Sigfried Giedion:
SPACE, TIME AND ARCHITECTURE. The Growth of a New Tradition.
Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1956. Third Edition, enlarged. 778 pages, index, 458 illustrations.
A milestone in modern thought, Space, Time and Architecture has been reissued many times since its first publication in 1941 and translated into half a dozen languages.
Sigfried Giedion (1888-1968) was a Swiss art historian who pioneered the history of technology while helping bring forth modernity, born of the convergence of revolutionary transformations in science, technology, and the arts, and identified with such names as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Sigmund Freud, Henry Ford, and the Wrights (both Frank Lloyd and the brothers Wilbur and Orville). Together, Space, Time and Architecture and Mechanization Takes Command, originally published in English in 1941 and 1948 respectively, shed light on this convergence--showing, for example, how such abstruse concepts as the special theory of relativity drifted from physics and entered the popular idiom in painting, architecture, and literature. Giedion believed passionately in bridging disciplinary and cultural boundaries. It was through his artist friends that Giedion discovered a new world of science. He then coupled art and science to create a fresh vision of technology, his best hope for restoring the "equilibrium" he desired between man and machine.
From http://muse.jhu.edu/
Very Good condition with no dust jacket. Corners bumped. 2" rubbed section at bottom of front board. Head and tail of spine lightly worn. Endpapers and pastedowns foxed. Former owner's name (Wm. T. Sidell) on first free endpaper. Numbers written in permanent marker on upper edges. Contents clean and tight.
$45.00
Pettersen, Carmen L.:
MAYA OF GUATEMALA: LIFE AND DRESS
Guatemala City: Ixchel Textile Museum. First edition. 274 pages, rear maps. 60 watercolors, some of them fold-outs. 13 photos. Drawings. Bi-lingual - Spanish and English. Limited edition. Orange boards with gold stamp on front and spine.
The Maya of Guatemala is THE classic book on the "traje tipico" (native dress) of the Mayan Indians of Guatemala. The exquisitely beautiful paintings produced by Carmen Pettersen over many years constitute the best illustrations ever done of the Mayan "traje". The sixty colorful full page paintings face parallel texts in English and Spanish telling about the particular "traje" and the customs of the Mayan people. Pettersen writes the informative text rather like a diary of her travels to the various towns so while concentrating on the traje and traditions we see something of the individuals and the writer. The paintings, the real point of the book, succeed better than photographs because the detail of the "traje" is not obscured by light and shadow. While accurately detailing the "traje," the paintings at the same time are intensely personal portraits of the individuals. Although there is no book yet which shows the traje of all the different Mayan towns in Guatemala (and Mexico), this book illustrates more than any other. It is my book of first reference to find out about the "traje" of a particular town. If among the many books I have on the Mayan culture I could keep just one book this book would probably be it.
Carmen Pettersen, born in Guatemala of an English father and Mexican mother, learned to paint in England. As a young woman her family moved back to Guatemala where she lived among the Mayan Indians for the rest of her life. The paintings and the text reveal the high regard she had for the Mayans. The original gouache paintings now reside in the Ixchel Museum of Traje in Guatemala City. Joseph Johnston, Curator, Arte Maya Tz'utuhil