• About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Contact

Free pdf book download

You can download textbooks and business books in PDF format without registration.Mediafire. Rapidshare.

  • Home
  • How To Download
  • Computer
  • Engineering
  • Medical
  • Mystery
Home » Engineering » Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator Free PDF

Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator Free PDF

admin
Add Comment
Engineering
Sunday, November 17, 2013

Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator [Kindle Edition]

Author: Andreas Bernard | Language: English | ISBN: B00HZUWVP0 | Format: PDF, EPUB

  • Description
  • Book Details
  • Table of Contents
  • Reviews
Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator Free PDF
Download electronic versions of selected books Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator [Kindle Edition] Free PDF from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link
Before skyscrapers forever transformed the landscape of the modern metropolis, the conveyance that made them possible had to be created. Invented in New York in the 1850s, the elevator became an urban fact of life on both sides of the Atlantic by the early twentieth century. While it may at first glance seem a modest innovation, it had wide-ranging effects, from fundamentally restructuring building design to reinforcing social class hierarchies by moving luxury apartments to upper levels, previously the domain of the lower classes. The cramped elevator cabin itself served as a reflection of life in modern growing cities, as a space of simultaneous intimacy and anonymity, constantly in motion. 
 
In this elegant and fascinating book, Andreas Bernard explores how the appearance of this new element changed notions of verticality and urban space. Transforming such landmarks as the Waldorf-Astoria and Ritz Tower in New York, he traces how the elevator quickly took hold in large American cities while gaining much slower acceptance in European cities like Paris and Berlin. Combining technological and architectural history with the literary and cinematic, Bernard opens up new ways of looking at the elevator--as a secular confessional when stalled between floors or as a recurring space in which couples fall in love. Rising upwards through modernity, Lifted takes the reader on a compelling ride through the history of the elevator. 
 
Andreas Bernard is editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest daily newspaper. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Sciences from the Bauhaus University Weimar, and teaches cultural studies in Berlin and Lucerne, Switzerland.
Direct download links available for Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator [Kindle Edition] Free PDF
  • File Size: 1509 KB
  • Print Length: 316 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0814787169
  • Publisher: NYU Press (February 14, 2014)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B00HZUWVP0
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray:
    Not Enabled
  • Lending: Not Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,433 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
    • #7
      in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Architecture > History & Periods
    • #42
      in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Reference > History
    • #49
      in Books > Arts & Photography > Architecture > History
  • #7
    in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Architecture > History & Periods
  • #42
    in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Reference > History
  • #49
    in Books > Arts & Photography > Architecture > History
The United States was the first country to make domestic use of the elevator. Its immense tenement apartments could only be so tall if people were going to take the stairs. Initially, elevators were used mostly to haul heavy freight up and down.

Mr. Otis changed all that. The real inventor was Otis Tufts, but history is generally written by the victors, and so the EG Otis Elevator Company gets credit for the passenger elevator with the safety mechanism that was demonstrated at the Crystal Palace in New York City in 1854. As the crowd that had been beckoned watched breathlessly, the elevator, centrally located and visible on all sides, had its cable cut. Everyone gasped, of course, and anticipated its immediate crash. However, the safety mechanism engaged and so instead of a deadly rushing descent, the elevator simply halted.

What was everyone so afraid of to begin with? Well, to this reviewer, it seems natural that until the elevator had become a normal part of city living, people would be afraid of it. I don’t care for heights much, myself; my mother, who didn’t fear heights, was claustrophobic, and always let out a small gasp of relief when we exited a crowded elevator together.

There’s more to it, though. Elevators, Bernard says, had become related in the public eye to mines. A lot of people work in mines, but a lot of people get dead there, too. I am not sure whether the public’s fear of elevator shafts that descended to mines was a reflection on elevators so much as on the mining companies, but that’s another story, another book. In any case, people were afraid of passenger elevators until the widely publicized safety mechanism had been demonstrated.

Elevator history: go figure. Why was I so determined to read this particular nugget?

Book Preview

Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator Download

Please Wait...

0 Response to "Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator Free PDF"

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

← Newer Post Older Post → Home
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Label

  • Art
  • Biography
  • Business
  • Children
  • Comics
  • Computer
  • Cookbooks
  • Craft
  • Education
  • Engineering
  • Health
  • History
  • Humor
  • Literature

Page

  • Home
Powered by Blogger.
Copyright 2013 Free pdf book download - All Rights Reserved Design by Mas Sugeng - Powered by Blogger and Google