Tag: Wayback Machine - Page 7
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Global Warming Hits London in 1844, Panic Ensues
Who knows, someday this is what we will all be doing, seeing fake icebergs in theatres. Back in 1844 you could go to a Glaciarium in London and rent a sled. It was drama too; you could see "the most extraordinary thaw ever witnessed in this Country or
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From the Past: Cities of the Future Slideshow
I have always loved those great Cities of the Future from the thirties even to the present; they always present some bucolic vision that is never quite achieved. Canon set up a vision at the CES show to showcase their high def cameras; Unpluggd said
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Transformer Furniture: The Execuchair Folds Out to a Bed
And we thought Transformer furniture was a new idea; here is an "executive" chair that would fit right into the set on Mad Men and no doubt could be easily worked into the plot. Upholstered in Naugahyde, before Naugas were endangered. NEW EXECU-CHAIR
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Roofs Are For People: Tent Cities on Hotel Roofs
They might have tried this in Washington last night, if it weren't so cold.An unusual method of coining dollars from the waste space on the roof of a building is shown in this view of the U. S. Grant Hotel in San Diego, where about twenty tents have
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Graph of the Day: You Are Where You Eat
Everybody knows that restaurant portions are too large, too laden in fat and salt, too expensive. Yet look what has happened in the last 50 years, appropriately laid out in pie charts. Paul Kedrosky wonders what it will be five years from now. What do
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Roofs are for People
Bernard Rudofsky is well known for his book Architecture without Architects, but he also wrote that Streets are for People. Perhaps the same thing can be said about roofs.
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1947: The Acorn House Unfolds
While writing the obit for Empyrian Homes I alluded to the original Acorn house, describing it briefly and noting that Acorn founder John Bemis put it together with Architect Carl Koch. I could find little information, other than references to a Life
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Quote of the Day from 1953: Why No Sun Power?
Artist and thinker at Mechanix Illustrated Frank Tinsley asked, in 1953, why there was so much investment in nuclear and so little in solar.
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Closer Than We Think: Rejuvenated Downtowns
Paleo-future
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1969: Cuyahoga River Catches Fire
Image: Plain Dealer
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Archigram Redux: More Ideas From the Sixties Are Fashionable Again
TreeHugger has referred to Archigram, the group of British Architects and students out of the AA (Architectural Association School) that came up with plug-in cities, walking cities, blow-up cities and other ideas
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New York Times Predictions for 2009, from 1909
Everyone is having fun looking at predictions made a year ago, but what about a hundred years ago? "Litterateur" Jules Bois made some interesting ones, some which are dead on and some hilariously wrong. Take his ideal of feminine beauty: Physical
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Acorn/ Deck/ Empyrean Born 1947 Died 2008
After World War II, many designers tried to apply the techniques developed for wartime industry to housing; Fuller with the Dymaxion House and the Lustron houses were attempts in steel; in 1947 Acorn structures tried it in wood. Their
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The Big Squirt Will Save Us
John Laumer wrote earlier about shale oil in Colorado, that finding the energy to both heat oil shale to 700 degrees while simultaneously freezing the surrounding rock with 30 feet of ice was not a big problem, but finding the water to do it all is.
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Norman Bel Geddes Predicts the Future
It is that time of year that everyone makes predictions, and looks at predictions made a year ago; here is one that was made quite a bit earlier. It is sad that we live in a world where Norman Bel Geddes is more famous for being the father of Barbara
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Earthrise: The Photo that Launched a Movement
It has been said that the pictures taken on Christmas Eve forty years ago created the environmental movement, that for the first time people really could see that we really were all together on one little boat floating in space. This was the first, the
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1947: Scoot-Mobile Gets 75 MPG
Corunna, Michigan is only 90 miles up the road from Detroit; maybe someone should pay a visit and see if they can dig up a scoot-mobile. It is made from scavenged parts, gets 75 MPG and looks really aero. According to a commenter at Modern Mechanix,
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1959: Your Watt-Sucking World of Tomorrow
Jaymi's recent post on the green-ness of a Roomba versus an upright vacuum did not mention the option of a broom; perhaps it is ingrained in us to look for the high-tech solution. Back in 1959, the Sarnoff Labs of RCA predicted a Roomba-like
