Pedestrian modern : shopping and American architecture, 1925-1956 / David Smiley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smiley, David J., 1958-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Commercial buildings--United States--History--20th century.

Commercial buildings.

Architecture and society--United States--History--20th century.

Architecture and society.

Consumer behavior--United States--History--20th century.

Consumer behavior.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

xi, 357 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2013]

Summary:

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

Contents:

Machine generated contents note:

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: Centers and Peripheries

1. The Store Problem

2. Machines for Selling

3. "Park and Shop"

4. Pedestrianization Takes Command

5. The Cold War Pedestrian

6. The Language of Modern Shopping

Conclusion: Pedestrian Modern Futures

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780816679294

0816679290

9780816679300

0816679304

OCLC:

816563798