This special advertising section appeared on July 20, 1958 in the Arizona Republic to introduce with the catchphrase “This is Livin’!” The designs featured “Cindarella gables” with sweeping window and entry overhangs, and a “flow of line which introduces to homebuilding in the Valley of the Sun a graceful and distinctive charm of a kind entirely new.”
A pdf of the full section can be downloaded below.
The other day I got an email from Historic Aerials with a couple of cool aerial photos of San Francisco. They showed aerial photos of the city taken in 1906 (just after the big earthquake), and again in 2006.
So how was the 1906 photo taken? Turns out, it was a camera mounted onto a kite! According to Historic Aerials, George R. Lawrence had invented the world’s largest camera in 1900 to take a photograph of the Alton Limited Train, owned by the Chicago & Alton Railway. The camera weighed over 1400 lbs and used a 4.5 ft. by 8 ft. glass-plate negative. The photograph was taken for the Paris Exposition of 1900 and won, “The Grand Prize of the World.”
But the innovation here is that Lawrence pioneered camera-carrying kites. One of Lawrence’s world-renowned photographs was taken just three weeks after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, California. “San Francisco in Ruins,” shown above, is a 160-degree panorama taken 2000 feet in the air from a kite above the San Francisco Bay. Lawrence was able to capture the entire city on a single 17-by-48-inch contact print made from a single piece of film.
Each print of “San Francisco In Ruins” sold for $125 and Lawrence made at least $15,000 (today the equivalent of $427k) in sales from this one photograph. The camera used in this photograph weighed 49 lbs and required a train of Conyne kites to get airborne.
In 2006, Juneau-based photographer Ron Klein built a working replica of Lawrence’s camera and used it to rephotograph San Francisco by helicopter, from approximately the same location, 100 years after the earthquake. The rephotograph was actually taken by Mark Walsh, George R. Lawrence’s great-grandson, who rode in the helicopter, held the camera, and clicked the shutter.
Thanks to Historic Aerials for sharing this narrative and photographs!
Ever been to IKEA and seen those micro-home displays, where an entire household is fitted out in half the space of a two-car garage? Scandinavians are known for their skilled use of space, but apparently starting this past July Sweden has been allowing landowners to build tiny rental cottages in their gardens without need for planning permission. Called attefallshus, they can have a footprint of no more than 25 square meters (about 270 square feet) and a height of no more than four meters (about 13 feet). The program is a response to a chronic housing shortage and steeply rising rents and house prices.
I tried to find information on the attefallshus program, but couldn’t find much of anything in English. However there are loads of images to be found on the web, some of which are included in the gallery here. Since the program has only been around since July many of the examples look like computer models or architectural concepts; time will tell how many of these are built. But for the Dwell set here in the US who warm to all things modern and pre-fab, this could be the next new thing. Many of us have at certain times of our lives been in the position to be able to live in this sized space, including myself when I rented a tiny cottage in Mill Valley that was about this size. Indeed, a little cottage like this could even seem luxurious compared to sharing an apartment with roommates.
So I’ll be interested to see how this program plays out. Here in California the state has required municipalities to allow accessory dwellings as of right, but even with those provisions there has not been a rush to build. An individual homeowner may have other priorities other than developing their property, and even if they were interested they’d be weighing the possibility against loss of garden space. Many municipalities also require an additional parking space to be provided for the second unit, which can make a potential project infeasible on smaller lots. I’m not sure the parking requirement would be applicable in Sweden, but the other factors would be. Stay tuned, and in the meantime if anyone finds an article on attefallshus please send it my way.
With Microsoft pulling the plug on support for the venerable Windows XP there have been a few stories on the iconic screen image that served as the backdrop to all those XP displays the world over. NPR had a radio segment, and PC world featured a story. The photographer took the photo from Highway 12 in Sonoma County back in 1998, and says despite the vivid colors it was not retouched. I’d always imagined it was somewhere in the East Bay, with Mount Diablo in the background, so not too far off. So be it, the hillside is now covered with vineyards.
