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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Aug, 1930
Posted in: Architecture
Tags:
Posted: 08/15/2012
1 Comment
Sightseeing Restaurant for Chicago World’s Fair in 1933 (Aug, 1930)

It’s a pity this building was never made, it would have been pretty awesome. It kind of looks like part of a giant crankshaft. Norman bel Geddes went on to design wildly popular General Motors Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.

Sightseeing Restaurant for Chicago World’s Fair in 1933

MANY unusual buildings are now being planned for the Chicago World’s Fair to be held in 1933. The most modernistic of these odd structures will be this huge sightseeing restaurant atop a gigantic column which is being designed by Norman bel Geddes.

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Science And Mechanics
Issue: Oct, 1952
Posted in: Architecture
Tags: , ,
Posted: 08/15/2012
3 Comments
Fold-Up Homes Travel With You (Oct, 1952)

Fold-Up Homes Travel With You

By JAMES JOSEPH

TODAY’S home designers have reached into the seven seas, borrowed an old habit from the turtle, and come up with houses you can carry with you. The result is compact, demountable, low-cost portable homes which come neatly packaged, ready to be hauled down the nation’s highways—perhaps even behind the family car.

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Popular Mechanics
Issue: Nov, 1938
Posted in: Architecture, Just Weird
Tags: , , ,
Posted: 08/14/2012
No Comments
“Mother Goose” Bungalow Shelters Nesting Ducks (Nov, 1938)

I love the mix of items on this page.

“Mother Goose” Bungalow Shelters Nesting Ducks

Looking as if it had been plucked right from the pages of a “Mother Goose” book, a bungalow for ducks stands on the shore of an artificial lake in Alexandria, Minn. This fairy tale cottage with sloping Walls

and crooked chimney has shuttered windows and flower boxes, and the glassed windows are indirectly illuminated at night with electric lights hidden in shallow boxes inside the window frames. It appears, at night, to be a busy little hotel, but the hundred or more residents of “Duck Inn” sleep inside in complete darkness.

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Science And Mechanics
Issue: Oct, 1952
Posted in: DIY, House and Home
Posted: 08/10/2012
No Comments
Old Hats Make New Rugs (Oct, 1952)

Old Hats Make New Rugs

By ELEANORE ENGELS

Photos by Wally Kunkle

THERE are many kinds of felt rugs, but we will discuss only 3 in this article: the tongue or petal rug (Figs. 1, 4 and 6)—sometimes called the scalloped doormat—the appliqued felt rug (Fig. 10) and the embroidered felt rug. These needlework floor coverings require no special frames, hooks, or gadgets. All you need is a long, stout needle (somewhat slimmer than a darning needle so that it slips through the felt easily), heavy waxed linen or cotton thread, and wool yarns taken from old sweaters and socks, knitting silks, or crochet cottons for decorative effects.

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Popular Mechanics
Issue: Oct, 1923
Posted in: Architecture
Posted: 08/09/2012
2 Comments
UGLY NORDHOFF BECOMES BEAUTIFUL OJAI (Oct, 1923)

Charlie, here is the same scene from the bottom of the page at Google Maps.

UGLY NORDHOFF BECOMES BEAUTIFUL OJAI

By C. MORAN

THE transformation of a shack-and-shanty town into a place of architectural delight, virtually overnight, is the accomplishment of the citizens of Ojai, Calif. Cement turned the trick.

The town—formerly called Nordhoff— was a typical frontier settlement. Ramshackle buildings lined the main street. Treacherous mud-holes filled the road. Then, as if touched by a magic wand, the town was changed into a thing of beauty.

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Popular Mechanics
Issue: Oct, 1924
Posted in: Architecture, Automotive
Posted: 08/08/2012
3 Comments
Outdoor Community Elevator / Three-Wheeled Auto (Oct, 1924)

The Hollywood High Tower elevator is still there and still in use.

To that let me add this aerial view from Google Maps.

Outdoor Community Elevator Serves Dwellers on Lofty Hillside

Rising like the tower of a Spanish mission from a hillside in Hollywood, Calif., is a unique community elevator which residents have built to solve the problem of getting to their homes. The tower, surmounted by an artistic cupola, rises from a practically level street to a height of about 100 feet. About one-third of it is located in a concrete shaft within the hill. The elevator itself is reached through a fifty-foot tunnel cut in the solid rock, is electrically operated and controlled with a push button by the user.

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Illustrated World
Issue: Oct, 1921
Posted in: House and Home
Tags:
Posted: 08/06/2012
No Comments
“No! No! Baby Mustn’t Touch!” (Oct, 1921)

“No! No! Baby Mustn’t Touch!”

These are not “before and after” pictures. They are all “before” pictures. It would be too horrible to show, in accompanying photographs, the irreparable harm that might result from these preventable situations. What, for instance, is there to keep the child at the left from falling on the pencil it is chewing?

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Popular Science
Issue: Apr, 1948
Posted in: Kitchen
Tags:
Posted: 07/24/2012
No Comments
Freeze as You Please (Apr, 1948)

Freeze as You Please

BY FITTING both a home freezer and a refrigerator into one cabinet, and then making one compressor operate two cooling systems, General Electric engineers have put something new on the icebox market.

The combination, labeled Model NH-8, is only 30 inches wide and 63 inches high, but its top section is a 1.5-cubic-foot freezer section, and its refrigerator compartment has a volume of 6.7 cubic feet. Each section has its “own door and temperature control, and each works independently. Frequent opening of the refrigerator puts no load on the freezer, which ordinarily is opened only a few times a day for access to frozen foods or ice cubes.

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: May, 1929
Posted in: Architecture, Just Weird
Posted: 07/23/2012
2 Comments
Houses Built on Stilts are Novel Lake Dwellings (May, 1929)

Houses Built on Stilts are Novel Lake Dwellings

ONE OF the most remarkable summer camps in the country is the colony which has been established at Milnensburg, Louisiana, in the shallow waters of Lake Ponchartrain. The photo above shows how dozens of houses have been built on piles above the water. Narrow walks starting at the mainland lead to the various cottages, which are spread out over the water to form a queer lake city. Residents in these cottages assert that the cool breezes from the heart of the lake make this form of construction worth while. The photograph was taken from an airplane.

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Popular Science
Issue: Apr, 1939
Posted in: DIY, House and Home
Tags: , ,
Posted: 07/17/2012
1 Comment
Two Beds Built in the Space of One (Apr, 1939)

Two Beds Built in the Space of One

A COMPACT DESIGN FOR SMALL QUARTERS

FOR the summer cottage or cabin, or even a small city apartment, a pair of beds can be constructed so that one slides under the other as shown. The bed in the living room is therefore kept entirely out of sight until required, when it is pulled out like a huge drawer.

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