foggy flight, photo by suesue2.
metro beach marina, harrison township.
Check it out in Sue’s Awesome Autumn slideshow or get down with more parks in the Michigan Parks slideshow!
Streamline Moderne: Airstream on the Mac
Airstream on the Mac, photo by Brian Gudas Photography.
Yesterday I posted about Knapp’s Office Centre in Lansing. With its smooth contours and glass brick, the building is considered an excellent example of an design & architectural style known as Streamline Moderne which is a late variant of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s. It can be referred to by either name alone and emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements.
As the depression decade of the 1930s progressed, Americans saw a new aspect of the Art Deco style emerge in the marketplace: Streamlining. The Streamlining concept was first created by industrial designers who stripped Art Deco design of its fauna and flora in favor of the aerodynamic pure-line concept of motion and speed developed from scientific thinking. As a result an array of designers quickly ultra-modernized and streamlined the designs of everyday objects. Manufacturers of clocks, radios, telephones, cars, furniture and numerous other household appliances embraced the concept with open arms.
The venerable Airstream is of course an iconic example of this style and Brian’s shot of an Airstream on the Mackinac Bridge captures that style perfectly. Check it out bigger and in his his slideshow.
The Knapp Building says “Lansing has next”
Knapp’s Office Centre, photo by Eridony.
Last week on Absolute Michigan we had a story about Lansing being named the Next American City. The article by Ivy Hughes in Next American City is titled Lansing: There’s No Place We’d Rather Be and might change your view of Michigan’s changing capital city. I had selected this photo for a quick link over to the article because I have always thought the building is neat. I soon learned that the long vacant Knapp’s Office Centre building is being renovated, another tangible sign of the new energy that is rising in Lansing.
Wikipedia’s J.W. Knapp Company Building entry says:
The J.W. Knapp Company Building is a historic five-story, 190,000-square-foot (18,000 m2) Streamline Moderne building in Lansing, Michigan, United States. Designed by Orlie Munson of the Bowd–Munson Company, which also designed several other Art Deco landmarks in Lansing, including the Ottawa Street Power Station, it was constructed by the Christman Company in 1937 through 1938. The curvilinear look of the streamlined structure comes from huge plates of concrete faced with enamel, called “Maul Macotta”, a copyrighted product of the Maul Macotta Company and prismatic glass brick windows. Alternating horizontal bands of yellow macotta and glass block are interrupted by vertical blue macotta pylons, rising from the building’s four principal entrances. The pylons are pierced by windows. The entrance portals, display window aprons, and decorative banding are dark blue macotta. Red, yellow and blue spandrels, incorporating the letter “K” as a design element, decorate the entrance portals
The building housed the main department store of the Lansing-based J.W. Knapp Company. When completed in 1939, it was hailed in the contemporary press as “the most modern building in the Midwest”. Today, it is considered to be one of the finest intact examples of Streamline Art Moderne commercial buildings in the Midwest, notable for its size, clarity of design and brilliant colors.
Don’t miss this great set of Historic photos of J.W. Knapps Building in the Lansing State Journal.
See this photo big as a building and see this and other shots of the building in Brandon’s massive Downtown Lansing slideshow.
Discover December
Curves Ahead, photo by ( Jennifer )
“Look Doris, someday you’re going to find that your way of facing this realistic world just doesn’t work. And when you do, don’t overlook those lovely intangibles. You’ll discover those are the only things that are worthwhile.”
~ Fred Gailey, “Miracle on 34th Street”
Our Absolute Michigan December Event Calendar has some great events from all over Michigan for you to enjoy in the last month of the year. Check them out and post comments about your favorites!
Jennifer took this shot in Kalkaska County on Valley Road near the Seven Bridges Trail a couple of Decembers ago, but this morning folks all around Michigan are waking up to a similar scene. Check it out bigger in her Kalkaska County slideshow.
Mackinac Bridge Sunset
Mackinac Bridge Sunset, photo by GLASman1.
From high above the Straits of Mackinac…
Check it out background big and in Mark’s slideshow.
More Michigan aerial photographs from Michigan in Pictures.
Sandhill Cranes in Flight
Sandhill Cranes in Flight, near Merritt, MI, photo by arrdubyazee
Check it out bigger in his sandhill cranes slideshow!
Can Flint Survive the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman?
For my studio photography class., photo by sarah. reed.
On Sunday, photographer Sarah Reed staged a photo shoot to re-create the classic poster for Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
See it bigger in her slideshow.
Harvest the Wind
wind_farm_pigeon 002, photo by eXtension Ag Energy.
Yesterday on Absolute Michigan we posted an article from Great Lakes Echo wondering if Michigan will harness offshore wind and pass the bill in the House to regulate wind farms in Michigan’s Great Lakes waters.
Land based wind farms around the state are already tapping this resource. The largest of these is the Harvest Wind Farm that spans 3,200 acres between Elkton and Pigeon, Michigan, in Huron County. Each of the wind farm’s 32 turbines stand 262 ft tall (393 with the 131′ blades) and is capable of producing 1.65 megawatts of electricity, for a total project capacity of 52.8 megawatts.
You can get a sense of the scale of the farm in these cool aerial shots. Something to consider is that 52.8 megawatts is enough to power 15,000 or so homes. When you think about the total population of Michigan and the space available to site wind turbines, it’s hard to see how we will be able to meet our energy demands without using the Great Lakes.
MSU Extension Bioenergy Educator Dennis Pennington took the shot above in July of 2009. Check it out background big and also in his wind slideshow (some of the shots show construction and give a sense of the scale of these massive machines).
Elberta Beach During the Hang Gliding Heydays
Elberta Beach During the Hang Gliding Heydays, photo by jimflix!.
As a payback for yesterday’s icy cruelty, here’s a warm remembrance of summer in the 1970s.
Frankfort & Elberta on Lake Michigan was a hang gliding and soaring hotspot in the 1970s and earlier. Here’s a shot of sailplanes in the 1930s, a little Frankfort-Elberta Area Hang Gliding information and a video of present-day hang-gliding at Green Point Dunes. About this photo Jim writes:
Not a lot of beach that year (and the water was high), so there was not a lot of room to land! Then you had to hope folks would Get Out Of The Way! (And usually they did, as they were mostly hang gliding families or followers.)
Taken at the Elberta beach on Lake Michigan in the late 1970s
Check it out big as the sky and see more in his Hang gliding and hang gliders slideshow!
Rail Car Ferry Michigan Central on the Detroit River
Car ferry, Michigan Central, entering slip, Detroit River, photo by Detroit Publishing Co.
It’s kind of cruel to post a photo like this while it’s still November. I think we all know what’s coming though…
I spent some time learning about this photo I found in the Library of Congress aka maybe the coolest place on the internet. (You probably paid 3 cents for it last year, so check it out sometime). I finally found the same photo on the fantastic photo blog Shorpy. One of the commentors writes:
This is the Detroit side. The river flows extremely fast, and the ferry docks were set up so the boats always entered dock facing upstream. Michigan Central was built in 1884 by Detroit Dry Dock in Wyandotte, while Transport was built there in 1880. Both were cut down to barges by the 1930’s. A nearly identical boat, Lansdowne of 1884, survived in steam until 1970 for CN/Grand Trunk, until she blew a cylinder head (I remember the shock among the Detroit trainwatching community at the time).
You can see the Lansdowne of Windsor on Michigan in Pictures and check the comments at Shorpy for more including a shot of this location from the Ambassador Bridge in 1957.
See the photo background bigtacular at Shorpy.
Michigan in Pictures 