Building an American Identity
Building an American Identity

Author: Linda E. Smeins

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9780761989639

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This work follows the evolution of the pattern book houses and how they represented the notion of home and community in American historical memory. The book also includes illustrations of such communities.

Traces of Old Sharpsville
Traces of Old Sharpsville

Author: Ralph C. Mehler

Publisher: Sharpsville Area Historical Society

Published: 2024-04-05

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13:

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Though just a small town, Sharpsville has had an outsized influence on the American iron industry. This book tells that story, plus many more—the canal that gave the town its start, its railroads, the personalities who lived here, the churches and clubs, its ethnic heritage, sports heroes, long-gone landmarks and institutions, and the traditions that make Sharpsville unique. Events, whether of local note or part of national trends, are here recounted. More than just an account of town lore, this is a thoroughly researched book that gives the reader an insight into life here in years past, from a variety of perspectives. Anyone who lives in the Shenango Valley will find interest in these pages—as will someone who has since moved away but whose heart still remains here. The short articles contained within this book are grouped into themed chapters. With many not-seen-before photos, it makes for an enjoyable and readable account of this little burg in times past.

Design Technics
Design Technics

Author: Zeynep Çelik Alexander

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2020-01-21

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1452960607

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Leading scholars historicize and theorize technology’s role in architectural design Although the question of technics pervades the contemporary discipline of architecture, there are few critical analyses on the topic. Design Technics fills this gap, arguing that the technical dimension of design has often been flattened into the broader celebratory rhetoric of innovation. Bringing together leading scholars in architectural and design history, the volume’s contributors situate these tools on a broader epistemological and chronological canvas. The essays here construct histories—some panoramic and others unfolding around a specific episode—of seven techniques regularly used by the designer in the architectural studio today: rendering, modeling, scanning, equipping, specifying, positioning, and repeating. Starting with observations about the epistemological changes that have unfolded in the discipline in recent decades but seeking to offer a more expansive meaning for technics, the volume casts new light on concepts such as form, experience, and image that have played central roles in historical architectural discourses. Among the questions addressed: How was the concept of form immanent in practices of scanning since the late nineteenth century? What was the historical relationship between rendering and experience in Enlightenment discourses? How did practices of specifying reconfigure the distinction between intellectual and manual labor? What kind of rationality is inherent in the designer’s constant clicking of the mouse in front of her screen? In addressing these and other questions, this engaging and timely collection thereby proposes technics as a site for historical and philosophical reflection not only for those engaged in architectural design but also for any scholar working in the humanities today. Contributors: Lucia Allais, Edward Eigen, Orit Halpern, John Harwood, Matthew C. Hunter, and Michael Osman.