How much further should the affluent world push its material consumption? Does relative dematerialization lead to absolute decline in demand for materials? These and many other questions are discussed and answered in Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Over the course of time, the modern world has become dependent on unprecedented flows of materials. Now even the most efficient production processes and the highest practical rates of recycling may not be enough to result in dematerialization rates that would be high enough to negate the rising demand for materials generated by continuing population growth and rising standards of living. This book explores the costs of this dependence and the potential for substantial dematerialization of modern economies. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization considers the principal materials used throughout history, from wood and stone, through to metals, alloys, plastics and silicon, describing their extraction and production as well as their dominant applications. The evolving productivities of material extraction, processing, synthesis, finishing and distribution, and the energy costs and environmental impact of rising material consumption are examined in detail. The book concludes with an outlook for the future, discussing the prospects for dematerialization and potential constrains on materials. This interdisciplinary text provides useful perspectives for readers with backgrounds including resource economics, environmental studies, energy analysis, mineral geology, industrial organization, manufacturing and material science.

This is the definitive volume on Craig Ellwood, a visionary architect, designer, and tastemaker often called the “California Mies van der Rohe.” Craig Ellwood, “the Cary Grant of architecture,” was one of the most visible faces of California mid-century modernism. He was known as much for his exquisitely designed, minimalist structures as he was for his exuberant lifestyle. This book celebrates and explores the glamour of Ellwood’s work, life, myth, and career. Through photographs, primarily of the iconic houses he designed in Southern California during the 1950s and ’60s, we see a life of refined decadence, expressed through gorgeous architecture, fast cars, beautiful women, Hollywood style, palm trees, swimming pools, and minimalist design—all in the context of the Southern California postwar building boom. This volume will appeal to design junkies, architecture buffs, students of modernism, and anyone interested in problem-solving and elegant solutions.

Embracing design of every kind from every corner of the globe, this inspirational work looks at the defining notions of glamour, elements of home decoration, and homes where everything comes glamorously together. Includes a directory of the designers and resources.

Smith reveals how this visual revolution played an instrumental role in the complex psychological, social, economic, and technological changes that came to be known as the second industrial revolution. From the role of visualization in the invention of the assembly line, to office and building design, to the corporate and lifestyle images that filled new magazines such as Life and Fortune, he traces the extent to which the second wave of industrialization engaged the visual arts to project a new iconology of progress.

Investigates how women patrons of architecture were essential catalysts for innovation in domestic architectural design. This book explores the challenges that unconventional attitudes and ways of life presented to architectural thinking, and to the architects themselves.

Based on extensive research at eight universities - Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Stanford, Michigan, and California at Berkeley - Reuben examines the aims of university reformers in the context of nineteenth-century ideas about truth. She argues that these educators tried to apply new scientific standards to moral education, but that their modernization efforts ultimately failed.

Today the Museum of Modern Art is widely recognized for establishing the canon of modern art; yet in its early years, the museum considered modern art part of a still unfolding experiment in contemporary visual production. By bracketing MoMA's early history from its later reputation, this book explores the ways the Museum acted as a laboratory to set an ambitious agenda for the exhibition of a multidisciplinary idea of modern art. Between its founding in 1929 and its 20th anniversary in 1949, MoMA created the first museum departments of architecture and design, film, and photography in the country, marshaled modern art as a political tool, and brought consumer culture into a versatile yet institutional context. Encompassing 14 essays that investigate the diversity of modern art, this volume demonstrates how MoMA's programming shaped a version of modern art that was not elitist but fundamentally intertwined with all levels of cultural production.