oddmart » Books

1930s Modernism in Africa

afiler — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:08:23 +0000

Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, is a remarkably well-preserved example of Modernist architecture. A colony of Italy from 1890 to 1941, Eritrea and its capital city were built up during the Fascist era as a base for greater colonization in Africa. Since World War II, Eritrea has struggled for independence (it was part of Ethopia from 1961 to 1991), leaving Asmara pickled in the brine of decades of conflict. Asmara: Africa’s Secret Modernist City shows a beautifully preserved and remarkably peaceful city, and details some of the city planning and unbuilt architecture during Mussolini’s reign.

Soviet-era Design Books

afiler — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 03:42:37 +0000

I love the book SED: Stunning Eastern Design and its miniature half-clone DDR Design, and now I’ve discovered a newer, bigger book on DDR (East German) design, called DDR Design (unrelated to the other DDR Design above), by Günter Höhne (English-language info here). It’s in German only, but lots of large color pictures make it a great piece of extant design porn nonetheless. In the same series as DDR Design, but by different authors are DDR Kochbuch (DDR Cookbook), DDR Backbuch (DDR Baking Book), and DDR Getränkebuch (DDR Drink Book). They’re in German only, and more text-heavy, but design freaks, and English-speakers who care to translate recipes to attain some weak sense of Ostalgia might still get from them some enjoyment.

Extant DDR

afiler — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 23:26:25 +0000

The particular circumstances of the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or East Germany) meant little focus on marketing and little attention on design. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, some of this design began to be recognized. The show Design in der DDR in Stuttgart in 1988 was perhaps the first recognition of extant design. Taschen puts out two books (with nearly the same content) of some of these Wall-era products: the smaller but newer DDR Design and the larger SED: Stunning Eastern Design. If you’re looking for more instant DDR gratification, the website DDR Alltagskultur (Everyday DDR Culture) provides images for an amazingly wide (and still growing) list of East German products. The site is in German, but language skills are not necessary to enjoy the design, just scroll down in the lefthand frame. Language skills may be needed to enjoy all of the books on their Buchtip(p)s pages. I plan on purchasing one or two in the hopes that they’ll include plenty of color pictures. Finally, a key to the images: on the left is the East German Club-Cola (now available again [de] for those with Ostalgie). On the right is the modern (but still very Extant) Pepsi Schwip Schwap[de] (a German cola/orange drink, not unlike OK Soda). Poor Schwip Schwap seems to be heavily outmarketed [de] by Coca-Cola’s Mezzo Mix [de].