Upstate Modern MAKING METROPOLITAN AMERICA ALONG THE ERIE CANAL
Upstate Modern is a series of courses and public programs at Syracuse University examining the urban history of Upstate New York through transdisciplinary research that draws on archives, buildings, landscapes, and communities.
AIR CONDITIONS
UPSTATE MODERN: AIR CONDITIONS
How did artificial weather change modern architecture, the character of work, the geography of modernization, and the pattern of urban development? This research seminar used the archives of Carrier Corporation, once the world’s leading supplier of air conditioning, to address these questions, and in the process to write new histories of 20th century architecture and […]
Cooling Consumption
By Brandon Wagner. The introduction of comfort cooling into department stores, shopping malls, supermarkets, and other sites of consumption created new spaces and experiences in the 20th century United States. […]
Carrier Responds to Energy Crisis
by Galen Anderson. In order to remain competitive during the 80’s when energy prices first started to become a concern for Americans, Carrier Corp. changed a number of aspects of the company including marketing and advertising, product design and corporate operations. Please see Oil Crises and Carrier Air Conditioning at galenanderson.com.
Designing Educational Air Conditions
by Sara Grissom. By designing different types of air conditioning unit, Carrier and other manufacturers targeted distinct markets for comfort cooling, ranging from schools and offices to bedrooms and living rooms. Air conditions determine a certain level of comfort for us as humans. Whether the outside air conditions, or the inside comfort factor, we are […]
Prison Air Conditions
by Annie Ray. Prisons have been around since the 1800’s, and while conditions of living in them have not always been pleasant they seem to have only become worse with time. Most people think of a physical system when air conditioning is mentioned, but the air conditions of prisons tell a bigger tale. Some of […]
“Nothing More Modern”: Air Conditioning the International Style
by Ana Montano. The new building technology of the industrial era, the invention of the elevator and the structural steel framework, made possible the rise of skyscrapers, particularly in central business districts within growing cities. The skyscraper came to symbolize the growing economy and efficiency in their usage, by large corporations, as processing centers. These […]
Confectionery and Cooling
by Shakera Kyle. During my research I have explored the role of hygrometric materials in industries with humidity sensitive processes and how processed air helped to improve the industry process as well as the conditions of life. The focus of this study has been on the confectioneries industry. While researching I have learned that there […]
The Conditioned Containers of Celluloid Film
by Rebecca Soja. Throughout its lifetime, celluloid film undergoes a series of phases during which precise environmental conditions optimize quality, performance, and longevity. It begins with transforming raw materials to manufacture a thin, pliable surface for emulsions, followed by producing a movie and developing the film, then projecting the film on theatre screens, and lastly preserving […]
Oil Conditioning and “Westoxification”
by Hamza Hasan. Carrier’s operations in the Middle East began in the 1940s, when many British and French colonies gained independence. These former colonies approached their sovereignty with two agendas: exploiting their natural resources and ‘modernizing’ via industrialization and contemporary consumerism. Carrier’s operations provided for many of these countries’ desires: air-conditioning for small-scale homes, medium-scale […]
Carrier Dome as a Technical and Cultural Environment
by SaDe’ Lewis. Over the course of the semester I have been researching air conditions through the lens of a specific case study, the Carrier Dome. As a beacon and/or icon of the Syracuse University campus, the Carrier Dome also happens to play a divergent role as part of a shift to interior domed […]
Changing Criteria for Refrigerants
by Allie Sutherland. Carrier has maintained its status as a nationwide leader in refrigeration and air conditioning systems by developing and advertising products based on strong consideration of the most crucial economic and environmental issues since its founding in 1915. Specifically, the 1928 stock market crash followed by the Great Depression, the OPEC oil crisis […]
“Student Talk Warms a Campus”: The unwitting sensory politics of “heat reclaim” technologies
by Sean H. Wang. In 1967, the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) opened its brand-new campus in Johnstown, Penn. One of Pitt’s small extensions in rural Pennsylvania, Pitt-Johnstown had operated out of the Moxham section of town since before the World War I, providing continuing education to the surrounding areas. In response to growing demands for […]
Cool Kids: The political-economy and pedagogy of school air conditioning
by Derek R. Ford. Air conditioning technologies and ideologies have their roots not in human comfort but in the production process—thus the term ‘process air conditioning.’ When air conditioning enters the public arena, first through theaters and departments stores and later through train travel, notions of comfort are developed. Yet as air conditioning enters the […]
For more information…
See UPSTATE MODERN: AIR CONDITIONS on Tumblr at cool-class.tumblr.com