Transport Design (eBook)

Gregory Votolato (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2012 | 1. Auflage
242 Seiten
Reaktion Books (Verlag)
978-1-86189-478-6 (ISBN)

Infos

We are a world of travelers. Technologies have enabled us to connect with others around the world at incredible speed, and now both business and pleasure operate on a global scale. The process of getting from point A to point B is therefore of more interest than ever, and Gregory Votolato here charts the history of that journey in all its complexity and variety.

From limousines to canoes to the Apollo spacecraft, Votolato chronicles the ever-evolving design of vehicles, nautical crafts, and other objects of transportation. Transport Design explores the relationship between mass transportation and the travel experience, probing such issues as design styles, economics, entertainment, and, most importantly, customized comfort. Elements such as nineteenth-century railway sleeping couches or the heated car seats of today, Votolato demonstrates, were among the pioneering technologies that set the precedent for personal home and office furnishings. Ultimately, Transport Design contends that today's pressures of global commerce and environmental threats demand a radical reappraisal of how and why we travel.

A compelling and readable study, Transport Design is a must-have for transport design scholars, transit buffs, and reluctant commuters alike.

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Transport Design is the first design history to investigate the experience of travel, analysing the vehicle from the passengers’ and drivers’ points of view. Gregory Votolato takes us inside a wide range of vehicles, from buses and limousines to dugout canoes and ‘superferries’, to aircraft such as the Graf Zeppelin and the Apollo spacecraft. Organised in three parts - air, land and sea - Transport Design shows how the design of a vehicle shapes our experience of the journey, from home to work, or from the earth to the stars.In an authoritative yet accessible style, Votolato explores the relationship between mass transportation and the travel experience, taking into account the pressures of global commerce and global warming, and argues for a radical reappraisal of how and why we travel. Themes explored include comfort, safety, technology, style, economics, customization and entertainment, acknowledging along the way the contributions of important individuals, such as entrepreneur George Mortimer Pullman and the ship designer Dorothy Marckwald.Throughout, Votolato encourages us to see and to question our travel experiences in relation to the design of the vehicles in which we travel. Apparent banalities, such as the travel seat, are revealed as having great significance: from Theodore Woodruff’s nineteenth-century railway sleeping compartments to Marc Newson’s sleeping pods for long-haul flyers, or today’s ergonomically contoured and electronically adjustable car seats, furniture designed for transportation has consistently led the furnishings of homes and offices in the technology they employ to provide personally tailored comfort, the Holy Grail of transport design.For the reader interested in how we travel, or for the designers of our future vehicles, Gregory Votolato provides an insightful, readable and often entertaining account of two centuries of travel design.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.10.2012
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Design / Innenarchitektur / Mode
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Fahrzeuge / Flugzeuge / Schiffe
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Technikgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Fahrzeugbau / Schiffbau
• ISBN-10: 1-86189-478-3 / 1861894783
• ISBN-13: 978-1-86189-478-6 / 9781861894786