This exhibition catalog documents the emergence of modern American design in the second quarter of the 20th century. Cranbrook was one of the few institutions in the United States that offered instruction in design during the 1920s and 30s and its influence on architecture, interior design, art and crafts after World War II was crucial and extensive. The exhibition includes over 200 objects and photo-panels and surveys the history of the Cranbrook facility, as well as the achievements of the teachers and students. Presenting the history of the Cranbrook community, it covers Eliel Saarinen's contribution to architecture and urban design, interior design and furniture, metalwork and bookbinding, textiles, ceramics, sculpture and painting. ISBN 0-89558-097-7 (pbk.); ISBN 0-87099-341-0 (pbk.) : $45.00 (For use only in the library).

What should a television look like? How should a dial on a radio feel to the touch? These were questions John Vassos asked when the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) asked him to design the first mass-produced television receiver, the TRK-12, which had its spectacular premier at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Vassos emigrated from Greece and arrived in the United States in 1918. His career spans the evolution of central forms of mass media in the twentieth century and offers a template for understanding their success. This is Vassos’s legacy—shaping the way we interact with our media technologies. Other industrial designers may be more celebrated, but none were more focused on making radio and television attractive and accessible to millions of Americans. In John Vassos: Industrial Design for Modern Life, Danielle Shapiro is the first to examine the life and work of RCA’s key consultant designer through the rise of radio and television and into the computer era. Vassos conceived a vision for the look of new technologies still with us today. A founder of the Industrial Designers Society of America, he was instrumental in the development of a self-conscious industrial design profession during the late 1920s and 1930s and into the postwar period. Drawing on unpublished records and correspondence, Shapiro creates a portrait of a designer whose early artistic work in books like Phobia and Contempo critiqued the commercialization of modern life but whose later design work sought to accommodate it. Replete with rich behind-the-product stories of America’s design culture in the 1930s through the 1950s, this volume also chronicles the emergence of what was to become the nation’s largest media company and provides a fascinating glimpse into its early corporate culture. In our current era of watching TV on an iPod or a smartphone, Shapiro stimulates broad discussions of the meaning of technological design for mass media in daily life.

“Very original...Banes draws on her lifelong interest in found objects and ethnic ornaments... [There are] photos of many of her...necklaces, with diagrammed patterns...unique approach to jewelry design.”—Library Journal. “The results are spectacular...the necklaces become true works of art, not just macram� look-alikes.”—Booklist.

Art Deco—the term conjures up jewels by Van Cleef & Arpels, glassware by Laique, furniture by Ruhlmann—is best exemplified in the work shown at the exhibition that gave the style its name: the Exposition Internationale des Art Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925. The exquisite craftsmanship and artistry of the objects displayed spoke to a sophisticated modernity yet were rooted in past traditions. Although it quickly spread to other countries, Art Deco found its most coherent expression in France, where a rich cultural heritage was embraced as the impetus for creating something new. the style drew on inspirations as diverse as fashion, avant-garde trends in the fine arts—such as Cubism and Fauvism—and a taste for the exotic, all of which converged in exceptionally luxurious and innovative objects. While the practice of Art Deco ended with the Second World War, interest in it has not only endured to the present day but has grown steadily. Based on the Metropolitan Museum's renowned collection French Art Deco presents more than eighty masterpieces by forty-two designers. Examples include Süe et Mare's furniture from the 1925 Exposition; Dufy's Cubist-inspired textiles; Dunand's lacquered bedroom suite; Dupas's monumental glass wall panels from the SS Normandie; and Fouquet's spectacular dress ornament in the shape of a Chinese mask. Jared Goss's engaging text includes a discussion of each object together with a biography of the designer who created it and is enlivened by generous quotations from writings of the period. The extensive introduction provides historical context and explores the origins and aesthetic of Art Deco. With its rich text and sumptuous photographs, this is not only one of the rare books on French Art Deco in English, but an object d'art in its own right.