Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office

Another intriguing book by a scholar of my acquaintance is Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office, by Jennifer Kaufmann-Buehler. Jennifer is a design historian and has long been fascinated by the utopian but now-despised open office. She " traces the history and evolution of the American open plan from the brightly-colored office landscapes of the 1960s and 1970s to the monochromatic cubicles of the 1980s and 1990s," and analyzes both the original architectural intentions and how workers have actually experienced these spaces. (I can affirm that working in a gray cubicle during much of my early adulthood was not a pleasant experience.)

I love her book cover! You can read more about the book and order it here.

Photofascism

Another new book of interest is Vanessa Rocco's Photofascism: Photography, Film, and Exhibition Culture in 1930s Germany and Italy, published by Bloomsbury. As the publisher points out,

"The 1930s provides a potent case study for every generation, and it is as urgent as ever in our global political environment to deeply understand the central role of visual imagery in what transpired. Photofascism demonstrates precisely how dictatorial regimes use photographic mass media, methodically and in combination with display, to persuade the public with often times highly destructive-even catastrophic-results."

This is an important study and should be of considerable interest to both scholars and the wider public, given the present rise of authoritarian-tending regimes in many parts of the world.

Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art

Returning to my shout-outs to interesting and important books by friends and colleagues, I must mention Marta Filipová's recent book Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art, published by Routledge in 2020 (it actually appeared in 2019, in a reversal of the more usual phenomenon of a book coming out after its copyright date).

While I have a review of Marta's excellent book forthcoming in Austrian History Yearbook, Cynthia Paces has written a much more in-depth review in the Journal of Art Historiography than I had space for, so please take a look at that!

It Was a Sad Day in US History

Yesterday's mob riot in Washington DC, which began with a peaceful but ill-informed protest by supporters of the current president, marks a tragic breakdown in social norms and shows the danger to our democracy that this president and would-be dictator has posed throughout his term of office. As others have noted, it is not a matter of rejoicing to have comparisons to the rise of Nazi Germany proved accurate. That Americans carrying Confederate flags and wearing clothing celebrating Auschwitz should break the Capitol windows to swarm in and threaten Congress, leave graffiti, and rummage through the desks of members of Congress, is a sad comment on our current situation but an unsurprising outcome of the lies and white-supremacist attitudes of this demagogue president and his enablers. These people left bombs for both Democrats and Republicans, and it is not surprising that one person was killed.

It is time to remove this president and heal our nation.