Synopses & Reviews
Before skyscrapers forever transformed the landscape of the modern metropolis, the conveyance that made them possible had to be created. Invented in New York in the 1850s, the elevator became an urban fact of life on both sides of the Atlantic by the early twentieth century. While it may at first glance seem a modest innovation, it had wide-ranging effects, from fundamentally restructuring building design to reinforcing social class hierarchies by moving luxury apartments to upper levels, previously the domain of the lower classes. The cramped elevator cabin itself served as a reflection of life in modern growing cities, as a space of simultaneous intimacy and anonymity, constantly in motion. In this elegant and fascinating book, Andreas Bernard explores how the appearance of this new element changed notions of verticality and urban space. Transforming such landmarks as the Waldorf-Astoria and Ritz Tower in New York, he traces how the elevator quickly took hold in large American cities while gaining much slower acceptance in European cities like Paris and Berlin. Combining technological and architectural history with the literary and cinematic, Bernard opens up new ways of looking at the elevator--as a secular confessional when stalled between floors or as a recurring space in which couples fall in love. Rising upwards through modernity, Lifted takes the reader on a compelling ride through the history of the elevator. Andreas Bernard is editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germanys largest daily newspaper. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Sciences from the Bauhaus University Weimar, and teaches cultural studies in Berlin and Lucerne, Switzerland.
Review
“Bernards passion for research is as impressive as the ease with which he—elevator-like—moves between the disciplines of literature, art history, sociology, and psychology.”-Der Spiegel,
Review
“The elevator, which today seems so boring, was once a vehicle of change of compelling power. Whoever reads this book will view the worlds elevators with different eyes.”-Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
Review
"Andreas Bernard, a German newspaper editor, has written a history of the now-ubiquitous lift. Elevators made tall buildings, and thus modern urban life, possible...the anecdotes and insights are captivating."-,The Economist
Review
"The elevator did more than make New York the city of skyscrapers, it changed the way we live, as German newspaper editor Andreas Bernard explains in Lifted."-Stephen Lynch,New York Post
Review
"In a new book, 'Lifted,' German journalist and cultural studies professor Andreas Bernard zeroes in on this experience, tracing mankinds relationship to the elevator back to its origins and finding that it has never been a totally comfortable one. 'After 150 years, we are still not used to it,' Bernard said. 'We still have not exactly learned to cope with this...mixture of intimacy and anonymity.' That mixture, according to Bernard, sets the elevator ride apart from just about every other situation we find ourselves in as we go about our lives."-Leon Neyfakh,The Boston Globe
Synopsis
Bernard s passion for research is as impressive as the ease with which he elevator-like moves between the disciplines of literature, art history, sociology, and psychology. Der Spiegel Whoever reads this book will view the world s elevators with different eyes. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung"
About the Author
Andreas Bernard is editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germanys largest daily newspaper. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Sciences from the Bauhaus University Weimar, and teaches cultural studies in Berlin and Lucerne, Switzerland.