Christopher Long – författare

A fresh look at the Arts and Crafts Movement, charting its origins in reformist ideals, its engagement with commercial culture, and its ultimate place in everyday households In its spread from Britain to the United States, the Arts and Crafts Movement evolved from its roots in individual craftsmanship to a mainstream trend increasingly adapted for mass production by American retailers. Inspired by John Ruskin in Britain in the 1840s in response to what he saw as the corrosive forces of industrialization, the movement was profoundly transformed as its tenets of simple design, honest use of materials, and social value of handmade goods were widely adopted and commodified by companies like Sears, Roebuck and Co. The movement grew popular in early 20th-century America, where it was stripped of its reformist ideals by large-scale manufacturing and merchandising through department stores and mail-order catalogues. This beautiful book is illustrated with stunning furniture and designs by William Morris, Gustav Stickley, and Elbert Hubbard’s Roycroft community, among many others, along with such ephemera as the catalogues, sales brochures, and magazine spreads that generated popular interest. This perspective offers a new understanding of the Arts and Crafts idea, its geographical reach, and its translation into everyday design. Published in association with the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at AustinExhibition Schedule:Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin(02/09/19–07/14/19)

An insightful and beautifully illustrated new perspective on the role of Central European émigré artists, architects, and designers on American modernism  While the history of modernism in the United States is often seen as having roots in French art moderne, Jewel Stern and Christopher Long instead argue that Central European émigré designers had an outsized impact on the formation of a uniquely American modernism. The Vanguard examines the lives and careers of nearly fifty designers from Austria, Germany, and Hungary—including Paul T. Frankl, Ilonka Karasz, Winold Reiss, and Joseph Urban—who contributed to the early rise of modernism in America. From 1910 to 1940, these figures played a vital role in bringing to the fore the discussion of modernism and contributed to its ascendancy through their designs, writings, and exhibitions. Stern and Long reveal how this modernism reflected distinct American realities and tell a comprehensive new story of modernism’s émigré roots.  The Vanguard examines the lives and careers of these designers, many of whom are hazily known at best, and argues that they had a significant influence on the new modernist aesthetic. Deeply researched and lavishly illustrated with nearly 300 color and black-and-white images, this book offers a full reorientation of our understanding of American modernism and the role of Central Europeans in its formation.

This book investigates the way that the molecular sciences are shaping contemporary security practices in relation to the governance of biological threats.In response to biological threats, such as pandemics and bioterrorism, governments around the world have developed a range of new security technologies, called medical countermeasures, to protect their populations. This book argues that the molecular sciences’ influence has been so great that security practices have been molecularised. Focusing on the actions of international organisations and governments in the past two decades, this book identifies two contrasting conceptions of the nature or inherent workings of molecular life as driving this turn. On the one hand, political notions of insecurity have been shaped by the contingent or random nature of molecular life. On the other, the identification of molecular life’s constant biological dynamics supports and makes possible the development and stockpiling of effective medical countermeasures. This study is one of the few to take seriously the conceptual implications that the detailed empirical workings of biotechnology have on security practices today.This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, bio-politics, life sciences, global governance, and International Relations in general.

This book investigates the way that the molecular sciences are shaping contemporary security practices in relation to the governance of biological threats.In response to biological threats, such as pandemics and bioterrorism, governments around the world have developed a range of new security technologies, called medical countermeasures, to protect their populations. This book argues that the molecular sciences’ influence has been so great that security practices have been molecularised. Focusing on the actions of international organisations and governments in the past two decades, this book identifies two contrasting conceptions of the nature or inherent workings of molecular life as driving this turn. On the one hand, political notions of insecurity have been shaped by the contingent or random nature of molecular life. On the other, the identification of molecular life’s constant biological dynamics supports and makes possible the development and stockpiling of effective medical countermeasures. This study is one of the few to take seriously the conceptual implications that the detailed empirical workings of biotechnology have on security practices today.This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, bio-politics, life sciences, global governance, and International Relations in general.

A gem of an historical source...This unique book provides a wonderfully illustrated and nuanced account of one of America's most significant twentieth-century designers. -- Alison J. Clarke, University of Applied Arts, Vienna A page turner [that] captures this leading Modernist in his own words. -- Bennett Johnson, Chicago Art Deco Society Magazine Frankl's autobiography sheds even more light on the man, other key artists and designers, and most important, Austrian and American culture in the first half of the twentieth century. -- Wendy Kaplan, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Viennese emigre Paul T. Frankl was a pioneer of early modern design in America, known for his "Skyscraper" furniture of the 1920s and later for the work he did for Hollywood celebrities such as Fred Astaire, Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. His autobiography, thought for decades to be lost, was written at the end of Frankl's long career and is a vivid account of his early life, his rise in the profession, and his many travels in search of ideas and forms.What will now be known as Frankl's last book is written in a captivating style befitting the personality of a gentle and cultured man who revolutionized and advocated for American modernism. This edition, hand-sewn with a printed linen cover, won a design award in Austria and is introduced and annotated by modern design scholar Christopher Long, author of Paul T. Frankl and Modern American Design (Yale 2007). The book includes a remembrance written by his daughter Paulette Frankl as well as many previously unpublished photographs and drawings.

The first comprehensive study of the German-born architect and designer Jock Peters (1889–1934), whose elegantly modern interiors for Bullock’s Wilshire in Los Angeles brought him national fame.

A two-volume compendium of Josef Frank’s culturally critical, often witty and biting texts on modernism and architecture, offered for the first time in a complete bilingual edition alongside many of the original illustrations.For more than five decades, from the 1910s to the early 1960s, Josef Frank was one of the leading figures of Modernism and, at the same time, one of its sharpest critics. In his many essays and articles, as well as in his book Architecture as Symbol, Frank sought to expose the layers of meaning—and the flaws—of Modernism, its underlying assumptions, and what he viewed as its often misguided implementations. Above all, this internationally renowned architect strove to reclaim for modern design some of the freedom it had lost through its dogmatization.Editors Tano Bojankin, Christopher Long, and Iris Meder, along with award-winning Austrian designer Peter Duniecki, have compiled all available published texts by Josef Frank on these subjects into a beautiful, highly readable, collectible German/English two-volume set. Introduced by one of America's leading architects, Denise Scott Brown, the extensive written oeuvre of Josef Frank is made accessible to both bibliophiles and a wider public interested in modernism, architecture, and one of its most influential critics.