View source for Sigfried Giedion

While the Second World War was raging in Europe, the Swiss architect and historian Sigfried Giedion was calmly searching through the American patent archives, charting the anonymous history of the age of mechanical invention. This research lead finally to the publication in 1947 of "Mechanization Takes Command," which examines the intrusion of mechanization into such diverse realms as locks and keys, bread baking, slaughterhouses, furniture, kitchen appliances and bathing.

Giedion showed how the mechanisation of modern life was accompanied by, and in fact required, an evolution of public taste and notions of comfort. For example, the replacement of traditional black bread by less nutritious, industrially-produced white bread required prior public acceptance of the idea that white bread is more "refined" and hence superior. 

==References==
*Sigfried Giedion, "Mechanization Takes Command" (1947)

==Links==
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Giedion

[[Category:Historical Roots]]