Struco Slate and Spiders

 

 

It's the perfect time of year to discover this decorative paper sheet with spiders and their webs bound in the Struco Slate architectural  trade catalog from 1930. Judging from the rest of the collection, using decorative paper was relatively unusual in trade catalogs, which were targeted advertisements directed toward those in the building professions. The expense of a beautiful, finely crafted blank sheet of paper would seem superfluous to many companies, but perhaps the designers at the Strucural Slate Company felt it distinguished their catalog from the others. 

 

The leaf is a translucent white. We placed orange paper behind the delicate paper to highlight the intricate webbing details and the spider at the center of its web.



 

 

Images: Struco slate and its application with modern architecture, 1930. Trade Catalog Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Ball State University. Photo by Carol Street.

Byers Snow Melting Systems

For those of us who may be a little tired of shoveling snow this winter, this snow melting system from the A. M. Byers Company looks like a dream come true. The company operated out of the great steel state of Pennsylvania, with their plant located in Ambridge and main offices in Pittsburgh. The Ambridge plant opened in 1930, during the beginning throes of the Depression, and closed its doors in 1969. At the time of this publication, which we believe is 1953, they also had offices in nine additional cities around the country. The company developed a specific process that became known as the Byers Process to manufacture wrought iron in greater quantity with a more consistent quality product.

Images: Byers Wrought Iron Pipe for Snow Melting Systems, circa 1953. Trade Catalog Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Ball State University Libraries.

Archives Open House

 

 

Students and faculty are invited to the Drawings + Document Archive's open house on the first day of classes to learn more about the collections and how we can support their academic endeavors this year. The Open House will be Monday, August 19, from 2-4 p.m.

 

In honor of the 100 year anniversary of Formica, we have an exhibit of Formica pattern books and samples from our Trade Catalog Collection. Examples include early, 1920s Formica sample chips with their hand-written identification labels and thick pattern books with perforated tear sheets that architects used to give to clients in the 1950s and 1960s. It's definitely worth stopping by to see the souvenir book from the 1964 World's Fair House Formica exhibit, which contains some rather unbelievable uses for Formica.
 

 

Also on display is the set of Wysor Grand Opera House drawings by Fort Wayne architect H. W. Matson, from 1891. This impressive building stood at the corner of Jackson and Mulberry Streets in downtown Muncie until it was razed for a parking lot. Local architects Kibele & Garrard were hired to do later renovations to convert the opera house to a movie theater, and likely acquired the original Matson drawings at that time. The entire collection of Kibele & Garrard drawings is currently being digitized and will be online soon.

Images: Formica Brand Laminated Plastic: Colors and Patterns cover, 1966; Detail of Roulette pattern from New Citation Series for Professional Specifiers: Solid Colors, Special Designs: Formica Laminated Plastic, 1960; Wysor Grand Opera House details, 1891, Kibele & Garrard Architectural Records, Drawings + Documents Archive, Ball State University.



 

Pullman Unit Sash Balances

The Pullman Manufacturing Company of Rochester, New York, promised drastic savings through the use of their unit sash balances in this 1920s brochure that can be found in the Drawings + Documents Archives' Trade Catalog Collection. The unit sash balances replaced the need for weights and cords in window construction, therefore eliminating the costs associated with heavy lead weights in the window frame.

It's worth mentioning that the Detroit Towers, built in 1922 and featured in this brochure, is still standing and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The brochure guarantees the product for the life of the building, so hopefully the windows at the Detroit Towers continue to enjoy "perfect window control".

Summer Hours

The Archive is open during the summer by appointment. Call 765-285-8441 or email the Archive to schedule an appointment.

Image: National Concrete Masonry Association's Pictorial, 1962. Trade Catalog Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Formica

No doubt you've spent an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen lately. If any thoughts were given to your hard-working kitchen counter at Thanksgiving time, they were probably of the "I need more counter space" or "which of my relatives spilled red wine and didn't clean it up?" variety. Chances are you didn't give much thought to the history of one of the country's most popular solid surfaces for counters: Formica.

In our Trade Catalog Collection and in the Kibele and Garrard Architectural Records Collection we have some very interesting examples of Formica from the early to late 20th century.
It was created in 1910 by David J. O'Conor, an engineer at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, who impregnated sheets of paper with the new invention liquid Bakelite. He had created a durable surface with insulating properties. A few years later, in 1913, O'Conor and Herbert A. Faber, another engineer, left Westinghouse in order to form their own company in Cincinnati to focus on this new invention.


Wondering about the name? Faber is credited with that: because it could stand in place for mica, an insulator that was becoming increasingly expensive at the time, the product officially became Formica. And it went on to cover kitchen counters around the world.


Images:
Formica samples, 1920s-30s, Kibele and Garrard Architectural Records Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Ball State University Libraries.
Formica trade catalog, TC 146, 1960s, Trade Catalog Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Ball State University Libraries

Modern Lighting

It may look like a UFO flying over a well-lit suburban home, but it is only an advertisement for a 1939 lamp fixture that will "light condition" the American home. This brochure from Silvray Lighting of Long Island City, New York, is part of our large and soon-to-be cataloged trade catalog collection.

"Silvered bowl Mazda lamps in Silvray Sight Savers provide modern eye-saving indirect light at the lowest cost.

Sight-Savers are designed especially for use with the Silvered Bowl Mazda lamp which has a pure silver mirror reflector hermetically sealed to it. The need for expensive, bulky, auxiliary reflectors in the fixture is thus eliminated."

Image: Mazda Lamp catalog, 1939. Silvray Lighting, Inc. TC-2009.147. Part of the Drawings + Documents Archive trade catalog collection.

March Madness + Sullivan Fever, part 3

One of the most interesting collections of material here at the Drawings + Documents Archive is the trade catalog collection, which contains marketing publications directed to architects and those in building trades. Some of the earliest examples tout the long-lasting benefits of lead paint and durability of asbestos flooring for schools and hospitals, all printed long before the hazards of the materials were discovered.

The collection is a rich resource of ephemeral material that reflect what was valued at the time it was printed. As you might have seen in an earlier post about the mid-century concrete masonry publication, Pictorial, which highlights mid-century geometric designs with a decidely post-war American aesthetic.

We have been working on cataloging and reboxing our large trade catalog collection for the past year, and are nearly finished. It has been a year of discoveries, more of which you'll see in posts to come.

Here we have a page from a 1951 booklet of basketball backboard designs from the J.E. Porter Corporation, based out of Ottawa, Illinois. The first few pages of the book describe the differences between backboard designs and height regulations for grade school, high school, college, and professional basketball courts. The single pedestal backstop shown in this drawing is meant for college-level teams.