BOAC poster, 1970s

I went to grammar school in Melbourne, Australia. For some unknown reason, airline bags were the “in” thing to have. Looking back, this makes no sense. Why do 9-year-old children need to look like they spend their time jet setting around the world? Perhaps it was the one thing that stood out in a sea of grey uniforms. I had a BOAC bag that I proudly took to school each day. I also had a BOAC poster in my bedroom, perhaps again, to show my interest in international travel.

I came back to the U.S. when I started the 6^th grade. This is the worst time to show up with an Australian accent. At that age, everyone wants to fit in. I was asked repeatedly in the halls to “say something.” I also sucked at American football. I had learned Aussie Rules Football. The rules are different, for example throwing the ball is not allowed and a player cannot get caught holding the ball. The first time I caught the ball on an American field, I immediately kicked it away. Not good I learned. I was Cracker Jack at cricket, but that skill was rather useless at Clayton Middle School in Reno, Nevada.

I continue to mix up English versus American spelling. But, by the time I reached high school, I lost my accent and knew that I could throw a football. And I didn’t bring my BOAC flight bag to school.

my BOAC school bag

my BOAC poster, 1973

Abram Games, BOAC poster

Abram Games, BOAC poster

Dick Negus and Philip Sharland, BOAC poster, 1954

Aldo Cosomati, BOAC poster

BOAC poster, 1963

BOAC poster, 1953

K.M. Adelman, BOAC poster

BOAC poster, 1970s

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Henry Wolf, Show magazine, 1961

I admit I’m fairly out of touch with the lifestyles of young and sophisticated urbanite males today. I know where they are. I see them at skate stores at Sunset Junction and tiny restaurants in Brooklyn. I know that a beard is required, or a “scruffy” look. Jaunty hats of all types are good. And vintage ironic t-shirts are useful. I’ve tried the beard thing, but I look like Burl Ives, and when I don’t shave I hear my grandmother’s voice in my head, “a man who doesn’t shave every day is like a woman leaving the house in hair curlers.”

In the early 1960s, the same crowd took tips on life from sophisticated and intellectual magazines such as Esquire, Playboy, and Show. No, Playboy was not always just images of naked young ladies. Each of these magazines targeted that young man on the town with articles about hi-fi stereos, how to smoke a pipe, and current political thought. Show was a short-lived, but remarkable magazine devoted to the entertainment arts. Henry Wolf was the art director and responsible for unexpected and smart covers. Today, Show would be Us magazine. What a wonderful time it must have been when a magazine about entertainment could have a cover with a re-purposed Ukiyo-e print on the cover, not Kim Kardashian.

Henry Wolf, Show magazine, 1963

Henry Wolf, Show magazine, 1964

Henry Wolf, Show magazine, 1963

Henry Wolf, Show magazine, 1963

Henry Wolf, Show magazine, 1963, detail

Henry Wolf, Show magazine, 1963, detail

Henry Wolf, Show magazine, 1962

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Hubert Hilscher, 1967

As a design student, I was repeatedly told to study Polish poster art. This was in response to my work that was deemed, “too tasty, too polite.” I spent hours looking at these posters and…, nothing. They made no sense to me, and I could not understand what they meant, how they arrived at this odd aesthetic, or what they had to do with my work. Today, I realize the value of these posters. They transcend the expected. They follow an aesthetic that is fearless and non-traditional. And they allow for gesture and passion.

Now I find myself suggesting the same thing to my students. My students come back and say, “Professor Adams, I don’t understand what they have to do with my work.”  To which I say, “Look at them again.”

The CYRK (circus) posters were designed during the golden age of polish posters, from 1962 to 1989. The state commissioned these posters to promote a new, modern circus. The designers followed this assignment with non-literal, suggestive forms. Often, these contained hidden anti-Soviet and anti-Communism symbols.

In all honesty, they still mystify me. I can imagine how Josef Muller-Brockmann designed a poster, or Alvin Lustig, or even Yusaku Kamekura. They are beautiful and mysterious, but are from a culture so far removed from my reality, that Martians might have designed them.

from the Lou Danziger Collection

Maciej Urbaniec, 1970s

B. Bolianowski, 1976

J. Rozycki, 1975

Jan Mlodozoniec, 1966

Maciej Urbaniec, 1970s

Maciej Urbaniec, 1968

Waldemar Swierzy, 1970s

Waldemar Swierzy, 1970s

Waldemar Swierzy, 1970

Waldemar Swierzy, 1970s

Waldemar Swierzy, 1968

Roman Cieslewicz, 1963

Roman Cieslewicz, 1962

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Morris Lapidus, The Eden Roc Hotel, 1955: Miami, Florida

Everyone loves a story about the misunderstood artist, reviled in his time, and then lauded in his old age. Morris Lapidus is that story. When the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau Hotels were built, Lapidus was called vulgar, pretentious, artificial, and tasteless. Both hotels, however, were incredibly successful. The design challenge was to build a hotel where “the guy who can afford to pay fifty bucks a day will look around and think that a fortune had been spent to create the hotel.” The result did this. Lapidus used a cinematic approach to architecture. His buildings look the way America in the 1950s thought luxury looked like, via Hollywood. Granted, some of the design, such as the Lapidus Residence bathroom, escapes me. But, if you like fancy, it sure is “fancified”.

I find it endlessly fascinating that populist work is typically deemed, “unworthy,” while something created for a small minority of elite intellectuals is “worthy.” If a basic tenet of Modernism is to create good design for the masses, this is contradictory. Lapidus weathered the decades of criticism and kept working. In 1970, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy’s critique of Lapidus was typical: “Lapidus is a sleazy, self-promoting careerist, an architect on the prestige-make. Lapidus is a well-known phenomenon in the profession. He made his pile and excuses his aberrations with the nauseating clichés of ‘what people want’ (as if taste pollution did not go the other way from designer to public).”

We can dissect the virulent antagonism in multiple ways. Since the work was designed to appeal to the masses in Florida, and was not in New York or Chicago, there is a distinct sense of regional and class elitism. Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in the New York Times that his work was “uninspired superschlock.” This was a criticism of Lapidus’s ornate decor, but Huxtable’s use of Yiddish words subtly raises the question of the hotel’s Jewish architect and clientele, suggesting anti-Semitism.

Fortunately, by the time Lapidus had retired, and was 97, the architecture community began to acknowledge his work. The book, Morris Lapidus: The Architecture of Joy, is a wonderful collection of exuberant and interesting work that challenges our ideas of taste and modernism.

Images below are from this book

Morris Lapidus, The Fontainebleu Hotel, 1952: Miami, Florida

Morris Lapidus, The Eden Roc Hotel, 1955: Miami, Florida

Morris Lapidus, The Summit Hotel, 1959: New York, New York

Morris Lapidus, The Americana Hotel, 1960: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Morris Lapidus, Lapidus Residence, 1963: Miami, Florida

Morris Lapidus, Lapidus Residence, 1963: Miami, Florida

Morris Lapidus, The Architecture of Joy

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The Jetsons, 1963

Many of you have written, and asked, “Sean, where can I find interesting ringtones and alert sounds for my computer?” The answer is here at the cabin. This collection has a sci-fi bent for those of you in the sci-fi nerd category. Since I made them, I must be in there, also. And I added an extra that we put on Noreen’s computer for her alert sound about cookies.

Jetson’s doorbell

HAL9000 moment

2001: voiceprint identification

Voyager door signal

HAL9000 Tracking

HAL9000 Message

Battlestar Galactica Action Stations

would you like a cookie?

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