Amazon.ca
Rachel Gotlieb and Cora Golden's lavishly illustrated
Design in Canada: Fifty Years from Teakettles to Task Chairs delivers a feel-good overview of Canadian industrial design highlights in a package that combines serious historical research with a droll appreciation for kitsch. The description of Hugh Spencer's revolutionary 1963 stereo console is typical: "In the sixties, Clairtone's Project G stereo was the epitome of 'bachelor pad' cool.... Frank Sinatra endorsed it ('Listen to Sinatra on Project G; Sinatra does'), and G series models appeared in films such as
The Graduate and
A Fine Madness, with Sean Connery. Hugh Hefner reportedly bought a unit for the Playboy mansion." The authors have taken full advantage of their unlimited access to Toronto's Design Exchange collection--where Gotlieb is curator--to trace the commercial and aesthetic trends influencing post-war Canadian design, not to mention the impact of government initiatives supporting the manufacturing and fine arts sectors. All the big hits are here, from the first all-plastic Thermos through the wedge-shaped 70s Contempra phone to Karim Rashid's award-winning, champagne-bucket-inspired Garbo garbage can. The period photos--like that of a beehive-coifed model stretching her legs on the ottoman of the 1967 Habitat chair--are priceless. This is much more than just a coffee table book.
--Deirdre Hanna
Review
“Timeless and necessary…. It is a measure of
Design in Canada’s success that it seems both wholly unexpected and long overdue.” --
National Post“From the glamorous to the humble…. The first comprehensive guide to the country’s rich design heritage.” --
Ottawa CitizenFrom another edition.
