All Trains - Riverside and San Bernardino, originally uploaded by Introducing Nancy.

Another from my outing to Union Station (see more). Anyone going to Riverside?

Natwest Bank, Gillette Corner, Brentford -  architect tbc (possibly Sir Banister Fletcher ?) - date tbc (possibly 1936?) - I'll keep you posted once I've done some rrrresearch.

Built in 1930, the Chrysler Building by William van Alen is a monument that represents art in transition. Unlike painting, literature, or music, architecture is practiced within the confines of real-use application, and depends the most heavily on science among the above-mentioned arts. When architects and engineers gained the ability (and desire) to build higher, for example, they had to keep human/social aspects of the use of spacing in mind. For example, New York adopted zoning rules which required super-tall buildings to be tapered at the top so that the street level wouldn’t be suffocated by the blocking of sunlight.

The Chrysler Building as seen in 1931. The building is placed at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 42nd street, Manhattan, New York. Photo courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Gallery: www.nypl.org/digital.

As I interpret it, the building clearly does not conform to its surrounding aesthetic, and neither does it convey the notion of clarity and logic through straight lines and industrious spacing that would characterize later works. To this extent, The Chrysler Building is a transitional piece. Ian Sutton’s contribution to the “World of Art” series, Western Architecture, places the building in such a context:

Between the purely commercial products of Art Deco, the Odeons and the Roxys, and the more serious, high-minded Modernism of Gropius and the Bauhaus, there is a middle ground which shares something of both. Like the latter, the architects in question also believed in the future (or at least the present), but for them ornament was no crime. The new materials, steel glass, reinforced concrete, were an opportunity, not a discipline. They favoured the curve rather than the straight line (the style was nicknamed ‘Streamlined Moderne’); it was chic, it was up-to-date, it was avant-garde with a touch of elitism, the perfect background to the jazz age.

Speaking of the jazz age, a few auteurs—notably Fitzgerald—come to mind. And actually, I can see how this building for some New Yorkers might have represented an embrace of futurism, technology, and success (even in the midst of the 1930s). For four months, the Chrysler Building was tallest building in the world (a title overtaken by the Empire State Building. (I am reminded of today’s climate in which the status of tallest building—whether in Taiwan, Dubai, Chicago, etc.—changes hands during and shortly after construction). The building is decorative, romantic, non-economical. Sutton describes the technological environment that made such buildings possible:

Three new inventions made it possible to build higher One was Elisha G. Otis’s perfection of his elevator, an essential requirement for tall buildings. Another was Sir Henry Bessemer’s new process of manufacturing steel, an alloy that provided greater strength with less weight and had tensile properties lacking in cast iron. Both these inventions date from the 1850s, but their effect was not felt until the 1870s. The third was the development of fireproofing for the iron (later steel) frame.

The Chrysler Building under construction in 1929. Photo courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Gallery: www.nypl.org/digital.

In the future, I will look at architecture characterizing periods before and after the Chrysler Building’s reign. Though, the building remains one of the tallest in New York City, which implies that such a reign never ended (if you are judging such things by height). Later buildings would be less decorative and seemingly more judicious in its use of space. It is possible that the spirit which inspired the building’s was stifled in part by the economy (the depression erupted in 1929), or other more “pragmatic” reasons for not producing such buildings.

REFERENCES
1. Sutton, Ian. Western Architecture: From Ancient Greece to the Present. London: Thames & Hudson; 1999. 311, 322.

The Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibitions have been hugely successful for the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.

Art Deco will be no exception. My special preview today, indicated the ambitious scope of this focussed exhibition using content primarily from the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

The exhibition is curated to attempt to tie together the multiple threads of Austrian design movements, Oriental design, primitivism, Communist design, Italian Futurism, French Cubism, World War I, Fauvism and Modernism, as well as the New York Gilded Age, into a narrative defining art deco. Needless to say, this is not simple.

Some of the most impressive exhibits are the Art deco furniture, jewellery, installed foyer from the Strand Palace Hotel. My personal favorites were the highly streamlined cars, which I won't spoil for you.

The exhibition, if you are in Melbourne or Australia, is definitely worth a visit. If it has a flaw, perhaps it overemphasized Art Deco's roots in Orientalism and primitivism, and under emphasized the importance of the smooth flowing lines of the machine, to the Art Deco movement.

Interestingly, in relation to my writing in the Global Innovation Review 2007, Vienna and Paris are tremedously important in the Art Deco movement with other cities such as New York and London.

I will cover the exhibition in more considered depth for my work, but needless to say it was thoroughly enjoyable. I recall Art Deco, and my fascination with it both as a designer, and in the distant past in University in Tasmania.

The exhibition opens to the public tomorrow until 5th October 2008, leaving plenty of time to see the exhibition at NGV International St Kilda Rd, Melbourne.

Go and see it. You will enjoy it. I'll return, despite the fact I have seen in person numerous Art Deco and related pieces in original contexts in Paris, London, New York, Vienna, around Australia, and globally in many places. Some elements are still visible overseas in their original context.

But there's a narrative here, in one place, and even if I personally don't entirely agree with the story, it is visually spectacular, making it well worth a visit.

Christopher Hire.

Sherbrooke and Montagne Montreal

This is a large scale composition measuring 94" X 43" of Acrylic on birch ply. It was painted in the spirit of the photo realists of New York of the 1960's however I did warm the colors from the original image and had to reinterpret the grain of the photographic references that I was using making it more part of the realm of hyper realism, My client is featured in the foreground with his wife and daughter which made for a very unique understated family portrait. Needless to say this was a great deviation from my usual approach to producing visual images but I was up for the challenge after reviewing many examples of this work and thinking through the methodology required to make is a success.

In Shanghai, they re-vamped an old Art Deco style building and are having all kinds of design fun there. Here is a logo for one of the exhibitions. How can you go wrong with an orange cow silhouette and chinese lettering?

I also would like to know what specific individuals at FEMA were responsible for stopping those new goods in the warehouses from being distributed to Katrina victims in a timely manner. And, what specific individuals and chain of command decided to mark them as surplus, why the FEMA decision-makers and others in our government judged these supplies to be un-needed, and who specifically made that decision. It is our right to know why and how these decision-makers can be so completely “off”. Are they all doing drugs? Have they created a process by which they cannot make accurately based decisions? Do they not watch the news? Do they not go “on-site” before making these determinations? Are they living in some other country most of the time? Do the chain of command systems at FEMA and at the Corps of Engineers (and other agencies) form the basis for criminal negligence on a consistent basis?

Also, there was a show that described a man’s thirty years of efforts to make liquid gas from coal and he has created a proven process and method for this - why aren’t we seeing this man’s work be brought into the marketplace to solve some of the gas and diesel fuel problems? Why isn’t the man’s efforts, also shown on public broadcast, to create an algae based farming for ethanol fuels being given to distribution for the marketplace and whatever is required to do that made available to him? Where are the total electric cars that were successfully created by our automakers and why aren’t we supporting these companies, including the tesla car - to get these cars into our hands right now/ immediately? They’ve already been created, they do work, they do solve the problem and they can be made affordable for us - what is wrong with doing whatever it takes to get these to us?

Our government bias to speak for oil companies that are using our national resources to make their profits - must change. It isn’t thirty years from now to get these things done with the studies, research and alternatives that have been being designed for over thirty years back from here. The status quo isn’t a practical alternative for thirty more years, not for even two more years and in fact, not even for six more months. The speculators are engaging in illegal and criminal gambling practices at our expense and the oil companies have over three hundred percent profiteering practices which is also illegal (considered gouging, opportunistic profiteering beyond what we allow to any other business or industry or companies of any size, and they're using natural and American taxpayers' resources and moneys to make these profits). Our US government leadership, decision-makers from all positions are engaging in favoritism, conflicts of interest and self-serving abuses of their power and position to further the agenda for oil companies and others that are fully capable of competitiveness without these unfair advantages.
Cricket Diane C “Sparky” Phillips, 06-23-08, USA, Cricket House Studios, 2008

Remember - a keen interest in the architecture of underground metropolitan rail systems doesn't mean you're a train-spotter! Let's have a look at Moscow first.

Sumptuous Moscow Metro (Part 1)

Undergoing a bit a refurbishment phase of late, the Moscow Metro is a stunning example of architectural and engineering public infrastructure. Here's a video introduction, for those who haven't had the benefit of visiting Moscow yet...

Commencing in 1931 with preliminary tunnelling, the construction of the system overcame adverse geological conditions (massive variations in soils and groundwater issues) under Moscow by either deep tunnelling or using "cut and cover" method of excavation.

The majority of the system was constructed in five stages from 1933 through to the late 1950s, although the period of most interest to me is the first two stages from 1933 to 1938. Opening in 1935, with the Sokolnicheskaya line, the stand-out stations are Sokolniki (notably by a female architect, Nadezhda Bykova) and Lubyanka found on the segment between Sokolniki – Park Kultury. Also completed in 1935 was the Zamoskvoretskaya line, where the segment between Sokol – Teatralnaya began operation - the most stylish stations are Aeroport and Mayakovskaya. Lastly, within this period, the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line opened in 1938.

Above: The main concourse of Mayakovskaya Station featuring profiled columns clad in stainless steel [source]
Below: The station platform at Aeroport that emphatically says "Welcome to Art Deco. Have a nice day!" [source]

Behind the ornament, the public spaces of the Moscow stations have a scale appropriate to the level of Metro use and reflect the importance a Communist government placed on public transport. Vast vault-like public halls clad in rich marble with granite floors and indirect lighting, connect station platforms to the surface. Art is integral to the architecture with mosaics, enamel panelling and bronze sculptures featuring throughout.

The First Line, built in the early 1930's, possesses an invigorating modernism that is a high-water mark of the Soviet avant-garde. With the Second Line, built in the late 1930's, a program of monumental sculpture and art was introduced that signaled Stalin's stranglehold on the ideological goals of the Soviet state.
[Moscow Metro: The Underground Dream]

The Moscow Metro is unique for other reasons; over 9 million passengers a day ride the Metro (the heaviest usage in the world and over twice as many passengers as New York's subway system), many stations (eg. Park Pobedy) are very deep underground (up to 86 metres) and the maximum speed is up to 90km/h - although the average is closer to 40km/h.

Lately, the Moscow Metro is undergoing an expansion program with new lines, stations and refurbishment (particularly Mayakovskaya and Elektrozavodskaya opened in 1944) of some of the classic stations to improve access. Whilst not in the same design league as the stations of the 1930s, some of the new stations are striking enough; for example Strogino, opened in January 2008, is characterised by a beautifully top-lit monolithic reinforced concrete caisson.

Above: Soffit detail of the new Strogino station designed by architects Orlov and Nekrasov [source]

Now if they could just do something about those pesky commuters that actually use the system. Here are some current photos of the Moscow Metro in action. Oh dear

Additional Resources

• Moscow Metro Photographs by Bee Flowers (surely not his real name?!) has the most stunning photographs of the Moscow Metro through some 450 photos and 27 wide-angle panoramas. Alternatively, his photos are linked to a map of the system at Moscow Metro Map.
• More photos on each Moscow line at Metrowalks. Start here.
• Moscow Metro Timeline in Russian. Use the slider on the right side of page to interactive view the changes to the Metro over time from 1935 to 2008.
• KartaMetro is an interactive map with all the Moscow Metro lines, stations, and exits overlaid on Google Maps imagery of Moscow. Select your station using the pulldown menu in the top left of the page. A bit slow to load but worthwhile, especially if travelling to Moscow anytime soon.
• Original Moscow Metro Station Maps 1931-2008 (translated version, original here)
• A full list of architects, engineers, designers and artists of the Moscow Metro stations (translated version, original here)
• More details on the Moscow Metro Expansion Program.
• Metro is an unofficial site in Russian but stocked with with a huge amount of interesting information on the system. Those not fluent in Russian (ie. me) should try the machine translated version of Metro.
• Also try the huge UrbanRail site for information the Moscow Metro (with links galore) and most other metro systems around the world.

[* the title is a deliberate reference to the 1980 classic song "Going Underground" by The Jam]

Besides that, I fiddled myself into GIMP, my mysterious graphics program, with the effect, that I now strive to improve the design of my product-posters.

Here is my first result .... well as the creator, I will naturally think it's great ...what would you think?

Oh btw thats a new product too, of course:)

This is where we stand every morning to wait for the train.

And dream of stenciling this pattern onto the walls of our office.

There are many beautiful deco buildings in DC (perhaps built as part of the WPA program?), but I thought this is a particularly nice example. Notice the 'District of Columbia' etching near the top of the building, the wonderful sconce between the doors, and the deco-ish carvings on either sides of the windows. I tried to photograph the building without getting any people in the shot, but there was a constant stream of people coming in and out of the building, so that was kind of impossible. Still, I thought this was a nice shot of the exterior. (I went in and asked to look around but you have to go through a metal detector and a security check - like so many buildings in DC - and besides, when they found out I had a camera they wouldn't let me in. They were very nice about it, though.)
As you can see, even the short pillars outside the front steps are deco! And I love the stylized eagle on the tall pillar. But my favorite part of the building is the metalwork above the doors.

Worked up another image.  It's still very rough, and I have to adjust the proportion of the rear wheel.  A few artistic tweaks and clean-up, and the view will be done.

The front grill in this image also needs some work, as well as better line-work.

But, it gets the idea across of what this vehicle is aiming for:  Art in motion, in the heart of Miami!

I took a break from rendering the main images of the vehicle and created an Art Deco-inspired advertisement for the car.  Now, including the tag line for La Vida:  "Make it a part of your life".

I'm going to do some final tweaks to the car in the image (grill clean-up and glass) before I add it to the complete package that I'll be entering.  So far, it looks like I'll have 7-8 presentation boards, the unique video(s?), the viral marketing campaign, and the social networking coverage.

In fact, in the two days that the website for the car has been up, we've already made some nice waves on many websites and created a considerable buzz for La Vida.  I guess all that marketing know-how is paying off.  What I won't solve with flashy renderings, I can solve by creating a complete presentation about what this vehicle is about, and why it's the right direction for an American car company.

Monday is going to be a very busy day!

, originally uploaded by purpleganesh.

Until my trip to Miami in late 2007, my relationship to Art Deco was distantly academic. It was just one more style..something I was more amused with when my ex-boss toiled over the minutiae in elevation design recreating his inner art deco in twenty first century bay area streetscape. The theatres and older mansions of Chennai and Mumbai somehow faded in the background....till my trip to Miami. Amid sweltering heat, and the humid salty air from the gulf, the overdose of Art Deco buildings in the historic district instantly resonated with familiar visual memories of older neighborhoods in Chennai. A recreation of T.Nagar and Mylapore minus the dust and the grime, with roads twice their Indian widths. You can almost believe, maybe Chennai might have looked like this seventy years ago...until you confront the battery of bikini clad blondes and brunettes making their way to the beach !!!

E.A. Seguy, color pochoir from the "Floréal" portfolio ca. 1920

While on an excursion in New York a few years ago I stopped by Leonard Fox Rare Books, eager to view fabrics designed by painters Sonia and Robert Delaunay.  The Delaunays' textiles were well worth the visit, but it was the experience afterward—leafing through the stunning portfolios of E.A. Seguy's work—that was for me like the rich butter chocolate icing on the cake—so delicious I just couldn't stop myself from consuming to the point of sensory overload.  Considering the prolific output of this designer, I was surprised and dismayed to find that very few of the particulars of his life are a matter of public record. In fact, according to Leslie Overstreet, curator of rare books at the Smithsonian and author of Botanicals, the designer's identity is today still largely a mystery. (Intriguingly, "he" might even have been a "she.") 

Seguy was active predominently in Paris between 1900 until the early 30s. He produced produced eleven albums of illustrations and designs including Les Fleurs et Leurs Applications Decoratives (1900), Samarkande—20 Compositions en Couleurs dans le Style Oriental (1914), Floréal (1920), Papillons (1924), Insectes (1924), Bouquets et Frondaisons (1926), Primavera—Dessins et Colori Nouveaux (1929), Suggestions (1930), and Prismes—40 Planches de Dessins et Coloris Nouveaux (1931).  

The brilliance of the color scheme typical of Seguy's designs was due to their execution in the pochoir illustration technique, essentially the hand-stenciling of watercolor or gouache colors onto a black printed design. Pochoir is said to have been developed by the Chinese in the first millennium, but pushed to aesthetic heights by the French between 1800-1920.   Generally the decorative portfolios were produced as a kind of style manual for textile, wallpaper and murals, much like Owen Jones' Grammar of Ornament was an earlier generation.

The natural world was Seguy's main source of inspiration.  The bug designs are probably Seguy's best-known works, deservedly so. The artist beautifully rendered his exotic and sumptuous butterfly subjects in a level of detail befitting curiosity cabinet specimens and, yet, there is no mistaking that a superb eye for decorative pattern has directed the whole exercise.

E.A. Seguy, Beetle Pattern ca. 1925-30

Though the bugs were incomparably unique, it was the Floréal collection that tugged at my aesthetic heart strings.  Seguy straddled the Arts Nouveau and Deco styles. In the Floréal designs,  the legacy of the Art Nouveau style is right before you—the fanciful, naturally-inspired, swirling forms associated with Nouveau are in abundance. But the designs also anticipate the bodacious color schemes and geometric obsession of the Deco style. In that sense, the portfolio is a wonderful document of a decorative style in transition, a fascinating design artifact even.  Leaving it at that description though wouldn't do the collection complete justice. Simply put, Floréal is a rich and opulent luxury.  

I distinctly remember in the late 1980s when the Japanese started to purchase significant amounts of American real estate in Hawaii.  The yen had improved and the US economy was struggling and Hawaii saw a substantial increase of Japanese tourists and subsequently Japanese investors.  It got to the point where local home buyers and investors in Hawaii were competing for the limited supply of real estate with investors from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and Canada.  Once the Japanese investors bought up Honolulu and The Big Island, they set their eyes on the "The Big Kahuna”.  They came to Manhattan and purchased Rockefeller Center.  New Yorkers were up in arms!  Shocked!  Livid!

It was a matter of pride with New Yorkers and most Americans. The very idea that the center of journalistic and architectural modernity, Rockefeller Center, should belong to another country was beyond comprehension.  Things were THAT bad in America.

Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who leased the space from Columbia University in 1928 and developed it from 1930.  It was the largest private building project ever undertaken in modern times. Construction of the 14 buildings in the Art Deco style began on May 17, 1930 and was completed on November 1, 1939 when he drove in the final (silver) rivet into 10 Rockefeller Plaza. Rockefeller Center is a magnificent complicated beauty.  Radio City Music Hall is a part of it. It’s the home of NBC and it’s where Saturday Night Live broadcasts from.  It is the home of the iconic Rockefeller Center Ice Skating Rink which we see in the background of so many movies.  It is where thousands gather each December to watch the lighting of “The Christmas Tree”.

In the late 80s, sadly, the Japanese purchased a major slice of America's apple pie.

Here we are in 2008, 20 years later and the Chrysler Building is for sale; the world's tallest brick building is now owned by the United Arab Emirates.   Another beautiful Art Deco building being purchased by a foreign country, this time the super-rich Abu Dhabi Investment Council is negotiating an $800 million deal for a 75 percent stake in the Art Deco treasure that has defined the Midtown skyline since 1930.

Last month the GM Building was sold with three other Macklowe/Equity Portfolio properties for $3.95 billion to a group of investors including the wealth funds of Kuwait and Qatar and Boston Properties.

Boston Properties closed on its purchase of the GM Building on Monday with investment partners Kuwait and Qatar, and will complete the purchase of three other former Macklowe properties over the next few months.

Developer Harry Macklowe was forced to sell the assets after taking a personal loan on the GM Building and other family assets to raise nearly $7 billion to buy a city package of former Equity Office buildings. The credit markets tanked right after completing that deal in July and Macklowe was unable to refinance the short-term debt causing him to sell the four buildings to Boston Properties and return the Equity portfolio to lender Deutsche Bank.

And so it continues.  Spurred by the weak dollar and the strong euro, European travelers to the U.S. have been lapping up everything from inexpensive ‘unmentionables’ to designer clothing in Manhattan to luxury condos in Palm Beach.

The latest casualty is the breathtaking and historic Flatiron building in Manhattan.  It was sold to a top Italian real estate investor.  Built in 1902, the 22-story Flatiron is instantly recognizable for its triangular shape at the intersection of Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and 23rd Street. The Flatiron is featured in the opening credits of the David Letterman show and serves as the fictional headquarters for the Daily Bugle in the recent Spider-Man movies. It has been a National Historic Landmark since 1989. The Flatiron's falling into foreign hands carries symbolic weight as international investors once again take advantage of the upheaval in the real estate market and weakness of the U.S. dollar.

Foreign companies were the buyers in four of the top 13 U.S. commercial real estate deals in 2007, according to Real Estate Alert newsletter. Another foreign acquisition of notable Manhattan real estate was the Dubai-based Jumeirah group's 2006 purchase of the Essex House on Central Park South.

America’s for sale – again.  Very sad but true. 

During the economic crisis of the 1980s, when the selling of America began, Ronald Reagan was President 1981-1989. 

Then came George H.W. Bush, he was President 1989–1993. 

Then came a democratic President, Bill Clinton.  He was President  from 1993 to 2001 and he corrected our fiscal problems and left office with a surplus budget of $559 billion.

Then came George W. Bush and once again, American is for sale.  Sad but true. 

The Congressional Budget Office has announced the deficit for fiscal 2008 is going to hit almost $220 billion, maybe more -- not counting war spending or an economic stimulus package.  That brings the deficit estimate to approximately $3 trillion dollars.

John McCain’s current fiscal plan would recklessly continue the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush Administration.  McCain’s economic plan -- which includes a corporate tax cut and an extension of the Bush tax cuts -- would leave a debt of $12.7 trillion, the HIGHEST SINCE 1951 when America was still holding debt from World War II.  As impossible as it may seem, John McCain’s economic irresponsibility would be WORST than George W’s.

If we stay on this path, and continue to do the same stupid things; if we continue to elect Presidents who only care about their self interests.  If we continue to elect republicans, before we know it, the White House will be for sale.

Look at the facts, the republicans have left the economy in shambles each time they held office over the past 27 years.  With a republican President Americans got  poorer even though republicans got richer.

Think about it, do you want to be doing better four years from now? 

If the answer is ‘yes’, vote democratic.  Look at the facts, think about it.

America should not be for sale!

Paulette

Adrien-Jacques Garcelon was one of the masters of what we would now call the 'Art Deco' period. He was particularly well known for his wallpaper design. Garcelon, along with the likes of Paul Follot, Henri Stephany and Edouard Benedictus, were some of the main French designers of the 1920s and 30s, producing work that was typical of the period, but in its day, bold and innovative.

Garcelon was a trained decorative painter, and it shows in his work. He produced design work for the Societe Francaise des Papiers Peints, amongst others. The Societe had been founded in 1881 by Jules Roger. By the 1920s, the company had already produced best selling, fashionable wallpaper design work by the likes of Henri Stephany, Sue et Mare, Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann and of course Adrien-Jacques Garcelon. The work of these designers are today considered classic Art Deco design pieces. The companys success was set to continue well into the 1930s.

Garcelons work was particularly appropriate to the company and the French Art Deco period in general. His design work could be sumptuous, layered and with a wealth of detail. His work might not appear to be particularly 'modern' by todays standards, but it was considered 'the' design work of the period and a must for any fashionable home.

These wallpaper designs may not have made their way into many suburban homes in Britain, but they are classics of the period, and part of the rich history of wallpaper design. A design medium that is often forgotten, or at least made to take a minor role in any discussion of domestic design history.

To keep my excitement at fever pitch, I've been trolling the web for beach and tropical wedding inspiration, which led me to another blog gem called Style Fragments. Their mood boards are incredibly chic and just slightly avant garde which I love. My favorites so far are their different spin on Art Deco, Indie Bride, Grecian, and in the spirit of my trip Coral.

Las vanguardias son fenómenos sociales y estéticos, que tienen que ver con lo nuevo, lo original y lo innovador. Se pueden aplicar a distintos ámbitos, artístico, literario o, como en este caso, al diseño.

Las primeras dos décadas del siglo XX se caracterizaron por el desarrollo de los medios de comunicación (el cinematógrafo y las transmisiones inalámbricas por radio) y la gran evolución de los medios de transporte (el automóvil y el aeroplano). Esto permitió mayor comunicación entre diferentes países y grandes revoluciones creativas, que cuestionaron los valores de la época, el sistema de organización y las funciones sociales. Estos movimientos artísticos se proponían romper con las convenciones estéticas vigentes.

Las vanguardias surgieron como una respuesta a las necesidades sociales de la época. Como por ejemplo la reacción que generó la Primera Guerra Mundial.

No todas las vanguardias fueron adoptadas por la comunicación visual. Las que influyeron a nivel gráfico y conceptual fueron:
- Cubismo
- Futurismo
- Dadaísmo
- La Bauhaus
- De Sijl y Neoplasticismo 
- Constructivismo
- Suprematismo
- Surrealismo
- Art Decó

Bibliografía:
Salina Flores. Historia del diseño industrial.
Philip Meggs. Historia del diseño gráfico.
Enric Satué. El diseño gráfico. Desde los orígenes hasta nuestros días.
Enciclopedia Microsoft Encarta 99.
http://historialdedisenio.wordpress.com/

Now look, this is simple. For every home foreclosed in America, it impacts a minimum of three people - doesn’t matter if it was an “investor” or not. It changes the buying power of at least 3 people.

Take the total number of homes in foreclosure or where the foreclosure has already occurred over the last two years and multiply by 3. That is a conservative estimate of the immediate and specific impacts of those events.

Then, put that number under the heading, “Foreclosures - losses”. Next, make a column for “Foreclosure - ripple effects”. Take the mean average of interactive positions affected by each of those 3 people. This means they aren’t giving at church anymore, or buying groceries where they used to live nor attending school, soccer or scouts, etc.

Multiply the first number by 25. This is not the accurate mean average. It is a conservative estimate which includes drug stores, discount stores, auto repair businesses, dry cleaners, sports activities, restaurants, malls, gas stations, little league and others. Make a list of these, if you want. It really is a conservative estimate.

Therefore, column one has the conservative “real” number of immediate real lives affected and column two has the conservative estimate of the “real” impacts to the buying power lost to businesses and surrounding community services, organizations and churches across the United States.

Then, take the number (as close to actual as possible) of jobs lost over the last 2 years, (not unemployed because those numbers are fudged). Using this number, multiply by 4. This is the average number of people affected by a job loss. This goes in column four under the heading, “Jobs - losses”. It represents a conservative estimate of the buying power lost when one single job is removed from the family it was supporting or helping to support.

Now, take an average mean of the impacts in dollars no longer available to use to buy things. Use an average base that is conservative. Lest we forget, these numbers and multipliers are the highest probability of assured impacts because the estimates are on the conservative side. The real impact numbers are much greater and amplified to an extreme that can only be imagined using these charts.

So, using the conservative dollar estimate of $500 / week or $12,000 per year - whichever makes you feel better about it - multiply the job losses number by either (or both) of these numbers. Enter this amount in a column title, “Job losses - ripple effects @ $500/wk” or put in the $12,000 per year number, instead, whichever was used. This represents the absolute minimum amounts of buying power that has been lost by these job losses.

Now, if you’ve done this right, all these numbers will represent the same time period, (2 yrs); and the same basic conservative estimation process used on all of them to derive a clearer picture of the problem that has occurred across the US.

When comparing this chart to any other derivations of impacts and losses, - remember this, they don’t mix. It is nearly impossible to get a true picture of how other impact charting was done and whether their figures mixed apples and oranges. Or, whether the statistics and studies used narrowly defined, targeted, select denigrations of totals to use for the derivations and base totals because of bias, intent or ignorance.

The close to damn accurate chart you’ve just made starts to show a clearer picture of the real problems we face in this historic time of national crisis. It explains why our businesses are failing in record numbers, our towns and cities are being heavily impacted financially and otherwise, housing developments sit empty and a host of other services are going bankrupt.

It isn’t what can or can’t be put on credit or borrowed that signifies the greatest and most severe part of our economic crisis. It is the true loss of buying power in the consumer base that supports all of it. These columns of numbers are conservatively generated to supply a realistic assessment of cause and effects relationships in our economy. It evidences a severe problem, even in its most conservative derivations.

Written by Cricket Diane C “Sparky” Phillips, 06-24-08
Cricket House Studios, USA1 - 2008 -
“Creating the Tangible from the Impossible every day and the Impossible from the Tangible as needed.”