dymaxion house. World War II saw a huge need for cheap, durable houses which could withstand extreme conditions. To answer this need, the army employed a much less sophisticated version of the 4D Dymaxion House, made of refashioned grain bins. This product was coined the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, and created widespread familiarity with Fuller’s work. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
The Dymaxion House found its new opportunity with the end of the war in sight, when Fuller and Beech Aircraft Co. teamed up to utilize airplane production machinery for a new peace-time goal: affordable, mass produced housing. Beech was happy to provide incentive for it’s workers to stay in their employment post-war, and Fuller was satisfied with an order for two prototypes from the Air Force (Baldwin 44). <br />
The future of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine looked bright, thousands of preorders piled up and the two protypes were in the hands of some of the finest engineers available. Unfortunately, the bubble for the project burst for a few reasons, including poor business practices by Fuller and disputes about tooling costs between Beech Co. and Fuller. The two prototypes were the only Dymaxion Houses ever created, and only one, The Wichita House, was ever lived in. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Behavioral=<br />
Jesse do you know what is going here or is this happening in other parts of the dossier?<br />
<br />
=Failures=<br />
1.The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. <br />
<br />
2. People are unwilling to trust a “grand creator” to define their behavior. People are hesitant to sacrifice flexibility and choice in how they behave and live their life. Even if it was the most perfectly laid out, beautiful, simple dwelling, people will very hesitant to opt out of their decision making process.<br />
<br />
3. JESSSE? An excerpt of Le Corbusier's Vers un'Architectur on Mass-Production Housing<br />
A great era has just begun. There exists a new spirit. Industry, invading like a river that rolls to its destiny, brings us new tools adapted to this new era animated by a new spirit. The law of economy necessarily governs our actions; only through it are our conceptions viable. The problem of the house is a problem of the era. Social equilibrium depends on it today The first obligation of architecture, in an era of renewal, is to bring about a revision of values, a revision of the constitutive elements of the house. Mass production is based on analysis and experimentation. Heavy industry should turn its attention to building and standardizing the elements of the house. We must create a mass-production state of mind: A state of mind for building mass-production housing. A state of mind for living in mass-production housing. A state of mind for conceiving mass-production housing.<br />
<br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, " Thinking Beyond Today," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." </blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or the Eternal Pendulum of Pop Culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of a House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from Fuller's perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
'''<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992''' <br />
<br />
<br /> <br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br /> <br />
<br /> <br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br /><br /> - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
<br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," as device or media which looked to solve problems outside the existing everyman's need. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without first considering the impetus for how the home came to be in its current iteration. In many ways however, the Dymaxison House was the opposite direction American identity. After Fuller failed to market the product in the late 1940s, the 1950 brought rapid suburbanization and a new American ideal, and the concept of pre-fabricated housing remained largely untapped and un-mourned until the recent global economic crisis.]]<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor<br />
<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6458Dymaxion House2008-12-10T03:52:38Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"</blockquote><br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=The Story of the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
The original conception of the 4D Dymaxion House set the standard of Fuller’s estimations for what new houses should require, making the most out of the materials it was created from, specifically, aluminum and the “economics of mass production” (Baldwin 18). The estimated costs, by pound, to purchase a mass produced house was roughly the same as a car in 1927. The interior features of the 4D Dymaxion house were extremely forward thinking, including a multimedia room, an observation deck, and a garden area. <br />
The Dymaxion house was intended to be entirely autonomous from the municipal system of pipes and wires (Baldwin 28). Through photovoltaic cells, wind generators, micro-hydroelectric systems, locally purified water pumps, and limited exports the autonomous house could be almost entirely off of the grid. Fuller designed an answer for practically every input or output demand a modern house could have, from gardening space to grow your own vegetables, to the clean packaging toilets of the dymaxion bathroom. The 4D Dymaxion House was the ultimate in economical living, minimizing the costs for users and for the environment, however usually at the expense of luxury (or some would say reasonability).<br />
The 4D Dymaxion House ultimately was never out into production because of limited resource availability and astronomical tooling costs to get started. The project was shelved until some outside support or driving motivation to pay the initial costs. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
As is frequently the case with high investment technology, war served as the motivation for the next implementation of the Dymaxion house. World War II saw a huge need for cheap, durable houses which could withstand extreme conditions. To answer this need, the army employed a much less sophisticated version of the 4D Dymaxion House, made of refashioned grain bins. This product was coined the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, and created widespread familiarity with Fuller’s work. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
The Dymaxion House found its new opportunity with the end of the war in sight, when Fuller and Beech Aircraft Co. teamed up to utilize airplane production machinery for a new peace-time goal: affordable, mass produced housing. Beech was happy to provide incentive for it’s workers to stay in their employment post-war, and Fuller was satisfied with an order for two prototypes from the Air Force (Baldwin 44). <br />
The future of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine looked bright, thousands of preorders piled up and the two protypes were in the hands of some of the finest engineers available. Unfortunately, the bubble for the project burst for a few reasons, including poor business practices by Fuller and disputes about tooling costs between Beech Co. and Fuller. The two prototypes were the only Dymaxion Houses ever created, and only one, The Wichita House, was ever lived in. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Behavioral=<br />
Jesse do you know what is going here or is this happening in other parts of the dossier?<br />
<br />
=Failures=<br />
1.The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. <br />
<br />
2. People are unwilling to trust a “grand creator” to define their behavior. People are hesitant to sacrifice flexibility and choice in how they behave and live their life. Even if it was the most perfectly laid out, beautiful, simple dwelling, people will very hesitant to opt out of their decision making process.<br />
<br />
3. JESSSE? An excerpt of Le Corbusier's Vers un'Architectur on Mass-Production Housing<br />
A great era has just begun. There exists a new spirit. Industry, invading like a river that rolls to its destiny, brings us new tools adapted to this new era animated by a new spirit. The law of economy necessarily governs our actions; only through it are our conceptions viable. The problem of the house is a problem of the era. Social equilibrium depends on it today The first obligation of architecture, in an era of renewal, is to bring about a revision of values, a revision of the constitutive elements of the house. Mass production is based on analysis and experimentation. Heavy industry should turn its attention to building and standardizing the elements of the house. We must create a mass-production state of mind: A state of mind for building mass-production housing. A state of mind for living in mass-production housing. A state of mind for conceiving mass-production housing.<br />
<br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, " Thinking Beyond Today," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." </blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or the Eternal Pendulum of Pop Culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of A House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the larger human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from the Fuller perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
'''<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992''' <br />
<br />
<br /> <br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br /> <br />
<br /> <br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br /><br /> - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
<br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," as device or media which looked to solve problems outside the existing everyman's need. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without first considering the impetus for how the home came to be in its current iteration. In many ways however, the Dymaxison House was the opposite direction American identity. After Fuller failed to market the product in the late 1940s, the 1950 brought rapid suburbanization and a new American ideal, and the concept of pre-fabricated housing remained largely untapped and un-mourned until the recent global economic crisis.]]<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor<br />
<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6457Dymaxion House2008-12-10T03:51:46Z<p>Valerie: 4D, DDU, Dymaxion dwelling machine</p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"</blockquote><br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=The Story of the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
The original conception of the 4D Dymaxion House set the standard of Fuller’s estimations for what new houses should require, making the most out of the materials it was created from, specifically, aluminum and the “economics of mass production” (Baldwin 18). The estimated costs, by pound, to purchase a mass produced house was roughly the same as a car in 1927. The interior features of the 4D Dymaxion house were extremely forward thinking, including a multimedia room, an observation deck, and a garden area. <br />
The Dymaxion house was intended to be entirely autonomous from the municipal system of pipes and wires (Baldwin 28). Through photovoltaic cells, wind generators, micro-hydroelectric systems, locally purified water pumps, and limited exports the autonomous house could be almost entirely off of the grid. Fuller designed an answer for practically every input or output demand a modern house could have, from gardening space to grow your own vegetables, to the clean packaging toilets of the dymaxion bathroom. The 4D Dymaxion House was the ultimate in economical living, minimizing the costs for users and for the environment, however usually at the expense of luxury (or some would say reasonability).<br />
The 4D Dymaxion House ultimately was never out into production because of limited resource availability and astronomical tooling costs to get started. The project was shelved until some outside support or driving motivation to pay the initial costs. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
As is frequently the case with high investment technology, war served as the motivation for the next implementation of the Dymaxion house. World War II saw a huge need for cheap, durable houses which could withstand extreme conditions. To answer this need, the army employed a much less sophisticated version of the 4D Dymaxion House, made of refashioned grain bins. This product was coined the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, and created widespread familiarity with Fuller’s work. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
The Dymaxion House found its new opportunity with the end of the war in sight, when Fuller and Beech Aircraft Co. teamed up to utilize airplane production machinery for a new peace-time goal: affordable, mass produced housing. Beech was happy to provide incentive for it’s workers to stay in their employment post-war, and Fuller was satisfied with an order for two prototypes from the Air Force (Baldwin 44). <br />
The future of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine looked bright, thousands of preorders piled up and the two protypes were in the hands of some of the finest engineers available. Unfortunately, the bubble for the project burst for a few reasons, including poor business practices by Fuller and disputes about tooling costs between Beech Co. and Fuller. The two prototypes were the only Dymaxion Houses ever created, and only one, The Wichita House, was ever lived in. <br />
<br />
<br />
=Autonomy and Efficiancy= <br />
cheap light and reproducible <br />
<---hangouts from social reform, goal modernity, <br />
- making home life around him systematic life at the end of the production line?<br />
<br />
<br />
=Behavioral=<br />
indiviuality within a house......<br />
<br />
=Failures=<br />
1.The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. <br />
<br />
2. People are unwilling to trust a “grand creator” to define their behavior. People are hesitant to sacrifice flexibility and choice in how they behave and live their life. Even if it was the most perfectly laid out, beautiful, simple dwelling, people will very hesitant to opt out of their decision making process.<br />
<br />
3. JESSSE? An excerpt of Le Corbusier's Vers un'Architectur on Mass-Production Housing<br />
A great era has just begun. There exists a new spirit. Industry, invading like a river that rolls to its destiny, brings us new tools adapted to this new era animated by a new spirit. The law of economy necessarily governs our actions; only through it are our conceptions viable. The problem of the house is a problem of the era. Social equilibrium depends on it today The first obligation of architecture, in an era of renewal, is to bring about a revision of values, a revision of the constitutive elements of the house. Mass production is based on analysis and experimentation. Heavy industry should turn its attention to building and standardizing the elements of the house. We must create a mass-production state of mind: A state of mind for building mass-production housing. A state of mind for living in mass-production housing. A state of mind for conceiving mass-production housing.<br />
<br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, " Thinking Beyond Today," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." </blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or the Eternal Pendulum of Pop Culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of A House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the larger human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from the Fuller perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
'''<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992''' <br />
<br />
<br /> <br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br /> <br />
<br /> <br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br /><br /> - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
<br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," as device or media which looked to solve problems outside the existing everyman's need. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without first considering the impetus for how the home came to be in its current iteration. In many ways however, the Dymaxison House was the opposite direction American identity. After Fuller failed to market the product in the late 1940s, the 1950 brought rapid suburbanization and a new American ideal, and the concept of pre-fabricated housing remained largely untapped and un-mourned until the recent global economic crisis.]]<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor<br />
<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6407Dymaxion House2008-12-08T06:36:06Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=BUCKMINSTER FULLER=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"<br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=THE STORY OF THE DYMAXION HOUSE=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
<br />
= AUTONOMY AND EFFICIANCY= <br />
cheap light and reproducible <br />
<---hangouts from social reform, goal modernity, <br />
- making home life around him systematic life at the end of the production line?<br />
<br />
<br />
=BEHAVIORAL=<br />
indiviuality within a house......<br />
<br />
=FAILURES=<br />
1. A house is a labor of love. The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, "[[[[Media: thinking_homely.pdf| Thinking Beyond Today]]," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains <blockquote><br />
<br />
"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." <br />
<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
2. creating the most efficient house<br />
<br />
3. needs to have a critical mass of people who are willing to sacrifice choice.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME=<br />
= OR =<br />
=THE ETERNAL PENDULUM OF POP CULTURE=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of A House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the larger human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from the Fuller perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992 To the Editor: In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of." - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," a device or media which looked to solve problems which were outside the everyman's needs. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without considering<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor<br />
<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6406Dymaxion House2008-12-08T06:35:28Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=BUCKMINSTER FULLER=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"<br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=THE STORY OF THE DYMAXION HOUSE=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
<br />
= AUTONOMY AND EFFICIANCY= <br />
cheap light and reproducible <br />
<---hangouts from social reform, goal modernity, <br />
- making home life around him systematic life at the end of the production line?<br />
<br />
<br />
=BEHAVIORAL=<br />
indiviuality within a house......<br />
<br />
=FAILURES=<br />
1. A house is a labor of love. The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as "homely." The common conception of "home" usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and "homely" detritus. For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, "[[[[Media: thinking_homely.pdf| Thinking Beyond Today]]," an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains <blockquote><br />
<br />
"If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory." <br />
<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
2. creating the most efficient house<br />
<br />
3. needs to have a critical mass of people who are willing to sacrifice choice.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME=<br />
= OR =<br />
=THE ETERNAL PENDULUM OF POP CULTURE=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Failure of A House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the larger human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from the Fuller perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
<br />
In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the "nooks and crannys," of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992 To the Editor: In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like." We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?" He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that." On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of." - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. </blockquote><br />
<br />
While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," a device or media which looked to solve problems which were outside the everyman's needs. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without considering<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor<br />
<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_house_valerie&diff=6405Dymaxion house valerie2008-12-08T06:30:29Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. <br />
<br />
"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"<br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6396Dymaxion House2008-12-08T06:05:59Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|"The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House."]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"<br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
= Story of dymaxion house=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, <br />
<br />
= autonomy and efficiency= <br />
cheap light and reproducible <br />
<---hangouts from social reform, goal modernity, <br />
- making home life around him systematic life at the end of the production line?<br />
<br />
<br />
=behavioral=<br />
indiviuality within a house......<br />
<br />
=failures==<br />
1. house is a labor of love <br />
2. creating the most efficient house<br />
3. needs to have a critical mass of people who are willing to sacrifice choice.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Wrong place, wrong time, OR The eternal pendulum of pop culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with "popular" culture, and a singularly unified "public," and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's "niche." This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the "good" qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=The Politics of Futurism and the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the failure of the Dymaxison House, the politics of futurism comes into question. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing to catch on in the late 1930s.<br />
<br />
Certainly one of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," a device or media which looked to solve problems which were outside the everyman's needs. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions<br />
<blockquote><br />
<br />
'''DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof'''<br />
<br />
Published: May 31, 1992<br />
<br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like."<br />
<br />
<br />
We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient.<br />
<br />
<br />
I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?"<br />
<br />
<br />
He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that."<br />
<br />
<br />
On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br />
<br />
<br />
- LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor<br />
<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_house_valerie&diff=6382Dymaxion house valerie2008-12-08T05:36:03Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div><br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. <br />
<br />
"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"<br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. [INSERT PICTURE OF CAR BUILDING HERE] To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally "natural," like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_house_valerie&diff=6373Dymaxion house valerie2008-12-08T04:30:39Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>fullllllleeeerrrrrr<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields.<br />
<br />
"a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth"<br />
<br />
In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_house_valerie&diff=6370Dymaxion house valerie2008-12-08T03:24:00Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>fullllllleeeerrrrrr</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=6134Dymaxion House2008-12-01T02:25:50Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>Let's all chat about this?<br />
<br />
=Overview=<br />
<br />
=buckminster fuller, the dude=<br />
<br />
= story of dymaxion house=<br />
<br />
=header 2= <br />
<br />
=The Politics of Futurism and the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the failure of the Dymaxison House, the politics of futurism comes into question. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing to catch on in the late 1930s.<br />
<br />
Certainly one of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being "before its time," a device or media which looked to solve problems which were outside the everyman's needs. In looking to solve "future-issues," by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the evolution of the house itself. In the wake of "New Deal" politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions<br />
<blockquote><br />
<br />
'''DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof'''<br />
<br />
Published: May 31, 1992<br />
<br />
To the Editor:<br />
<br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay "A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum" [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, "You can say anything you feel like."<br />
<br />
<br />
We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient.<br />
<br />
<br />
I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: "Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?"<br />
<br />
<br />
He laughed and said, "Well, I hadn't thought of that."<br />
<br />
<br />
On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, "Why not? They seem so exciting." He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: "It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of."<br />
<br />
<br />
- LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&scp=17&sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&st=cse - Dymaxion Letter to the editor</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=5947Main Page2008-11-12T04:32:33Z<p>Valerie: /* Dead Media Dossiers */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Media Archaeology'''<br />
<br />
[http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/2008spr-MediaArchaeology.html Media Archaeology course syllabus] (Spring 2008) <br />
<br />
Over the last decade or so, scholars in several disciplines have embarked on a series of media-archaeological excavations, sifting through the layers of early and obsolete practices and technologies of communication. The archaeological metaphor evokes both the desire to recover material traces of the past and the imperative to situate those traces in their social, cultural, and political contexts--while always watching our steps. This graduate seminar will examine some of the most important contributions to the field of media archaeology.<br />
<br />
The course follows a research studio format in which students undertake archaeological projects of their own in the area of forgotten, obsolete, or otherwise "dead" media technologies. This might include papyrus, Athanasius Kircher's seventeenth-century magic lantern, or the common slide projector, discontinued by Kodak in 2004. Our goal is to introduce students to the skills and resources necessary for producing rigorous research on such obsolete and obscure media. It will include an exposure to scholarship in media archaeology; an intensive introduction to research methods; instruction on the localization and utilization of word, image, and sound archives; and an emphasis on restoring media artifacts to their proper social and cultural context. The course stems from the premise that media archaeology is best undertaken, like any archaeological project, collaboratively. Hence the course follows a research studio model commonly used in disciplines such as architecture or design.<br />
<br />
= Dead Media Dossiers = <br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="0" cellspacing="20"<br />
<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[3D Television]]<br />
<br />
[[8-track Tape]]<br />
<br />
[[Autopen]]<br />
<br />
[[BeOS]]<br />
<br />
[[Camera Lucida]]<br />
<br />
[[Camera Obscura]]<br />
<br />
[[Car Phone]]<br />
<br />
[[Chirograph (Cyrograph)]]<br />
<br />
[[Civil Defense Siren]]<br />
<br />
[[Credit Card Imprinter]]<br />
<br />
[[Daguerreotype]]<br />
<br />
[[Discipline]]<br />
<br />
[[Data Visualization and Defunct Visual Metaphors]]<br />
<br />
[[Dumbwaiter]]<br />
<br />
[[Dymaxion House]]<br />
<br />
[[Ear Trumpet]]<br />
<br />
[[Electric Pen]]<br />
<br />
[[Enigma machine]]<br />
<br />
[[Experiential Typewriter]]<br />
<br />
[[Glass Harmonica]]<br />
<br />
[[Hierarchy]]<br />
<br />
[[Hip Pocket Records]]<br />
<br />
[[Hollerith Punch Card]]<br />
<br />
[[Homing Pigeons]]<br />
<br />
[[Hotel Annunciator]]<br />
<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[Kinora]]<br />
<br />
[[Magic Lantern]]<br />
<br />
[[Marine Chronometer]]<br />
<br />
[[The Market]]<br />
<br />
[[Medieval Mariner's Compass]]<br />
<br />
[[Mechanical Television]]<br />
<br />
[[Megalethoscope]]<br />
<br />
[[MiniDisc]]<br />
<br />
[[Minitel]]<br />
<br />
[[Mood Ring]]<br />
<br />
[[Movable Type]]<br />
<br />
[[Mystical Writing Pad]]<br />
<br />
[[Nansen Passport]]<br />
<br />
[[Newspaper via Radio Facsimile]]<br />
<br />
[[NeXT Step]]<br />
<br />
[[Nickelodeon]]<br />
<br />
[[Notificator]]<br />
<br />
[[Panorama]]<br />
<br />
[[Parrots & Birds as Symbols of Surveillance]]<br />
<br />
[[Peruvian Quipu]]<br />
<br />
[[Phonograph Doll]]<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[Photographic Gun]]<br />
<br />
[[Picturephone]]<br />
<br />
[[Player Piano]]<br />
<br />
[[Pneumatic Tubes]]<br />
<br />
[[Polaroid Camera]]<br />
<br />
[[Political Effigies]]<br />
<br />
[[Roentgen Ray Tube]]<br />
<br />
[[Semaphore Telegraph]]<br />
<br />
[[Shorthand]]<br />
<br />
[[Smell Organ]]<br />
<br />
[[Spirit Duplicator]]<br />
<br />
[[Spirit Photography]]<br />
<br />
[[Standardization]]<br />
<br />
[[Steenbeck]]<br />
<br />
[[Stereoscope]]<br />
<br />
[[Stock Ticker Machine]]<br />
<br />
[[Talking Book]]<br />
<br />
[[Talking View-Master]]<br />
<br />
[[Telautograph]]<br />
<br />
[[Telharmonium]]<br />
<br />
[[Typewriter]]<br />
<br />
[[The Victrola]]<br />
<br />
[[Virtual boy]]<br />
<br />
[[Wire Recording]]<br />
<br />
[[Wax Cylinder]]<br />
<br />
[[Zuse palimpsest]]<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
= Critical Techniques =<br />
<br />
As a group we are developing a series of techniques that help facilitate the analysis of dead media artifacts. These questions are provisional and may not be appropriate for all artifacts. They are meant as tools for critical exploration. <br />
<br />
* "[[Pops and hisses]]" -- Pops and hisses refers to the background noise often heard on phonograph recordings resulting from inconsistencies in the underlying material. Research Question: What are the unavoidable, obtrusive material qualities of the substrate itself that enter into the medium's overall system of representation? <br />
<br />
* [[Skeuomorph, or the "click"]] -- Single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras make a clicking sound when taking a picture. The click results from a mechanical operation: an internal mirror moves aside and the shutter opens, exposing the film to light. Many of today's digital cameras have no shutter and no internal mirror, yet they still simulate the click using a digital audio sample. Why? Research Question: What qualities of the artifact are unnecessary at the material level but are still nevertheless necessary at the semiotic level? Where is the "click"? <br />
<br />
* Remediation -- Like the "click," remediation refers to the process through which older media formats are simulated, extended, coopted, modified, tamed, or rendered obsolete by new media formats. Research Questions: What came before this artifact? What newer medium came after? What traits are lost or preserved in the historical transformation from one system to another? <br />
<br />
* "Functional nonsense" -- Functional nonsense refers to actual material qualities of the medium that are necessary for the medium to function correctly but which have no semantic or semiotic purpose. A good illustration is the [[Chirograph (Cyrograph)|chirograph]] which requires that some word -- by custom it was often the word "chirograph" -- be inscribed across the midsection of a document. The word is then cut in half, certifying and authenticating the two pieces. The word "chirograph" is therefore highly functional, but semantically irrelevant. Research Question: What qualities of the artifact are unnecessary at the semiotic or semantic level but are nevertheless crucial to its functioning correctly?<br />
<br />
* Encoding -- Research Question: What symbolic system is used in the medium to encode and decode messages? <br />
<br />
* Digital versus analog -- Research Questions: What parts of the artifact conform to a model of representation using discrete sample points, and what parts use a continuously variable input? Are the two hybridized and if so how? <br />
<br />
* The "obvious" -- In every medium there are techniques and design conventions that result from the prevalent tendencies of the historical situation. For example, the problem of writing and reproduction in the modern period was "solved" using mechanical levers, metal type, presses and inks, while the problem of writing and reproduction in the late twentieth century was solved using an entirely different set of techniques: digital code, microchips, and LCDs. Research Question: What aspects of the medium result from large scale paradigms appropriate to the historical context? <br />
<br />
* The "arbitrary" -- Every medium also contains entirely unmotivated and unexplainable traits. Western writing runs left to right, top to bottom. But this convention is arbitrary. Research Question: What specific aspects of the medium have no material or semiotic reason for being? <br />
<br />
* Formal prohibitions/affordances -- Communications media often put clear limitations on where and how messages can originate and be received. Radio began as a two-way medium, but evolved into a broadcast medium. Research Questions: Who can read in this medium? Who can write in this medium? Is there an asymmetrical relationship between those who can send and those who can receive? What types of values are embedded in the affordances of the technology?<br />
<br />
* The "Hack" -- Given a set of formal prohibitions, do there exist alternate practices of use that change the intended outcome of the medium? For example, DJs "hack" record players when they "spin" records, using their hands to overcome the formal prohibitions of the record player, resulting in the advent of a new style of music. [[Hacking this assignment]]. [TODO: add to this -- mention improvisation, play.]<br />
<br />
* [[The "Cake Mix" effect]] -- Research Questions: What part of the process is streamlined, mechanized, or determined in advance, and what part of the process must be performed by the user? For example, Karaoke machines mechanize the instrumental part of a song, and the user performs the vocals. [TODO: add to this] Prior to the use of tape as a means of recording, the composer had to work with a finite set of possibilities and sounds. With the advent of tape, the sonic substance became malleable, and cuttable. What effect does the mechanized portion of the process have on the emergence of the new? What effect does the streamlined portion of the process have on the overall mode of representation?<br />
<br />
* [[The "Reversal"]] -- Is there a point where maximum efficiency within a medium forces it into obsolescence? Mapmaking was ridden with errors due to difficulties in measuring longitude, but once the Marine Chronometer made it possible to plot the exact coordinates of a given position in space, and the grid mapped upon geographic representations was perfected, it was no longer necessary to use a map for navigation since a course could be plotted without any geographic references. (Additional question/theory: Is a "sampling" medium capable of reversal, or is it only threatened by upgraded mediums that are more efficient? Is the Reversal only possible in a "programming" scenario?)<br />
<br />
* [[The "Break Boundary"]] -- Research Questions: Is there a point beyond which "the system generated by the artifact suddenly changes into another or passes some point of no return in its dynamic processes?" Or what specific reconfigurations in the spatio-temporal framework surrounding the media environment of the artifact might "break" the dynamics which it was attended to address? [DO OTHERS AGREE THIS IS WORTH ADDRESSING? a suggestion via McLuhan that might be worth talking about - perhaps an attribute that doesn't apply to the material framework of the object, but maybe one that is crucial in establishing the artifact's relevance and obsolescence?]<br />
<br />
* "Bad Weather" (non-diegetic influences?) -- The [[Semaphore Telegraph]] was unable to operate in fog. External inputs often influence the proper functioning of media. Research Questions: What external events exist that might cause the medium to operate in flawed or unexpected ways? Does the medium try to shield itself from the outside world? If so, how does this change the format in question?<br />
<br />
* "Guts" -- Some dead media, like the [[NeXT Step]], hide their internal guts inside a [[black box]]. Others like the [[Kinora]] expose their inner workings for all to see. The way in which a media object alternately reveals or hides its insides greatly influences how it is understood, used, and analyzed. Research Questions: Does the medium in question hide or reveal its own internal functioning? If the guts are displayed, does this "technologize" the medium or change it in other ways? If the guts are hidden, does this reify or fetishize the object in question?<br />
<br />
* "Iris vs. Hermes" -- Most media can be charted on a continuum between Iris and Hermes. Both Iris and Hermes were Greek gods of communication; Iris was a messenger for Hera, and Hermes for Zeus. Yet while Hermes facilitated communication by accompanying messages, guiding trade, appearing alongside travelers and otherwise chaperoning interconnections between people, Iris relayed messages by immanently internalizing them in the physically of her own body. For Iris, the medium is the message. Hermes however was more of a letter carrier, keeping the outer envelop distinct from the inner content of the message. Research Questions: Does the medium maintain a separation between the symbolic layer of the medium and the material substrate? Or does the physicality of the medium itself mean something without recourse to surface inscriptions?<br />
<br />
* [["The Sample vs. the Program"]] (Witnessing vs Interpreting / Feeling vs Perceiving) -- Some media can be inscribed by simply being turned on and allowed to feel, or sample the content they remediate - yet other media generate complete nonsense unless a highly specialized and refined language code or aesthetic has been mastered and applied in the process of inscription. Research Questions: Does the medium demand a great deal of analysis before the act of inscription, or does it appropriate material that can be processed and interpreted later? Does the noise of the medium illustrate a condition external to the user's actions (ie background noise) or does the noise illustrate imperfect execution of a symbolic system (misspellings, syntactical errors, grammatical nonsense, freudian slips etc.)? Does the medium demand a complex understanding of the given content (embodying an informational cultural bias) or does it appear to witness with an inhuman objectivity?<br />
<br />
* [[Mediatic Etymology]] - Proposes a methodology for theorizing the existence of dead media by inverting the process of remediation.<br />
<br />
* [[Where do media go to die?]] -- Some artifacts or representational practices may no longer perform a useful function or satisfy popular needs in the current media ecology, but they don't necessarily disappear. Research question: What constitutes a/the moment of death? Is the artifact or representational practice obsolete (outmoded or inoperable) or outright extinct?<br />
<br />
* "Luminescence" -- [TO DO - BEN?]<br />
<br />
* "Ideologies of adoption" -- [TO DO - ALEX?]<br />
<br />
* "Text / Paratext" -- [TO DO]<br />
<br />
= Background =<br />
<br />
Some entries in the archive are drawn from the [http://www.deadmedia.org Dead Media Project], an email list devoted to the topic started by [http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades Bruce Sterling] and more recently moderated by Tom Jennings. The email list is now dead.<br />
<br />
= Links = <br />
<br />
[http://www.experimentaljetset.nl/lostformats/01.html Lost formats] <br />
<br />
= Special Pages =<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Upload|Upload a File]]<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Allpages|All Pages]]<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Imagelist|All Uploaded Files]]</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=5945Main Page2008-11-12T04:30:36Z<p>Valerie: /* Dead Media Dossiers */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Media Archaeology'''<br />
<br />
[http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/2008spr-MediaArchaeology.html Media Archaeology course syllabus] (Spring 2008) <br />
<br />
Over the last decade or so, scholars in several disciplines have embarked on a series of media-archaeological excavations, sifting through the layers of early and obsolete practices and technologies of communication. The archaeological metaphor evokes both the desire to recover material traces of the past and the imperative to situate those traces in their social, cultural, and political contexts--while always watching our steps. This graduate seminar will examine some of the most important contributions to the field of media archaeology.<br />
<br />
The course follows a research studio format in which students undertake archaeological projects of their own in the area of forgotten, obsolete, or otherwise "dead" media technologies. This might include papyrus, Athanasius Kircher's seventeenth-century magic lantern, or the common slide projector, discontinued by Kodak in 2004. Our goal is to introduce students to the skills and resources necessary for producing rigorous research on such obsolete and obscure media. It will include an exposure to scholarship in media archaeology; an intensive introduction to research methods; instruction on the localization and utilization of word, image, and sound archives; and an emphasis on restoring media artifacts to their proper social and cultural context. The course stems from the premise that media archaeology is best undertaken, like any archaeological project, collaboratively. Hence the course follows a research studio model commonly used in disciplines such as architecture or design.<br />
<br />
= Dead Media Dossiers = <br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="0" cellspacing="20"<br />
<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[3D Television]]<br />
<br />
[[8-track Tape]]<br />
<br />
[[Autopen]]<br />
<br />
[[BeOS]]<br />
<br />
[[Camera Lucida]]<br />
<br />
[[Camera Obscura]]<br />
<br />
[[Car Phone]]<br />
<br />
[[Chirograph (Cyrograph)]]<br />
<br />
[[Civil Defense Siren]]<br />
<br />
[[Credit Card Imprinter]]<br />
<br />
[[Daguerreotype]]<br />
<br />
[[Discipline]]<br />
<br />
[[Data Visualization and Defunct Visual Metaphors]]<br />
<br />
[[Dumbwaiter]]<br />
<br />
[[Dymaxion Housing]]<br />
<br />
[[Ear Trumpet]]<br />
<br />
[[Electric Pen]]<br />
<br />
[[Enigma machine]]<br />
<br />
[[Experiential Typewriter]]<br />
<br />
[[Glass Harmonica]]<br />
<br />
[[Hierarchy]]<br />
<br />
[[Hip Pocket Records]]<br />
<br />
[[Hollerith Punch Card]]<br />
<br />
[[Homing Pigeons]]<br />
<br />
[[Hotel Annunciator]]<br />
<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[Kinora]]<br />
<br />
[[Magic Lantern]]<br />
<br />
[[Marine Chronometer]]<br />
<br />
[[The Market]]<br />
<br />
[[Medieval Mariner's Compass]]<br />
<br />
[[Mechanical Television]]<br />
<br />
[[Megalethoscope]]<br />
<br />
[[MiniDisc]]<br />
<br />
[[Minitel]]<br />
<br />
[[Mood Ring]]<br />
<br />
[[Movable Type]]<br />
<br />
[[Mystical Writing Pad]]<br />
<br />
[[Nansen Passport]]<br />
<br />
[[Newspaper via Radio Facsimile]]<br />
<br />
[[NeXT Step]]<br />
<br />
[[Nickelodeon]]<br />
<br />
[[Notificator]]<br />
<br />
[[Panorama]]<br />
<br />
[[Parrots & Birds as Symbols of Surveillance]]<br />
<br />
[[Peruvian Quipu]]<br />
<br />
[[Phonograph Doll]]<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[Photographic Gun]]<br />
<br />
[[Picturephone]]<br />
<br />
[[Player Piano]]<br />
<br />
[[Pneumatic Tubes]]<br />
<br />
[[Polaroid Camera]]<br />
<br />
[[Political Effigies]]<br />
<br />
[[Roentgen Ray Tube]]<br />
<br />
[[Semaphore Telegraph]]<br />
<br />
[[Shorthand]]<br />
<br />
[[Smell Organ]]<br />
<br />
[[Spirit Duplicator]]<br />
<br />
[[Spirit Photography]]<br />
<br />
[[Standardization]]<br />
<br />
[[Steenbeck]]<br />
<br />
[[Stereoscope]]<br />
<br />
[[Stock Ticker Machine]]<br />
<br />
[[Talking Book]]<br />
<br />
[[Talking View-Master]]<br />
<br />
[[Telautograph]]<br />
<br />
[[Telharmonium]]<br />
<br />
[[Typewriter]]<br />
<br />
[[The Victrola]]<br />
<br />
[[Virtual boy]]<br />
<br />
[[Wire Recording]]<br />
<br />
[[Wax Cylinder]]<br />
<br />
[[Zuse palimpsest]]<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
= Critical Techniques =<br />
<br />
As a group we are developing a series of techniques that help facilitate the analysis of dead media artifacts. These questions are provisional and may not be appropriate for all artifacts. They are meant as tools for critical exploration. <br />
<br />
* "[[Pops and hisses]]" -- Pops and hisses refers to the background noise often heard on phonograph recordings resulting from inconsistencies in the underlying material. Research Question: What are the unavoidable, obtrusive material qualities of the substrate itself that enter into the medium's overall system of representation? <br />
<br />
* [[Skeuomorph, or the "click"]] -- Single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras make a clicking sound when taking a picture. The click results from a mechanical operation: an internal mirror moves aside and the shutter opens, exposing the film to light. Many of today's digital cameras have no shutter and no internal mirror, yet they still simulate the click using a digital audio sample. Why? Research Question: What qualities of the artifact are unnecessary at the material level but are still nevertheless necessary at the semiotic level? Where is the "click"? <br />
<br />
* Remediation -- Like the "click," remediation refers to the process through which older media formats are simulated, extended, coopted, modified, tamed, or rendered obsolete by new media formats. Research Questions: What came before this artifact? What newer medium came after? What traits are lost or preserved in the historical transformation from one system to another? <br />
<br />
* "Functional nonsense" -- Functional nonsense refers to actual material qualities of the medium that are necessary for the medium to function correctly but which have no semantic or semiotic purpose. A good illustration is the [[Chirograph (Cyrograph)|chirograph]] which requires that some word -- by custom it was often the word "chirograph" -- be inscribed across the midsection of a document. The word is then cut in half, certifying and authenticating the two pieces. The word "chirograph" is therefore highly functional, but semantically irrelevant. Research Question: What qualities of the artifact are unnecessary at the semiotic or semantic level but are nevertheless crucial to its functioning correctly?<br />
<br />
* Encoding -- Research Question: What symbolic system is used in the medium to encode and decode messages? <br />
<br />
* Digital versus analog -- Research Questions: What parts of the artifact conform to a model of representation using discrete sample points, and what parts use a continuously variable input? Are the two hybridized and if so how? <br />
<br />
* The "obvious" -- In every medium there are techniques and design conventions that result from the prevalent tendencies of the historical situation. For example, the problem of writing and reproduction in the modern period was "solved" using mechanical levers, metal type, presses and inks, while the problem of writing and reproduction in the late twentieth century was solved using an entirely different set of techniques: digital code, microchips, and LCDs. Research Question: What aspects of the medium result from large scale paradigms appropriate to the historical context? <br />
<br />
* The "arbitrary" -- Every medium also contains entirely unmotivated and unexplainable traits. Western writing runs left to right, top to bottom. But this convention is arbitrary. Research Question: What specific aspects of the medium have no material or semiotic reason for being? <br />
<br />
* Formal prohibitions/affordances -- Communications media often put clear limitations on where and how messages can originate and be received. Radio began as a two-way medium, but evolved into a broadcast medium. Research Questions: Who can read in this medium? Who can write in this medium? Is there an asymmetrical relationship between those who can send and those who can receive? What types of values are embedded in the affordances of the technology?<br />
<br />
* The "Hack" -- Given a set of formal prohibitions, do there exist alternate practices of use that change the intended outcome of the medium? For example, DJs "hack" record players when they "spin" records, using their hands to overcome the formal prohibitions of the record player, resulting in the advent of a new style of music. [[Hacking this assignment]]. [TODO: add to this -- mention improvisation, play.]<br />
<br />
* [[The "Cake Mix" effect]] -- Research Questions: What part of the process is streamlined, mechanized, or determined in advance, and what part of the process must be performed by the user? For example, Karaoke machines mechanize the instrumental part of a song, and the user performs the vocals. [TODO: add to this] Prior to the use of tape as a means of recording, the composer had to work with a finite set of possibilities and sounds. With the advent of tape, the sonic substance became malleable, and cuttable. What effect does the mechanized portion of the process have on the emergence of the new? What effect does the streamlined portion of the process have on the overall mode of representation?<br />
<br />
* [[The "Reversal"]] -- Is there a point where maximum efficiency within a medium forces it into obsolescence? Mapmaking was ridden with errors due to difficulties in measuring longitude, but once the Marine Chronometer made it possible to plot the exact coordinates of a given position in space, and the grid mapped upon geographic representations was perfected, it was no longer necessary to use a map for navigation since a course could be plotted without any geographic references. (Additional question/theory: Is a "sampling" medium capable of reversal, or is it only threatened by upgraded mediums that are more efficient? Is the Reversal only possible in a "programming" scenario?)<br />
<br />
* [[The "Break Boundary"]] -- Research Questions: Is there a point beyond which "the system generated by the artifact suddenly changes into another or passes some point of no return in its dynamic processes?" Or what specific reconfigurations in the spatio-temporal framework surrounding the media environment of the artifact might "break" the dynamics which it was attended to address? [DO OTHERS AGREE THIS IS WORTH ADDRESSING? a suggestion via McLuhan that might be worth talking about - perhaps an attribute that doesn't apply to the material framework of the object, but maybe one that is crucial in establishing the artifact's relevance and obsolescence?]<br />
<br />
* "Bad Weather" (non-diegetic influences?) -- The [[Semaphore Telegraph]] was unable to operate in fog. External inputs often influence the proper functioning of media. Research Questions: What external events exist that might cause the medium to operate in flawed or unexpected ways? Does the medium try to shield itself from the outside world? If so, how does this change the format in question?<br />
<br />
* "Guts" -- Some dead media, like the [[NeXT Step]], hide their internal guts inside a [[black box]]. Others like the [[Kinora]] expose their inner workings for all to see. The way in which a media object alternately reveals or hides its insides greatly influences how it is understood, used, and analyzed. Research Questions: Does the medium in question hide or reveal its own internal functioning? If the guts are displayed, does this "technologize" the medium or change it in other ways? If the guts are hidden, does this reify or fetishize the object in question?<br />
<br />
* "Iris vs. Hermes" -- Most media can be charted on a continuum between Iris and Hermes. Both Iris and Hermes were Greek gods of communication; Iris was a messenger for Hera, and Hermes for Zeus. Yet while Hermes facilitated communication by accompanying messages, guiding trade, appearing alongside travelers and otherwise chaperoning interconnections between people, Iris relayed messages by immanently internalizing them in the physically of her own body. For Iris, the medium is the message. Hermes however was more of a letter carrier, keeping the outer envelop distinct from the inner content of the message. Research Questions: Does the medium maintain a separation between the symbolic layer of the medium and the material substrate? Or does the physicality of the medium itself mean something without recourse to surface inscriptions?<br />
<br />
* [["The Sample vs. the Program"]] (Witnessing vs Interpreting / Feeling vs Perceiving) -- Some media can be inscribed by simply being turned on and allowed to feel, or sample the content they remediate - yet other media generate complete nonsense unless a highly specialized and refined language code or aesthetic has been mastered and applied in the process of inscription. Research Questions: Does the medium demand a great deal of analysis before the act of inscription, or does it appropriate material that can be processed and interpreted later? Does the noise of the medium illustrate a condition external to the user's actions (ie background noise) or does the noise illustrate imperfect execution of a symbolic system (misspellings, syntactical errors, grammatical nonsense, freudian slips etc.)? Does the medium demand a complex understanding of the given content (embodying an informational cultural bias) or does it appear to witness with an inhuman objectivity?<br />
<br />
* [[Mediatic Etymology]] - Proposes a methodology for theorizing the existence of dead media by inverting the process of remediation.<br />
<br />
* [[Where do media go to die?]] -- Some artifacts or representational practices may no longer perform a useful function or satisfy popular needs in the current media ecology, but they don't necessarily disappear. Research question: What constitutes a/the moment of death? Is the artifact or representational practice obsolete (outmoded or inoperable) or outright extinct?<br />
<br />
* "Luminescence" -- [TO DO - BEN?]<br />
<br />
* "Ideologies of adoption" -- [TO DO - ALEX?]<br />
<br />
* "Text / Paratext" -- [TO DO]<br />
<br />
= Background =<br />
<br />
Some entries in the archive are drawn from the [http://www.deadmedia.org Dead Media Project], an email list devoted to the topic started by [http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades Bruce Sterling] and more recently moderated by Tom Jennings. The email list is now dead.<br />
<br />
= Links = <br />
<br />
[http://www.experimentaljetset.nl/lostformats/01.html Lost formats] <br />
<br />
= Special Pages =<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Upload|Upload a File]]<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Allpages|All Pages]]<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Imagelist|All Uploaded Files]]</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=5944Dymaxion House2008-11-12T04:29:53Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>BuckminsterFuller Dymaxion Tensegrity Geodesic blah blah<br />
<br />
DIBS!<br />
Valerie</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=5914Main Page2008-11-05T22:17:33Z<p>Valerie: /* Dead Media Dossiers */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Media Archaeology'''<br />
<br />
[http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/2008spr-MediaArchaeology.html Media Archaeology course syllabus] (Spring 2008) <br />
<br />
Over the last decade or so, scholars in several disciplines have embarked on a series of media-archaeological excavations, sifting through the layers of early and obsolete practices and technologies of communication. The archaeological metaphor evokes both the desire to recover material traces of the past and the imperative to situate those traces in their social, cultural, and political contexts--while always watching our steps. This graduate seminar will examine some of the most important contributions to the field of media archaeology.<br />
<br />
The course follows a research studio format in which students undertake archaeological projects of their own in the area of forgotten, obsolete, or otherwise "dead" media technologies. This might include papyrus, Athanasius Kircher's seventeenth-century magic lantern, or the common slide projector, discontinued by Kodak in 2004. Our goal is to introduce students to the skills and resources necessary for producing rigorous research on such obsolete and obscure media. It will include an exposure to scholarship in media archaeology; an intensive introduction to research methods; instruction on the localization and utilization of word, image, and sound archives; and an emphasis on restoring media artifacts to their proper social and cultural context. The course stems from the premise that media archaeology is best undertaken, like any archaeological project, collaboratively. Hence the course follows a research studio model commonly used in disciplines such as architecture or design.<br />
<br />
= Dead Media Dossiers = <br />
<br />
{| cellpadding="0" cellspacing="20"<br />
<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[3D Television]]<br />
<br />
[[8-track Tape]]<br />
<br />
[[Autopen]]<br />
<br />
[[BeOS]]<br />
<br />
[[Camera Lucida]]<br />
<br />
[[Camera Obscura]]<br />
<br />
[[Car Phone]]<br />
<br />
[[Chirograph (Cyrograph)]]<br />
<br />
[[Civil Defense Siren]]<br />
<br />
[[Credit Card Imprinter]]<br />
<br />
[[Daguerreotype]]<br />
<br />
[[Discipline]]<br />
<br />
[[Data Visualization and Defunct Visual Metaphors]]<br />
<br />
[[Dumbwaiter]]<br />
<br />
[[Ear Trumpet]]<br />
<br />
[[Electric Pen]]<br />
<br />
[[Enigma machine]]<br />
<br />
[[Experiential Typewriter]]<br />
<br />
[[Glass Harmonica]]<br />
<br />
[[Hierarchy]]<br />
<br />
[[Hip Pocket Records]]<br />
<br />
[[Hollerith Punch Card]]<br />
<br />
[[Homing Pigeons]]<br />
<br />
[[Hotel Annunciator]]<br />
<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[Kinora]]<br />
<br />
[[Magic Lantern]]<br />
<br />
[[Marine Chronometer]]<br />
<br />
[[The Market]]<br />
<br />
[[Medieval Mariner's Compass]]<br />
<br />
[[Mechanical Television]]<br />
<br />
[[Megalethoscope]]<br />
<br />
[[MiniDisc]]<br />
<br />
[[Minitel]]<br />
<br />
[[Mood Ring]]<br />
<br />
[[Movable Type]]<br />
<br />
[[Mystical Writing Pad]]<br />
<br />
[[Nansen Passport]]<br />
<br />
[[Newspaper via Radio Facsimile]]<br />
<br />
[[NeXT Step]]<br />
<br />
[[Nickelodeon]]<br />
<br />
[[Notificator]]<br />
<br />
[[Panorama]]<br />
<br />
[[Peruvian Quipu]]<br />
<br />
[[Phonograph Doll]]<br />
<br />
||<br />
<br />
[[Photographic Gun]]<br />
<br />
[[Picturephone]]<br />
<br />
[[Player Piano]]<br />
<br />
[[Pneumatic Tubes]]<br />
<br />
[[Polaroid Camera]]<br />
<br />
[[Political Effigies]]<br />
<br />
[[Roentgen Ray Tube]]<br />
<br />
[[Semaphore Telegraph]]<br />
<br />
[[Shorthand]]<br />
<br />
[[Smell Organ]]<br />
<br />
[[Spirit Duplicator]]<br />
<br />
[[Spirit Photography]]<br />
<br />
[[Standardization]]<br />
<br />
[[Steenbeck]]<br />
<br />
[[Stereoscope]]<br />
<br />
[[Stock Ticker Machine]]<br />
<br />
[[Talking Book]]<br />
<br />
[[Talking View-Master]]<br />
<br />
[[Telautograph]]<br />
<br />
[[Telharmonium]]<br />
<br />
[[Typewriter]]<br />
<br />
[[The Victrola]]<br />
<br />
[[Virtual boy]]<br />
<br />
[[Wire Recording]]<br />
<br />
[[Wax Cylinder]]<br />
<br />
[[Zuse palimpsest]]<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
= Critical Techniques =<br />
<br />
As a group we are developing a series of techniques that help facilitate the analysis of dead media artifacts. These questions are provisional and may not be appropriate for all artifacts. They are meant as tools for critical exploration. <br />
<br />
* "[[Pops and hisses]]" -- Pops and hisses refers to the background noise often heard on phonograph recordings resulting from inconsistencies in the underlying material. Research Question: What are the unavoidable, obtrusive material qualities of the substrate itself that enter into the medium's overall system of representation? <br />
<br />
* [[Skeuomorph, or the "click"]] -- Single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras make a clicking sound when taking a picture. The click results from a mechanical operation: an internal mirror moves aside and the shutter opens, exposing the film to light. Many of today's digital cameras have no shutter and no internal mirror, yet they still simulate the click using a digital audio sample. Why? Research Question: What qualities of the artifact are unnecessary at the material level but are still nevertheless necessary at the semiotic level? Where is the "click"? <br />
<br />
* Remediation -- Like the "click," remediation refers to the process through which older media formats are simulated, extended, coopted, modified, tamed, or rendered obsolete by new media formats. Research Questions: What came before this artifact? What newer medium came after? What traits are lost or preserved in the historical transformation from one system to another? <br />
<br />
* "Functional nonsense" -- Functional nonsense refers to actual material qualities of the medium that are necessary for the medium to function correctly but which have no semantic or semiotic purpose. A good illustration is the [[Chirograph (Cyrograph)|chirograph]] which requires that some word -- by custom it was often the word "chirograph" -- be inscribed across the midsection of a document. The word is then cut in half, certifying and authenticating the two pieces. The word "chirograph" is therefore highly functional, but semantically irrelevant. Research Question: What qualities of the artifact are unnecessary at the semiotic or semantic level but are nevertheless crucial to its functioning correctly?<br />
<br />
* Encoding -- Research Question: What symbolic system is used in the medium to encode and decode messages? <br />
<br />
* Digital versus analog -- Research Questions: What parts of the artifact conform to a model of representation using discrete sample points, and what parts use a continuously variable input? Are the two hybridized and if so how? <br />
<br />
* The "obvious" -- In every medium there are techniques and design conventions that result from the prevalent tendencies of the historical situation. For example, the problem of writing and reproduction in the modern period was "solved" using mechanical levers, metal type, presses and inks, while the problem of writing and reproduction in the late twentieth century was solved using an entirely different set of techniques: digital code, microchips, and LCDs. Research Question: What aspects of the medium result from large scale paradigms appropriate to the historical context? <br />
<br />
* The "arbitrary" -- Every medium also contains entirely unmotivated and unexplainable traits. Western writing runs left to right, top to bottom. But this convention is arbitrary. Research Question: What specific aspects of the medium have no material or semiotic reason for being? <br />
<br />
* Formal prohibitions/affordances -- Communications media often put clear limitations on where and how messages can originate and be received. Radio began as a two-way medium, but evolved into a broadcast medium. Research Questions: Who can read in this medium? Who can write in this medium? Is there an asymmetrical relationship between those who can send and those who can receive? What types of values are embedded in the affordances of the technology?<br />
<br />
* The "Hack" -- Given a set of formal prohibitions, do there exist alternate practices of use that change the intended outcome of the medium? For example, DJs "hack" record players when they "spin" records, using their hands to overcome the formal prohibitions of the record player, resulting in the advent of a new style of music. [[Hacking this assignment]]. [TODO: add to this -- mention improvisation, play.]<br />
<br />
* [[The "Cake Mix" effect]] -- Research Questions: What part of the process is streamlined, mechanized, or determined in advance, and what part of the process must be performed by the user? For example, Karaoke machines mechanize the instrumental part of a song, and the user performs the vocals. [TODO: add to this] Prior to the use of tape as a means of recording, the composer had to work with a finite set of possibilities and sounds. With the advent of tape, the sonic substance became malleable, and cuttable. What effect does the mechanized portion of the process have on the emergence of the new? What effect does the streamlined portion of the process have on the overall mode of representation?<br />
<br />
* [[The "Reversal"]] -- Is there a point where maximum efficiency within a medium forces it into obsolescence? Mapmaking was ridden with errors due to difficulties in measuring longitude, but once the Marine Chronometer made it possible to plot the exact coordinates of a given position in space, and the grid mapped upon geographic representations was perfected, it was no longer necessary to use a map for navigation since a course could be plotted without any geographic references. (Additional question/theory: Is a "sampling" medium capable of reversal, or is it only threatened by upgraded mediums that are more efficient? Is the Reversal only possible in a "programming" scenario?)<br />
<br />
* [[The "Break Boundary"]] -- Research Questions: Is there a point beyond which "the system generated by the artifact suddenly changes into another or passes some point of no return in its dynamic processes?" Or what specific reconfigurations in the spatio-temporal framework surrounding the media environment of the artifact might "break" the dynamics which it was attended to address? [DO OTHERS AGREE THIS IS WORTH ADDRESSING? a suggestion via McLuhan that might be worth talking about - perhaps an attribute that doesn't apply to the material framework of the object, but maybe one that is crucial in establishing the artifact's relevance and obsolescence?]<br />
<br />
* "Bad Weather" (non-diegetic influences?) -- The [[Semaphore Telegraph]] was unable to operate in fog. External inputs often influence the proper functioning of media. Research Questions: What external events exist that might cause the medium to operate in flawed or unexpected ways? Does the medium try to shield itself from the outside world? If so, how does this change the format in question?<br />
<br />
* "Guts" -- Some dead media, like the [[NeXT Step]], hide their internal guts inside a [[black box]]. Others like the [[Kinora]] expose their inner workings for all to see. The way in which a media object alternately reveals or hides its insides greatly influences how it is understood, used, and analyzed. Research Questions: Does the medium in question hide or reveal its own internal functioning? If the guts are displayed, does this "technologize" the medium or change it in other ways? If the guts are hidden, does this reify or fetishize the object in question?<br />
<br />
* "Iris vs. Hermes" -- Most media can be charted on a continuum between Iris and Hermes. Both Iris and Hermes were Greek gods of communication; Iris was a messenger for Hera, and Hermes for Zeus. Yet while Hermes facilitated communication by accompanying messages, guiding trade, appearing alongside travelers and otherwise chaperoning interconnections between people, Iris relayed messages by immanently internalizing them in the physically of her own body. For Iris, the medium is the message. Hermes however was more of a letter carrier, keeping the outer envelop distinct from the inner content of the message. Research Questions: Does the medium maintain a separation between the symbolic layer of the medium and the material substrate? Or does the physicality of the medium itself mean something without recourse to surface inscriptions?<br />
<br />
* [["The Sample vs. the Program"]] (Witnessing vs Interpreting / Feeling vs Perceiving) -- Some media can be inscribed by simply being turned on and allowed to feel, or sample the content they remediate - yet other media generate complete nonsense unless a highly specialized and refined language code or aesthetic has been mastered and applied in the process of inscription. Research Questions: Does the medium demand a great deal of analysis before the act of inscription, or does it appropriate material that can be processed and interpreted later? Does the noise of the medium illustrate a condition external to the user's actions (ie background noise) or does the noise illustrate imperfect execution of a symbolic system (misspellings, syntactical errors, grammatical nonsense, freudian slips etc.)? Does the medium demand a complex understanding of the given content (embodying an informational cultural bias) or does it appear to witness with an inhuman objectivity?<br />
<br />
* [[Mediatic Etymology]] - Proposes a methodology for theorizing the existence of dead media by inverting the process of remediation.<br />
<br />
* [[Where do media go to die?]] -- Some artifacts or representational practices may no longer perform a useful function or satisfy popular needs in the current media ecology, but they don't necessarily disappear. Research question: What constitutes a/the moment of death? Is the artifact or representational practice obsolete (outmoded or inoperable) or outright extinct?<br />
<br />
* "Luminescence" -- [TO DO - BEN?]<br />
<br />
* "Ideologies of adoption" -- [TO DO - ALEX?]<br />
<br />
* "Text / Paratext" -- [TO DO]<br />
<br />
= Background =<br />
<br />
Some entries in the archive are drawn from the [http://www.deadmedia.org Dead Media Project], an email list devoted to the topic started by [http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades Bruce Sterling] and more recently moderated by Tom Jennings. The email list is now dead.<br />
<br />
= Links = <br />
<br />
[http://www.experimentaljetset.nl/lostformats/01.html Lost formats] <br />
<br />
= Special Pages =<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Upload|Upload a File]]<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Allpages|All Pages]]<br />
<br />
[[:Special:Imagelist|All Uploaded Files]]</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5889Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:49:15Z<p>Valerie: /* Genealogy of the Elevator */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Humans have always created technology to minimize work, from the invention of the wheel to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
[[image:Otis presentation.jpg|right|175px]]<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis).<br />
<br />
==Impacts of the elevator==<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter.<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Fun Facts=<br />
Thomas Jefferson had many dumbwaiters at Monticello, there were ones specifically for wine, food, etc. They were mostly to keep from his guests just how many servants it took to run the place. <br />
<br />
In the UK, the term "dumbwaiter" can also refer to a cart of shelves which everyone eats off of buffet style, again, to minimize the presence of servants around for private meetings. <br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5887Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:44:19Z<p>Valerie: /* Impacts of the elevator */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
[[image:Otis presentation.jpg|right|175px]]<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis).<br />
<br />
==Impacts of the elevator==<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter.<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Fun Facts=<br />
Thomas Jefferson had many dumbwaiters at Monticello, there were ones specifically for wine, food, etc. They were mostly to keep from his guests just how many servants it took to run the place. <br />
<br />
In the UK, the term "dumbwaiter" can also refer to a cart of shelves which everyone eats off of buffet style, again, to minimize the presence of servants around for private meetings. <br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5886Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:43:56Z<p>Valerie: /* The Industrial Revolution */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
[[image:Otis presentation.jpg|right|175px]]<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis).<br />
<br />
==Impacts of the elevator==<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|300px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter.<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Fun Facts=<br />
Thomas Jefferson had many dumbwaiters at Monticello, there were ones specifically for wine, food, etc. They were mostly to keep from his guests just how many servants it took to run the place. <br />
<br />
In the UK, the term "dumbwaiter" can also refer to a cart of shelves which everyone eats off of buffet style, again, to minimize the presence of servants around for private meetings. <br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5885Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:42:46Z<p>Valerie: /* Impacts of the elevator */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
[[image:Otis presentation.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis).<br />
<br />
==Impacts of the elevator==<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|300px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter.<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Fun Facts=<br />
Thomas Jefferson had many dumbwaiters at Monticello, there were ones specifically for wine, food, etc. They were mostly to keep from his guests just how many servants it took to run the place. <br />
<br />
In the UK, the term "dumbwaiter" can also refer to a cart of shelves which everyone eats off of buffet style, again, to minimize the presence of servants around for private meetings. <br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5884Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:42:14Z<p>Valerie: /* The Industrial Revolution */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
[[image:Otis presentation.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis).<br />
<br />
==Impacts of the elevator==<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter.<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Fun Facts=<br />
Thomas Jefferson had many dumbwaiters at Monticello, there were ones specifically for wine, food, etc. They were mostly to keep from his guests just how many servants it took to run the place. <br />
<br />
In the UK, the term "dumbwaiter" can also refer to a cart of shelves which everyone eats off of buffet style, again, to minimize the presence of servants around for private meetings. <br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5877Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:37:55Z<p>Valerie: /* Death */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
==Impacts of the elevator==<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter.<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|right|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Fun Facts=<br />
Thomas Jefferson had many dumbwaiters at Monticello, there were ones specifically for wine, food, etc. They were mostly to keep from his guests just how many servants it took to run the place. <br />
<br />
In the UK, the term "dumbwaiter" can also refer to a cart of shelves which everyone eats off of buffet style, again, to minimize the presence of servants around for private meetings. <br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=File:Otis_presentation.jpg&diff=5876File:Otis presentation.jpg2008-11-05T19:37:15Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5867Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:30:14Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
==Impacts of the elevator==<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter.<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|left|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Fun Facts=<br />
Thomas Jefferson had many dumbwaiters at Monticello, there were ones specifically for wine, food, etc. They were mostly to keep from his guests just how many servants it took to run the place. <br />
<br />
In the UK, the term "dumbwaiter" can also refer to a cart of shelves which everyone eats off of buffet style, again, to minimize the presence of servants around for private meetings. <br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5863Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:26:26Z<p>Valerie: /* Impacts */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
==Impacts of the elevator==<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter.<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|left|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5862Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:25:24Z<p>Valerie: /* Death */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
===Impacts===<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter. <br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|left|200px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5861Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:24:38Z<p>Valerie: /* The ‘home’ ideal */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
===Impacts===<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter. <br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
[[image:brownstone.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in.<br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|left|300px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5860Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T19:22:57Z<p>Valerie: /* Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems */</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
[[image:wind pulley.jpg|left|150px]]<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
===Impacts===<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter. <br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in. <br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|left|300px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=File:Wind_pulley.jpg&diff=5844File:Wind pulley.jpg2008-11-05T19:14:16Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=File:Brownstone.jpg&diff=5839File:Brownstone.jpg2008-11-05T19:09:59Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5819Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T18:49:52Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
===Impacts===<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter. <br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in. <br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[image:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg|left|300px]]<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=File:Yonah_Schimmel_1.jpg&diff=5814File:Yonah Schimmel 1.jpg2008-11-05T18:45:50Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5812Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T18:38:48Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
===Impacts===<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|right|400px]]<br />
<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter. <br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in. <br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
In short, the dumbwaiter helped make the necessary connection for Americans to view an apartment as a home, encouraging them to stay in New York during its period of growth instead of moving elsewhere where they would not have to compromise their living space, and helping to maintain representation from all of the classes in the city in the face of rapid immigration and expansion. <br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.<br />
<br />
=Bibliography=<br />
<br />
Cromley, Elizabeth C. Alone Together : a history of New York’s early apartments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ed. Christine L. Krueger.<br />
Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.<br />
<br />
Gavois, Jean. Going Up: an informal history of the elevator from the Pyramids to the present. New York: Otis Elevator Co., 1983.<br />
<br />
Hanson, Julienne. Decoding Homes and Houses.<br />
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Vogel, Robert M. Vertical Transportation in Old Back Bay, a museum case study : the acquisition of a small residential hydraulic elevator. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Otis Brothers & Co. Otis Brothers & Co. Manufacturers of Standard Hydraulic Passenger and Freight Elevators. New York, N.Y.: Otis Brothers & Co., 1886.<br />
<br />
Otis Elevator Company. The First One Hundred Years. New York: Otis Elevator Company, 1953.<br />
<br />
Petersen, L. A. (Leroy A.), b. 1893. Elisha Graves Otis [1811-1861] and his influence upon vertical transportation. New York, The Newcomen Society of England [American branch] 1945.<br />
<br />
Pinter, Harold. “The Caretaker; and, The Dumb Waiter : two plays”. New York : Grove Press, Inc., 1965.<br />
<br />
Read, Alice Gray. “Monticello’s Dumbwaiters.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 168-175.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5792Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T18:07:05Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
===Impacts===<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter. <br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in. <br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
=When and Why=<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|400px]]<br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
The dumbwaiter largely helped solve some of the problems of social reckoning with an ever expanding city. As the city was able to grow upwards higher and higher thanks to Otis’ invention of the elevator, its relative the dumbwaiter addressed social issues related to the lack of space afforded to city residents. Wherever there are dumbwaiters still installed, they are widely used, such as Yonah Schimmel’s knish shop on Houston. Electric dumbwaiters are still a small business, however they have largely fallen out of popularity and are mostly available as assistance for the elderly or otherwise disabled. <br />
<br />
Largely, the dumbwaiter fell out of popularity because of a widespread conciliation with apartment living. Now that it is commonplace to live in an apartment, extra means to appeal to a renter’s sense of propriety and privacy are not common. While Americans still have different norms of privacy than other cultures, apartment living no longer violates them.</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5791Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T17:58:24Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
===Impacts===<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter. <br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
The term “dumbwaiter” has gained many colloquial meanings and actually has a great variety of technical variations. Early dumbwaiters, such as Otis’ “portable hand hoist” were operated with a simple system of cranks and levers on the user end, with a pulley system attached above the mechanism to raise and lower. Later dumbwaiters utilized a hydraulic pump for increased ease, and eventually could be installed to run off of electricity (Vogel).<br />
<br />
=A changing society =<br />
During the mid to late 1800’s New York was undergoing a huge population boom. These years marked a drastic influx of immigration, which then led to the rapid and haphazard establishment of tenements for them to live in (Cromley). This fast shift in housing demand caused a social divide between those who live in tenements, widely seen to be for poor immigrants who lacked ‘American’ norms of living proxemics and those who lived in a freestanding homes around the city, mostly people who had lived in New York back when it was still just considered a city, instead of the city. <br />
<br />
===The ‘home’ ideal===<br />
<br />
As the city changed around them, owners and renters who wanted to live in traditional style “row houses” found themselves increasingly disappointed. The more demand for freestanding houses in the market, the smaller and narrower the houses became (Cromley). Row houses appealed to the traditional American desires of privacy and autonomy. The basement levels were designated for the kitchen and service rooms, the ground floor was considered the public floor, with a parlor or study, and the upstairs levels were for living in, safely removed from the public eye (Cromley). In this sense, dumbwaiters actually could appeal to the modern homeowner of late Victorian America. They were often retrofitted to go from the service levels up, minimizing the work of the servants around the house, but definitely not replacing them. <br />
<br />
The dumbwaiter in the traditional row house was a boon, however the dumbwaiter thrived as more than just a mere retrofitted technology. The shift to vertical rearrangement in the city was inevitable, and the buildings who benefited most from the installation of this device were the newly constructed apartment buildings which Americans were trying to wrap their minds around living in. <br />
<br />
===Americans in apartments===<br />
<br />
In the spacious, “wide open plains” sense of our national identity, we have established a cultural opinion around the idea of “living space.” Considering also that the US is a country founded upon Puritanical ideas about privacy and censorship, it is unsurprising that Americans are adverse to the idea of living in apartments. The trouble was that people were rapidly being priced out of the housing market in the quickly growing city. While this was the case, Americans were very reluctant to adjust to the idea of apartment living for the above reasons. On New York’s journey to becoming the city that it is today, architects of the late 1800’s looked to already stuffed European cities for ideas on how to live, trying to strike a balance between practicality and public opinion (Cromley). <br />
In the end, it was only through technological amenities like the dumbwaiter, central heating, and modern lighting that apartment living was made widely popularized and accepted as anything other than lower class. Technological innovation made it possible for the upper class to live one story and relinquish their desire to have primarily compartmentalized space (Hanson). By virtue of their size alone, it was simply not possible to have as many separate rooms with singular purposes in an apartment as it was in a house. Dumbwaiters to the basement level were built into upscale apartment buildings where, for a fee, the tenants could have their food delivered, their laundry done, etc. <br />
<br />
<blockquote> <br />
"[Apartments] were spatially organized around notions of function still current in the late twentieth century, they depended on an assumption of technological aides replacing servants’ labor, they celebrated convenience, and they both shifted and clarified the place of privacy as a centerpiece of homelife." (Cromley, 173) </blockquote><br />
<br />
=When and Why=<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|400px]]</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5768Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T16:31:06Z<p>Valerie: hurrah writing!</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
=Genealogy of the Elevator=<br />
<br />
Machinery to reduce work has been around as long as humans have been creating permanent dwellings, from the invention of the wheel and the first lever system to modern day high rise cranes. The study of mechanics and physics took a great leap forward during in Europe from 1500 to 1800 with the work of such renaissance inventors as Galileo and Da Vinci who made developments in rudimentary mechanics and laid the groundwork for the Industrial Age of the late18th and early 19th centuries. <br />
<br />
Da Vinci’s design for an early elevation system.<br />
<br />
==Earliest known uses of non-hydraulic elevation systems==<br />
One of the earliest in home elevation systems recorded was in 1744, a gift from Louis XV to the favored Duchesse de Châteauroux, to provide rapid transport from her apartments at Versailles to the royal bedchamber. This was not in place for long as the Duchesse was replaced and her follower had it removed (Gavois). <br />
<br />
Also popular in France, the early “italics” “tables volantes,” essentially a table sized dumbwaiter, able to be set entirely and raised into the dining room as well as removed discreetly, without the presence of servants interrupting the post-meal chatter (Gavois).<br />
<br />
==The Industrial Revolution==<br />
The name most widely known and closely associated with the invention of the modern day elevator is undoubtedly that of Elisha Otis. Founder of Otis elevator company, Elisha revolutionized elevation technology with the invention of the first passenger elevator with a fail safe safety mechanism (Peterson). After years working for as a lift technician for a bed frame company, Otis received a request to design a safe passenger elevator from a store which had recently had a horrific accident with their primitive elevator system (Otis). <br />
<br />
In a momentous display in 1953, Otis presented his first passenger elevator to the public at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, cementing his place in history as the inventor of the first useable passenger elevator (Gavois). Soon afterwards he established a factory, and was providing the first hydraulic and steam operated elevators ever to companies around New York (Otis). <br />
<br />
===impacts===<br />
The invention of the elevator would revolutionize the inner workings of the city, allowing for the sky scrapers and high rises we now characterize New York by. The sudden possibility of expansion which the passenger elevator saved Wall Street, which was rapidly out growing its downtown location from relocating, effectively making sure that New York stayed the center of the USA’s financial world (Otis). After all of the many high rise, expensive edition “rapid transport” elevators available in the Otis Company’s 1886 inventory catalogue, one page is dedicated to a little device referred to as the “portable hand hoist,” what we will come to recognize as the forbearer to the dumbwaiter. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=When and Why=<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|400px]]<br />
<br />
==Nouveaux Riches==<br />
==The new spatial==<br />
=Impacts=<br />
=Death and followers=</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5733Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T15:17:28Z<p>Valerie: fucking pictures</p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg|right]]<br />
=How it works=<br />
=The earliest elevator=<br />
=When and Why=<br />
[[image:adv.jpg|400px]]<br />
<br />
==Nouveaux Riches==<br />
==The new spatial==<br />
=Impacts=<br />
=Death and followers=</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5728Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T14:56:18Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The dumbwaiter, or hand hoist, is a small platform used to transport goods from one level of a building to the next.<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg]]<br />
=How it works=<br />
=The earliest elevator=<br />
=When and Why=<br />
[[image:adv.jpg]]<br />
<br />
==Nouveaux Riches==<br />
==The new spatial==<br />
=Impacts=<br />
=Death and followers=</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5708Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T07:59:51Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The Dumbwaiter!<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg]]<br />
=How it works=<br />
=The earliest elevator=<br />
=When and Why=<br />
[[image:adv.jpg]]<br />
<br />
==Nouveaux Riches==<br />
==The new spatial==<br />
=Impacts=<br />
=Death and followers=</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=File:Adv.jpg&diff=5707File:Adv.jpg2008-11-05T07:59:05Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5697Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T07:34:26Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The Dumbwaiter!<br />
<br />
[[image:Manual_lift2.jpg]]<br />
=How it works=<br />
=The earliest elevator=<br />
=When and Why=<br />
==Nouveaux Riches==<br />
==The new spatial==<br />
=Impacts=<br />
=Death and followers=</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5691Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T07:27:46Z<p>Valerie: add image?</p>
<hr />
<div>The Dumbwaiter!<br />
<br />
[[image.Manual_lift2.jpg]]<br />
=How it works=<br />
=The earliest elevator=<br />
=When and Why=<br />
==Nouveaux Riches==<br />
==The new spatial==<br />
=Impacts=<br />
=Death and followers=</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=File:Manual_lift2.jpg&diff=5690File:Manual lift2.jpg2008-11-05T07:26:25Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=File:IMG_2602.JPG&diff=5681File:IMG 2602.JPG2008-11-05T06:48:59Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5678Dumbwaiter2008-11-05T06:31:30Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The Dumbwaiter!<br />
<br />
this looks good....<br />
<br />
=How it works=<br />
=The earliest elevator=<br />
=When and Why=<br />
==Nouveaux Riches==<br />
==The new spatial==<br />
=Impacts=<br />
=Death and followers=</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5577Dumbwaiter2008-11-03T04:18:17Z<p>Valerie: </p>
<hr />
<div>The Dumbwaiter!<br />
=The Victorian Era Values: the new spatial idea of "home"=<br />
==The Nouveaux Riches==<br />
=The Invention=<br />
=The Dumb Waiter and other popular references=</div>Valeriehttp://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dumbwaiter&diff=5576Dumbwaiter2008-11-03T03:50:57Z<p>Valerie: organization</p>
<hr />
<div>The Dumbwaiter!<br />
=The Victorian Era Values: the new spatial idea of "home"=<br />
==The Nouveaux Riches==<br />
=The Invention=</div>Valerie