The American Skyscraper 1850 1940

The skyscraper is an American invention that has captured the public's imagination for over a century. The tall building is wholly manmade and borne in the minds of those with both slide rules and computers. This is the story of the skyscraper's rise and the recognition of those individuals who contributed to its development. This volume is unique; its approach, information, and images are fresh and telling. The text examines America's first tall buildings -- the result of twelve years of in-depth research by an accomplished and published architect and architectural historian. Over 300 compelling photographs, charts, and notes make this the ultimate tool of reference for this subject. Biographies woven throughout with period norms, politics and lifestyles help to place featured skyscrapers in context. Quite simply, there is no book like this. The text, carefully and insightfully written, is clear, concise, and easily digestible, the text being the product of well-documented original research written in an informative tone. The American Skyscraper 1850-1940: A Celebration of Height is a richly documented journey of a fascinating topic, and it promises to be a superb addition to libraries, schools of architecture, students of architecture, and lovers of art.

This book is about the design of the facade of 51 of America's most extravagant early skyscrapers. Included are the biographies of noted architects and the aristocrats who financed America's first skyscrapers. This book discusses the influences of European aesthetic values in America--and scandals, rogues and class distinctions. Interpretations by contemporary critics are sprinkled throughout the text. Woven throughout the book are inquiries about the validity of Greek and Roman mythologies and their relationships to "modern" America and its spirit of invention and progress. Foreign traditions were challenged by some architects but then accepted by most. Why was it necessary for the long-dead hero of a faraway civilization to be included on the facade of a newly invented American skyscraper? This book tells why.

Cincinnati is an amazing place to live and visit for so many reasons. Local author Wendy Beckman and illustrator Allison Ranieri celebrate the city's eight wonders--architecture, art, commerce, food, customs, geography, history and people. With its Venetian Gothic lancet arches and crystal chandeliers, the Cincinnati Music Hall stands as an architectural masterpiece. The Cincinnati Red Stockings made history as the first professional baseball team. Remnants of marine fossils from the Ordovician Period remind residents that the city was once under water. Limitless local varieties of goetta range from family recipes to trendy café dishes. And the city birthed trailblazers like track and field star DeHart Hubbard, the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event. These stories and more reveal the unique character of the Queen City.

The rapid advancement of technology has led to an explosion of speculative theories about what the future of humankind may look like. These "technological futurisms" have arisen from significant advances in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology and are drawing growing scrutiny from the philosophical and theological communities. This text seeks to contextualize the growing literature on the cultural, philosophical and religious implications of technological growth by considering technological futurisms such as transhumanism in the context of the long historical tradition of technological dreaming. Michael Burdett traces the latent religious sources of our contemporary technological imagination by looking at visionary approaches to technology and the future in seminal technological utopias and science fiction and draws on past theological responses to the technological future with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Ellul. Burdett’s argument arrives at a contemporary Christian response to transhumanism based around the themes of possibility and promise by turning to the works of Richard Kearney, Eberhard Jüngel and Jürgen Moltmann. Throughout, the author highlights points of correspondence and divergence between technological futurisms and the Judeo-Christian understanding of the future.

"Established on the Schuykill River in 1852, Philadelphia's Pencoyd Iron Works was a global leader in structural steel and wrought iron for more than eight decades. ... Author Kevin Righter constructs the immense history of the Pencoyd Iron Works."--Back cover

Art and its Responses to Changes in Society brings together studies of young researchers dealing with the topics of decline, transformation, and rebirth from various points of view, characteristic of several different fields of the humanities and social sciences, in order to yield new insights into the analyzed subjects. The topics discussed here are diverse: on the one hand, several chapters deal with the metamorphosis of particular pictorial or architectural motifs and concepts, while on the other, studies are included that are dedicated to the analysis of the opera of individual artists, to various periods in architecture and landscape architecture, and to national and state commissions in art, as well as representations of WW2 atrocities in Yugoslavia and attempts to artistically reaffirm Christian symbolism after the end of socialism. As such, the book entails diverse scientific perceptions of art and society, from antiquity to modernity, from architecture to moving picture, from the USA to Yugoslavia, and from research on an object to observations on a concept.

“Leta Miller’s long-awaited study is a tightly woven, fast-paced, and luminous chronicle of San Francisco’s musical coming of age. Her keen insights into Chinese opera, night club jazz, and two international expositions go far to rekindle the era’s spirited mix of talent, taste, patronage, and politics. The groundbreaking work of an accomplished music and social historian, Music and Politics in San Francisco is a most welcome companion to Catherine Parsons Smith’s Making Music in Los Angeles.” —Jonathan Elkus, Lecturer in Music Emeritus, UC Davis “From three disastrous days in April 1906 through the onset of an even greater disaster in 1941, from the San Francisco Conservatory through the performances of the Chinese Opera, Leta Miller traces the musico-political history of ‘the Paris of the West’ in meticulous detail. This important book adds immeasurably to our knowledge of West Coast American music, whilst simultaneously challenging a number of historiographical shibboleths.” —David Nicholls, contributing editor of The Cambridge History of American Music "Leta Miller’s San Francisco’s Musical Life is a pure pleasure to read. Miller manages that rare feat of digesting what must have been many years of digging through newspapers and archives into a fun, lively, highly readable narrative. Each chapter strikes a comfortable balance among factual exposition, colorful anecdote, and historical analysis. Miller brings equal depth and insight to each of her disparate subjects, she writes with charm and clarity throughout, and the whole is arranged in a way that is clear and logical, never monotonous." —Mary Ann Smart, author of Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera