Abstract

We are a world of travelers. Technologies have enabled us to connect with others around the world at incredible speed, and now both business and pleasure operate on a global scale. The process of getting from point A to point B is therefore of more interest than ever, and Gregory Votolato here charts the history of that journey in all its complexity and variety.

            From limousines to canoes to the Apollo spacecraft, Votolato chronicles the ever-evolving design of vehicles, nautical crafts, and other objects of transportation. Transport Design explores the relationship between mass transportation and the travel experience, probing such issues as design styles, economics, entertainment, and, most importantly, customized comfort. Elements such as nineteenth-century railway sleeping couches or the heated car seats of today, Votolato demonstrates, were among the pioneering technologies that set the precedent for personal home and office furnishings. Ultimately, Transport Design contends that today’s pressures of global commerce and environmental threats demand a radical reappraisal of how and why we travel.

A compelling and readable study, Transport Design is a must-have for transport design scholars, transit buffs, and reluctant commuters alike.

"At last, the book that reveals the art and romance of being transported."

— Marc Newson
"Photographs of the interiors of early trains will make you want to shuffle off to Buffalo, and copy for advertisement for a 1930s-era Chrysler serves as a reminder that riding around in an automobile was once considered radical. Votolato lists four factors that influence the development of transit infrastructure and vehicle design--privacy, independence, economy and image--and shows these concerns at work." — Anna Lena Phillips, American Scientist

"A serious but accessible look at how comfort, safety, technology, style, economics, customisation and entertainment have affected the way we get from a to b, and how vehicle design has influenced the interiors of our home and work spaces. A bit of a treat."– RIBA Journal

— RIBA Journal

"This is a generalist study of the best kind, full of illuminating detail and clearly organized by typologies of land, water and air, within which are subdivisions of different vehicle types. It is split in focus between the designer of the machine and the experience of the passenger, with a pleasingly fetishistic attention to detail that distinguishes transport enthusiasts." – Journal of Design History

— Journal of Design History

"Far from being a straight design history, this insightful and detailed look at transport design investigates, through our various vehicles, the experience of travelling . . . the meticulous nature of Votolato's theming and readable narrative underpin the seriousness of his final contention . . . this fine book should be required reading for anyone hoping to design anything that will take us beyond the age of oil."– C20, The Magazine of the Twentieth Century Society

— C20

"[Votolato] understands the interlinked roles played by designers, manufacturers, operators, and users in the construction of the semiotically rich technological spaces in which we move, while not ignoring the structural reality that, both historically and in the present, governments and corporations have the greatest control over transport systems. And Votolato's empirical reach is commendably ambitious . . .'"– Technology and Culture

— Technology and Culture

Gregory Votolato is head of the Department of Theory and Critical Practice in the Faculty of Design at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, High Wycombe, and the author of American Design in the Twentieth Century.