The incomparable Culture Archive presents an embarrassment of riches in scanned form; if only there were more sites as good as this. Easier for you to go and look for yourself than waste time reading a poor description of the place.
Random browsing turned up pages from the Earl of Birkenhead’s study of the state of the world a century from 1930. But it’s not the Earl’s prognostications that concern us here, rather the book’s airbrush illustrations by E McKnight Kauffer, an artist and designer better known for his Art Deco poster designs like Metropolis (1926) below.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Metropolis posters
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s future city
Hi, I have just come across your site for the first time (and I can’t for the life of me remember how I got here – may have been something to do with a search on Wilde and Dorian Gray) but what a find. I am slowly working my way through the gorgeous images and knowledgable text – what a plesant surprise to find both on a ‘blog’ – This has to be one of the coolest and most interesting I’ve come across. I know people are really crap at leaving comments on this kind of site and I see that there aren’t as many comments on yours as there should be but I hope you’ve had loads of emails and other contacts to reward all this work because you really deserve it… Regards, Callum
Hi Callum and many thanks for the comments.
Out of modesty I’d have to say that there are now many other excellent blogs around, some of which I link to in the online reading list. In fact it was reading some of these that made me want to start contributing myself (particularly Bldg Blog and Giornale Nuovo). I’d previously seen blogging as either a news delivery service or a diary outlet, but the sudden emergence of culture-related places made me realise you could channel the medium in a different direction. Some appreciation comes in the amount of visits the site receives which have been increasing steadily since I began. It’s a good discipline, I just wish I had more time for it!
John
PS: Looking over your own blogs I’d say you were no slouch yourself! Nice to see the 1890s-related stuff since that’s a period that’s always fascinated me.