$80.95
(available to order)
Summary:
In late 20th century urban Europe, a great many landmarks of industrial, merchant and military activity were abandoned and fell into disuse. No longer limited to a specific use or content, these 'available' structures could be adapted to house a wide range of cultural projects. The modular nature of the buildings enabled them to be transformed and utilized for(...)
Engineering Structures
April 2002, Basel / Berlin / Boston
Factories : conversions for urban culture
Actions:
Price:
$80.95
(available to order)
Summary:
In late 20th century urban Europe, a great many landmarks of industrial, merchant and military activity were abandoned and fell into disuse. No longer limited to a specific use or content, these 'available' structures could be adapted to house a wide range of cultural projects. The modular nature of the buildings enabled them to be transformed and utilized for experimentation, artistic creation and the blending of people and cultures. An international team of photographers and authors including artists, sociologists and exhibition designers have come together to present a striking visual portrayal of industrial buildings - some typical, some extraordinary - which have all been converted into cultural buildings. Amongst the projects are Ateneu Popular in Barcelona, the City Arts Centre in Dublin, the WUK in Vienna, and the Kaapelitehdas in Helsinki. Further examples have been taken from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Slovenia. The wide variety of uses featured in this book clearly show that architecture has a significant role to play in an urban life beyond the monotony of commerce.
Engineering Structures
$86.00
(available to order)
Summary:
In the 11 days following the Chernobyl catastrophe on April 26, 1986, more than 116,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant. Declared unfit for human habitation, the zones of exclusion includes the towns of Pripyat (established in the 1970s to house workers) and Chernobyl. In May 2001, Robert Polidori photographed what was(...)
Robert Polidori : zones of exclusion : Pripyat and Chernobyl
Actions:
Price:
$86.00
(available to order)
Summary:
In the 11 days following the Chernobyl catastrophe on April 26, 1986, more than 116,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant. Declared unfit for human habitation, the zones of exclusion includes the towns of Pripyat (established in the 1970s to house workers) and Chernobyl. In May 2001, Robert Polidori photographed what was left behind in the this dead zone. His richly detailed images move from the burned-out control room of reactor 4, where technicians staged the experiment that caused the disaster, to the unfinished apartment complexes, ransacked schools and abandoned nurseries that remain as evidence of those who once called Pripyat home. Nearby, trucks and tanks used in the cleanup efforts rest in an auto graveyard, some covered in lead shrouds and others robbed of parts. Houseboats and barges rust in the contaminated waters of the Pripyat River. Foliage grows over the sidewalks and hides the modest homes of Chernobyl. In his large-scale photographs, Polidori captures the faded colors and desolate atmosphere of these two towns, producing haunting documents that present the reader with a rare view of not just a disastrous event, but a place and the people who lived there.
Photography monographs
books
$56.50
(available to order)
Summary:
The single-screen movie theaters that punctuated small-town America's main streets and city neighborhoods since the 1920s are all but gone. The well-dressed throng of moviegoers has vanished; the facades are boarded. In "Silent Screens", photographer Michael Putnam captures these once(...)
Silent screens : the decline and transformation of the American movie theater
Actions:
Price:
$56.50
(available to order)
Summary:
The single-screen movie theaters that punctuated small-town America's main streets and city neighborhoods since the 1920s are all but gone. The well-dressed throng of moviegoers has vanished; the facades are boarded. In "Silent Screens", photographer Michael Putnam captures these once prominent cinemas in decline and transformation. His photographs of abandoned movie houses and forlorn marquees are an elegy to this disappearing cultural icon. In the early 1980s, Putnam began photographing closed theaters, theaters that had been converted to other uses (a church, a swimming pool), theaters on the verge of collapse, theaters being demolished, and even vacant lots where theaters once stood. The result is an archive of images, large in quantity and geographically diffuse. Here is what has become of the Odeons, Strands, and Arcadias that existed as velvet and marble outposts of Hollywood drama next to barbershops, hardware stores, and five-and-dimes. Introduced by Robert Sklar, the starkly beautiful photographs are accompanied by original reminiscences on moviegoing by Peter Bogdanovich, Molly Haskell, Andrew Sarris, and Chester H. Liebs as well as excerpts from the works of poet John Hollander and writers Larry McMurtry and John Updike. Sklar begins by mapping the rise and fall of the local movie house, tracing the demise of small-town theaters to their role as bit players in the grand spectacle of Hollywood film distribution. "Under standard distribution practice," he writes, "a new film took from six months to a year to wend its way from picture palace to Podunk (the prints getting more and more frayed and scratched along the route). Even though the small-town theaters and their urban neighborhood counterparts made up the majority of the nation's movie houses, their significance, in terms of revenue returned to the major motion-picture companies that produced and distributed films, was paltry." In his essay, "Old Dreams," Last Picture Show director Peter Bogdanovich recalls the closing of New York City's great movie palaces -- the mammoth Roxy, the old Paramount near Times Square, the Capitol, and the Mayfair -- and the more innocent time in which they existed "when a quarter often bought you two features, a newsreel, a comedy short, a travelogue, a cartoon, a serial, and coming attractions." While the images in Putnam's book can be read as a metaphor for the death of many downtowns in America, "Silent Screens" goes beyond mere nostalgia to tell the important story of the disappearance of the single-screen theater, illuminating the layers of cultural and economic significance that still surround it.
books
June 2000, Baltimore
Architecture and Film, Set Design