MODERN TIMES +
The Helvetica Typeface
The Helvetica typeface is ubiquitous today in
signs, advertisements, magazines, menus, com-
puters — just about every form of media that uses
language; it seems so common and ordinary that
it doesn’t seem “designed.” The first modern sans- Emmy Award-winning series “Independent
serif typeface to be so broadly adopted, it was, Lens.” Exploring the uses of Helvetica over
in fact, developed by Max Miedinger and Edüard the past 50 years, the film considers the
Hoffman at the Haas Type Foundry in Switzerland typeface’s effect on the ordinary people who
in 1957. Helvetica, a documentary film directed interact with it daily, and gleans insight into
by Gary Hustwit about the typeface, will have its the creative process of renowned designers
television premiere on Tuesday, January 6, at and their use of type. Visit www.pbs.org for
10 pm, as part of the seventh season of the PBS local schedules. —Andrea Truppin
Glass at the Winter Antiques Show
This January, at the Winter Antiques Show in New York City, the Corning
Museum of Glass of Corning, New York, is presenting an exhibition of
50 works of glass spanning 3,000 years. The Fragile Art: Extraordinary
Objects from the Corning Museum of Glass, in an installation designed
by Massimo Vignelli, includes a number of glass objects from the 20th
century, such as a turn-of-the-century vase by Émile Gallé (1846–1904),
a 1952 dish by Tapio Wirkkala (1915–85) and an unusual illuminated Art
Deco glass radiator by René-André Coulon (1908–97).
A complementary series of lectures includes Corning curator of mod-
ern glass Tina Oldknow on Italian, Scandinavian and Czechoslovakian
glass of the 1950s. The Winter Antiques Show runs from January 23
René-André Coulon,
to February 1 at the Park Avenue Armory. For more information, visit
Illuminated glass
www.winterantiquesshow.com. –SL
radiator, 1937.
Another Modern House Protected
by Historic New England
Historic New England, which oversees the stewardship of
almost 75 historic houses in Massachusetts and the sur-
rounding region, including Walter Gropius’s 1938 home
in Lincoln, Massachusetts, has taken on a new modern
property in that town. The Hoover House was designed
by architect Henry B. Hoover in 1937 as his family
home. His first independent residential project, it dem-
onstrates his signature integration of architecture with
the landscape. For information about the Stewardship
Program, visit www.historicnewengland.org. —AT
102 www.modernismmagazine.com