In February 1956 the president of IBM; Thomas Watson Jr.; hired the industrial designer and architect Eliot F. Noyes; charging him with reinventing IBMrsquo;s corporate image; from stationery and curtains to products such as typewriters and computers and to laboratory and administration buildings. What followedmdash;a story told in full for the first time in John Harwoodrsquo;s The Interfacemdash;remade IBM in a way that would also transform the relationships between design; computer science; and corporate culture. IBMrsquo;s program assembled a cast of leading figures in American design: Noyes; Charles Eames; Paul Rand; George Nelson; and Edgar Kaufmann Jr. The Interface offers a detailed account of the key role these designers played in shaping both the computer and the multinational corporation. Harwood describes a surprising inverse effect: the influence of computer and corporation on the theory and practice of design. Here we see how; in the period stretching from the ldquo;inventionrdquo; of the computer during World War II to the appearance of the personal computer in the mid-1970s; disciplines once well outside the realm of architectural designmdash;information and management theory; cybernetics; ergonomics; computer sciencemdash;became integral aspects of design.As the first critical history of the industrial design of the computer; of Eliot Noyesrsquo;s career; and of some of the most important work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames; The Interface supplies a crucial chapter in the story of architecture and design in postwar Americamdash;and an invaluable perspective on the computer and corporate cultures of today.
#1957948 in eBooks 2013-08-15 2013-08-15File Name: B00ECWBKJ2
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Unique workBy Robert J. KosovskyExcellent history of a period in American music that is practically unknown and of which no one else has written about. The author carefully examined archives and the ideas he derives from what he finds makes for fascinating reading.