Louis Vuitton's Fall/Winter 2011 runway show featured vintage elevators as the backdrop, paying homage to the brand's roots in luxury luggage and the grand era of travel. The elevators were 19th century wrought iron birdcage elevators, with an elegant and exclusive atmosphere.
Read MoreAncient elevators such as Archimedes' typically consisted of a wooden platform or box drawn by hemp ropes through a vertical open shaft and powered by men or animals operating a capstan. These devices were used primarily to lift heavy loads such as water or building materials.
Read MoreAlex Begin of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan loved visiting the downtown J.L. Hudson store in Detroit as a child with his parents. The highlight for him was the over 50 elevators that serviced the 33 levels located on Woodward Avenue. Begin loved watching the elevator operators delivering patrons to their desired floors.
Read MoreFew design styles are as widely recognized and appreciated as Art Deco. The iconic movement made an incredible mark on all fields of design, culture and commerce throughout the 1920s and ’30s. During that period, department stores grew into grand palaces of commerce celebrating society’s growing wealth in extravagant, ornamental and luxurious ways. This week we are going to look closer at Japanese Department Stores that celebrated Art Deco’s industrialization aesthetics with streamlined elegance and high quality craftsmanship.
Read MoreThis is what it feels like when a “working artifact” morphs off the pages of history and into today. This particular artifact is located in the Birkbeck Building at 10 Adelaide Street East, Toronto, a historic 1908 building that houses the headquarters of the Ontario Heritage Trust. Bubelis is the trust’s architect and the man who decided to rebuild the elevator to look and operate as it did in 1908, the year the building opened.
Read MoreIn effect a parking garage proposal that first appeared in Popular Mechanics in December 1921 is one of the earliest examples of the automated elevator car park. The proposal went so far as far as to suggest a completely autonomous building functioning on its own without human interference. The hybrid robot-building took hold of engineers and urban planners imagination as it quickly moved into the collective consciousness.
Read MoreRecently our team was contacted to inspect a 19th century building where the new owner had found a hand-powered (pull-rope) elevator. Completely in tact and fully preserved complete with original rope and pulley, platform and counterweight system along with painted on data tags, it was immediately identified as an Otis-Fensom Elevator from the 1890’s.
Read MoreFor over a hundred years Nations around the world have honoured people, events, and significant moments through commemorative stamps. Unlike other regular postage stamps (known as definitives), commemorative stamps are printed only once and are allowed to go out of circulation as their supply is used up. Which brings us some 161 Years after March 23, 1857 when Elisha Otis' 1st Elevator was installed at 488 Broadway, New York City.
Read MoreBuilt on the very edge of a cliff overlooking the a 76m (250ft) drop, overlooking the surrounding city, the 611 room 80-metre-tall (260 ft) was the tallest buildings in the entire province of Quebec. To shuttle passengers and their luggage through the 18 storey building monolith, architects installed three gated manually operated elevators in the main lobby. More were added during two major expansions to the hotel, one in 1908–09, and another in 1920–24.
Read MoreIn the 1950s, the world's first outside glass elevator was built installed at the hotel to the worlds amusement. From its opening in 1927 through the 1950s, the El Cortez Hotel in San Diego, California. was the most glamorous apartment-hotel in San Diego. The large "El Cortez" sign, which is illuminated at night, was added in 1937 and could be seen for miles.
Read MoreGran Hotel Ciudad de México is a unique luxury boutique hotel set in the heart of Mexico City, on the historic Zocalo square. This spectacular art-nouveau building features an immense stained-glass Tiffany ceiling, designed by the French artisan Jacques Gruber, a Louis XV style chandelier in the lobby, and beautiful wrought-iron railings on the first three floors.
Read MoreThe only realized skyscraper by Frank Lloyd Wright, debatably the most important architects of the 20th century, is one of only two vertically oriented structures by the notoriously landscape hugging architect, the other is the S.C. Johnson Wax Research Tower in Racine, Wisconsin.
Read MoreIn 1861, English-born machinist John Fensom first appeared in Toronto city directories. He and Charles Levey set up shop on Colborne Street and began making lathes. By 1864 the Fensom and Levey partnership had dissolved, and John Fensom was in business for himself. He set up shop on Adelaide Street West in 1867. There he remained for 15 years, first as John Fensom Iron Works, then in a venture called Gurney & Co. Central Iron Works from 1874 to 1878.
Read MoreEquipping the Eiffel Tower with safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Paris Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts clearly had to be the main means of ascent.
Read MoreEntering Restoration Hardwares massive New York store, guests will discover a soaring central atrium with a high-speed glass elevator as the central showpiece that transports visitors up to the skylit rooftop park. “It wasn’t the internet that killed retail stores; it was a lack of imagination and investment,” explains CEO Gary Friedman.
Read MoreElevator design is not something many people think of. Even professional architects, urban planners and designers overlook their significance to modern buildings and cities as a whole. Over the past decade our team of vertical transportation specialists has worked to elevate the narrative around these little spaces in a big way.
Read MoreThe Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark located at 304 South Broadway at West 3rd Street in downtown Los Angeles, California. Built in 1893, the five-story office building is best known for its extraordinary skylit atrium of access walkways, stairs and elevators, and their ornate ironwork
Read MoreThe Cultural Center Correios is housed in a historic building that is part of the Cultural Corridor located in the Center of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The building has 3 480 square meters, spread over three floors interconnected by an elevator, from which you can have a panoramic view of the entire internal environment
Read MoreDesigned by Eberhard Zeidler and Bregman + Hamann Architects as a multi-levelled, vaulted glass-ceiling galleria, modelled after the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy, the Toronto Eatons Centre is a one of a kind mall in downtown Toronto.
Read MoreDig in to 2,500 years of vertical living through a storybook, with New York Times archives and NFB of Canada from the biblical Tower of Babel to the tenement buildings of New York. The film is narrated by singer-songwriter Feist.
Read More
