Academic literature on the topic 'Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Crown Hall'

This essay documents the research of restoration and modifications to Mies van der Rohe’s masterwork, Crown Hall, the heart of the Chicago campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Restoration was necessitated by 5 decades of use during which the building had fallen into major disrepair. During the restoration, practical and philosophical issues arose from the building’s landmark designation by regional and national authorities. The essay describes the forensic research that preceded design, investigation and selection of alternate materials modifications to the building envelope. This includes a detailed description of modifications balancing original materials and systems with current codes. The essay concludes by placing the restoration of Crown Hall in the larger context of preservation of modern buildings and the threat to these works which, unlike Crown Hall, are rarely protected by landmark designation.

El S. R. Crown Hall constituye el primer ejemplo construido de espacio universal de gran luz en la trayectoria del arquitecto Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Destinado a albergar la escuela de arquitectura de la que era director, el proyecto debía además resumir el primero de los principios sobre los que se asentaba su docencia en el Illinois Institute of Technology: la estructura como factor arquitectónico, sus posibilidades y limitaciones. Este artículo profundiza en el proceso de desarrollo del proyecto de Mies, poniéndolo en contexto con su experiencia como docente en el IIT, buscando establecer posibles conexiones entre su arquitectura y sus enseñanzas. Para ello, se compara la solución estructural definitiva con uno de los proyectos supervisados por él dentro del programa de posgrado: la vivienda de Jacques Brownson. Dos estructuras de diferente escala, pero idéntica tipología, para el desarrollo de las cuales se contó con la colaboración del ingeniero estructural Frank Kornacker.

ABSTRACT This paper describes the design of InterTech, a zero-energy mixed-use student residence hall, developed in 2018 by an interdisciplinary team of Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech) students for the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Design Challenge, formerly known as Race to Zero. The main focus is the team’s integrated and iterative approach, which blended architectural design and engineering concepts and led to achieving the high-performance goal. InterTech aims to provide an innovative housing solution to Illinois Institute of Technology’s graduate students and their families. Located along State Street in between Illinois Tech’s main campus and downtown Chicago, it offers a mix of living options providing both independence and access to the campus and to the city. In addition to the residential program, the project includes a small grocery/cafe connected to an outdoor public plaza, and an underground garage. Energy modeling was introduced in the early design stages. The potential of on-site renewable energy generation defined the project’s target Energy Use Intensity (EUI) of 37 kBtu/sqft. Several passive and active strategies were implemented to reduce the building’s total energy needs and meet the target EUI. The implementation of energy conservation measures led to a 25% reduction of the building’s cooling load and a 33% reduction of the heating load. A design EUI of 28 kBtu/sqft was calculated, validating that this design met and exceeded the zero-energy goal.

This paper illustrates and explores three critical dimensions of photography in architecture, each of which informs the production of images, texts, and other artifacts which establish what might be called a building’s media footprint . The paper’s broad goal is to question the extent to which these critical dimensions are relevant to architectural decision-making processes. Acknowledging that such dimensions as the ones examined here rarely predict an architect’s specific design decisions in a transparent manner, the paper discusses not only the decisions made by architects during the process of designing buildings, but the decisions made by critics, visitors, and members of the general public as they engage in activities such as visiting buildings, writing about them and, particularly, photographing them. First, the text discusses the potential of buildings to operate as mechanisms for producing images, in the sense originated by Beatriz Colomina. The question is developed through the analysis of the space of photography – mapping of points of view, directions of view, and fields of view of defined photographic collections. Secondly, it considers photography’s complicity in the canonization of buildings , and specifically, the extent to which photography is responsible for distinguishing between major and minor architectural works. Finally, the essay examines the erosion over time of photography’s historical power to frame when confronted with contemporary technologies of virtual reality and photorealistically rendered digital models. Each of these critical dimensions, or concepts, develops a specific aspect of how photographic information about buildings is organized, structured, and disseminated, and is thus only part of the larger project of architectural epistemology , which inquires into this wider field. This will be done through an examination of the Mies van der Rohe-designed Commons Building at ITT in Chicago and the evolution of its relationship with architectural photography and photographic representation – both on its own terms and through the prism of the Rem Koolhaas-designed McCormick Tribune Student Center, which adds to and incorporates the Commons Building. Until the end of the twentieth century, the Commons Building on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology was generally considered one of Mies van der Rohe’s lesser works. Reportedly neglected by its own architect during the design process, and frequently marginalized in academic discussions of the campus, when mentioned at all the building was often cited as an unrefined prototype of Crown Hall. This discourse took a new direction when in 1998, Rem Koolhaas/OMA won a design competition for a student center on the IIT campus: uniquely among the competition entries, Koolhaas’s design incorporated the Commons Building within a new context – what ultimately became the McCormick Tribune Campus Center (MTCC). When critics concluded that the incorporation of the Commons Building into the larger whole could compromise its integrity as an exemplar of Mies’s work, the building became the object of renewed interest and controversy. The two projects considered here show a clear evolution in architecture’s relationship with the photographic image. Specifically, the history of the Commons Building can be traced through photographs: during and shortly following its construction, the building was photographed as part of Mies’s own attention to publicity; it was documented as part of historical analyses; and over time it was visited and photographed by casual and amateur photographers. Following the competition results, photographs of the Commons Building were strategically deployed by both proponents and critics of Koolhaas’s design. Contemporary photographs of the building appear in architectural and campus guidebooks and on websites such as Flickr.com . Examining the ways in which photographs of the Commons Building appear in these various contexts allows discussion of the critical dimensions identified above and permits us to trace the evolution of the mutually reinforcing relationship between architecture and photography.

Prometheus, chained to a rock, having his liver pecked out by a great bird only for the organ to grow back again each night so that the torture may be repeated afresh the next day must be the quintessential image of masculinity in crisis. This paper will consider Promethean myth and the issues it raises regarding 'creation' including: the role of creator, the relationship between creator and created, the usurping of maternal (creative) power by patriarchy and, not least, the offering of an experimental model in which masculine identity can be recreated. I argue that Promethean myth raises significant issues relating to anxieties associated with notions of masculinity and gender, which are subsequently transposed in Shelley's modernist recasting of the myth, Frankenstein. I then consider 'Promethean' science fiction film, as an area particularly concerned with re-creation, in terms of construction of the self, gender and masculinity. Prometheus & Creation Prometheus (whose name means 'forethought') was able to foresee the future and is credited with creating man from mud/clay. As Man was inferior to other creations and unprotected, Prometheus allowed Man to walk upright [1] like the Gods. He also stole from them the gift of fire, to give to Man, and tricked the Gods into allowing Man to keep the best parts of sacrifices (giving the Gods offal, bones and fat). Thus Prometheus is regarded as the father and creator of Mankind, and as Man's benefactor and protector; whose love of Man (or love of trickery and his own cleverness) leads him to deceive the Gods. Prometheus's brother, Epimetheus (whose name means 'afterthought'), was commissioned to make all the other creations and Prometheus was to overlook his work when it was done. Due to Epimetheus's short-sightedness there were no gifts left (such as fur etc.) to bestow upon Man – the nobler animal which Prometheus was entrusted to make. Prometheus, a Titan, and illegitimate son of Iapetus and the water nymph Clymene (Kirkpatrick, 1991), helped fight against the Titans the side of Zeus, helping Zeus seize the throne. More than simple indication of a rebellious spirit, his illegitimate status (albeit as opposed to an incestuous one – Iapetus was married to his sister Themis) raises the important issues of both legitimacy and filial loyalty, so recurrent within accounts of creation (of man, and human artifice). Some hold that Prometheus is punished for his deceptions i.e. over fire and the sacrifices, thus he is punished as much for his brother's failings as much as for his own ingenuity and initiative. Others maintain he is punished for refusing to tell Zeus which of Zeus's sons would overthrow him, protecting Zeus' half mortal son and his mortal mother. Zeus's father and grandfather suffered castration and usurpment at the hands of their offspring – for both Zeus and Prometheus (pro)creation is perilous. Prometheus's punishment here is for withholding a secret which accords power. In possessing knowledge (power) which could have secured his release, Prometheus is often viewed as emblematic of endurance, suffering and resistance and parental martyrdom. Prometheus, as mentioned previously, was chained to a rock where a great bird came and tore at his liver [2], the liver growing back overnight for the torture to be repeated afresh the following day. Heracles, a half mortal son of Zeus, slays the bird and frees Prometheus, thus Man repays his debt by liberation of his benefactor, or, in other accounts, he is required to take Prometheus's place, and thus liberating his creator and resulting in his own enslavement. Both versions clearly show the strength of bond between Prometheus and his creation but the latter account goes further in suggesting that Man and Maker are interchangeable. Also linked to Promethean myth is the creation of the first woman, Pandora. Constructed (by Jupiter at Zeus's command) on one hand as Man's punishment for Prometheus's tricks, and on the other as a gift to Man from the Gods. Her opening of 'the box', either releasing all mans ills, plagues and woes, or letting all benevolent gifts but hope escape, is seen as disastrous from either perspective. However what is emphasised is that the creation of Woman is secondary to the creation of Man. Therefore Prometheus is not the creator of humankind but of mankind. The issue of gender is an important aspect of Promethean narrative, which I discuss in the next section. Gender Issues Promethean myths raise a number of pertinent issues relating to gender and sexuality. Firstly they suggest that both Man and Woman are constructed [3], and that they are constructed as distinct entities, regarding Woman as inferior to Man. Secondly creative power is posited firmly with the masculine (by virtue of the male sex of both Prometheus and Jupiter), negating maternal and asserting patriarchal power. Thirdly Nature, which is associated with the feminine, is surpassed in that whilst Man is made from the earth (mud/clay) it is Prometheus who creates him (Mother Earth providing only the most basic raw materials for production); and Nature is overcome as Man is made independent of climate through the gift of fire. Tensions arise in that Prometheus's fate is also linked to childbirth in so far as that which is internal is painfully rendered external (strongly raising connotations of the abject – which threatens identity boundaries). The intense connection between creation and childbirth indicates that the appropriation of power is of a power resting not with the gods, but with women. The ability to see the future is seen as both frightening and reassuring. Aeschylus uses this to explain Prometheus's tolerance of his fate: he knew he had to endure pain but he knew he would be released, and thus was resigned to his suffering. As the bearer of the bleeding wound Prometheus is feminised, his punishment represents a rite of passage through which he may earn the status 'Father of Man' and reassert and define his masculine identity, hence a masochistic desire to suffer is also suggested. Confrontations with the abject, the threat posed to identity, and Lacanian notions of desire in relation to the other, are subjects which problematise the myth's assertion of masculine power. I will now consider how the Promethean myth is recast in terms of modernity in the story of Frankenstein and the issues regarding male power this raises. Frankenstein - A Modern Prometheus Consistent with the Enlightenment spirit of renewal and reconstruction, the novel Frankenstein emerges in 1818, re-casting Promethean myth in terms of science, and placing the scientist (i.e. man) as creator. Frankenstein in both warning against assuming the power of God and placing man as creator, simultaneously expresses the hopes and fears of the transition from theocratic belief to rationality. One of the strategies Frankenstein gives us through its narrative use of science and technology is a social critique and interrogation of scientific discourse made explicit through its alignment with gender discourse. In appropriating reproductive power without women, it enacts an appropriation of maternity by patriarchy. In aligning the use of this power by patriarchy with the power of the gods, it attempts to deify and justify use of this power whilst rendering women powerless and indeed superfluous. Yet as it offers the patriarchal constructs of science and technology as devoid of social responsibility, resulting in monstrous productions, it also facilitates a critique of patriarchy (Cranny Francis, 1990, p220). The creature, often called 'Frankenstein' rather than 'Frankenstein's monster', is not the only 'abomination to God'. Victor Frankenstein is portrayed as a 'spoilt brat of a child', whose overindulgence results in his fantasy of omnipotent power over life itself, and leads to neglect of, and lack of care towards, his creation. Indeed he may be regarded as the true 'monster' of the piece, as he is all too clearly lacking Prometheus's vision and pastoral care [4]. "Neither evil nor inhuman, [the creature] comes to seem little more than morally uninformed, poorly 'put together' by a human creator who has ill served both his creation and his fellow humans." (Telotte, 1995, p. 76). However, the model of the natural – and naturally free – man emerges in the novel from an implied pattern of subjection which demonstrates that the power the man-made constructs of science and technology give us come at great cost: "[Power] is only made possible by what [Mary Shelley] saw as a pointedly modern devaluation of the self: by affirming that the human is, at base, just a put together thing, with no transcendent origin or purpose and bound to a half vital existence at best by material conditions of its begetting."(ibid.) Frankenstein's power expressed through his overcoming of Nature, harnessing of technology and desire to subject the human body to his will, exhibits the modern world's mastery over the self. However it also requires the devaluation of self so that the body is regarded as subject, thus leading to our own subjection. For Telotte (1995, p37), one reflection of our Promethean heritage is that as everything comes to seem machine-like and constructed, the human too finally emerges as a kind of marvellous fiction, or perhaps just another empty invention. Access to full creative potential permits entry "into a true 'no man's land'…. a wonderland...where any wonder we might conceive, or any wondrous way we might conceive of the self, might be fashioned". Certainly the modernist recasting of Promethean myth embodies that train of thought which is most consciously aiming to discover the nature of man through (re)creating him. It offers patriarchal power as a power over the self (independent of the gods); a critique of the father; and the fantasy of (re)construction of the self at the cost of deconstruction of the body which, finally, leads to the subjection of the self. The Promethean model, I maintain, serves to illuminate and further our understanding of the endurance, popularity and allure of fantasies of creation, which can be so readily found in cinematic history, and especially within the science fiction genre. This genre stands out as a medium both well suited to, and enamoured with, Promethean reworkings [5]. As religion (of which Greek mythology is a part) and science both attempt to explain the world and make it knowable they offer the reassurance, satisfaction and the illusion of security and control, whilst tantalising with notions of possible futures. Promethean science fiction film realises the visual nature of these possible futures providing us, in its future visions, with glimpses of alternative ways of seeing and being. Promethean Science Fiction Film Science fiction, can be seen as a 'body genre' delineated not by excess of sex, blood or emotion but by excess of control over the body as index of identity (Cook, 1999, p.193). Science fiction films can be seen to fall broadly into three categories: space flight, alien invaders and futuristic societies (Hayward, 1996, p.305). Within these, Telotte argues (Replications, 1995), most important are the images of "human artifice", which form a metaphor for our own human selves, and have come to dominate the contemporary science fiction film (1995, p11). The science fiction film contains a structural tension that constantly rephrases central issues about the self and constructedness. Paradoxically whilst the science fiction genre profits from visions of a technological future it also displays technophobia – the promises of these fictions represent dangerous illusions with radical and subversive potential, suggesting that nature and the self may be 'reconstructable' rather than stable and unchanging. Whilst some films return us safely to a comforting stable humanity, others embrace and affirm the subversive possibilities advocating an evolution or rebirth of the human. Regardless of their conservative (The Iron Giant, 1999, Planet of the Apes, 1968) or subversive tendencies (Metropolis 1926, Blade Runner 1982, Terminator 1984), they offer the opportunity to explore "a space of desire" (Telotte, p. 153, 1990) a place where the self can experience a kind of otherness and possibilities exceed the experience of our normal being (The Stepford Wives 1974, The Fly 1986, Gattaca 1997 [6]). What I would argue is central to the definition of a Promethean sub-genre of science fiction is the conscious depiction and understanding of the (hu)man subject or artifice as technological or scientific construction rather than natural. Often, as in Promethean myth, there is a mirroring between creator and creation, constructor and constructed, which serves to bind them despite their differences, and may often override them. Power in this genre is revealed as masculine power over the feminine, namely reproductive power; as such tensions in male identity arise and may be interrogated. Promethean (film) texts have at their centre issues of what it is to be human, and within this, what it is to be a man. There is a focus on hegemonic masculinity within these texts, which serves as a measure of masculinity. Furthermore these texts are most emphatically concerned with the construction of masculinity and with masculine power. The notion of creation raises questions of paternity, motherhood, parenting, and identification with the father, although the ways in which these issues are portrayed or explored may be quite diverse. As a creation of man, rather than of 'woman', the subjects created are almost invariably 'other' to their creators, whilst often embodying the fantasies, desires and repressed fears of their makers. That otherness and difference form central organising principles in these texts is undisputable, however there also can be seen to exist a bond between creator and created which is worthy of exploration, as the progeny of man retains a close likeness (though not always physically) to its maker [7]. Particularly in the Promethean strand of science fiction film we encounter the abject, posing a threat to fragile identity constructions (recalling the plight of Prometheus on his rock and his feminised position). I also maintained that 'lack' formed part of the Promethean heritage. Not only are the desires of the creators often lacking in Promethean care and vision, but their creations are revealed as in some way lacking, falling short of their creator's desire and indeed their own [8]. From the very beginnings of film we see the desire to realise (see) Promethean power accorded to man and to behold his creations. The mad scientists of film such as Frankenstein (1910), Homunculus (1916), Alraune (1918), Orlacs Hande (1925) and Metropolis (1926) and Frankenstein (1931) all point to the body as source of subjection and resistance. Whilst metal robots may be made servile, "the flesh by its very nature always rebels" (Telotte, 1995, p. 77). Thus whilst they form a metaphor for the way the modern self is subjugated, they also suggest resistance to that subjugation, pointing to "a tension between body and mind, humanity and its scientific attainments, the self and a cultural subjection" (ibid.). The films of the 1980's and 90's, such as Blade Runner (1982), Robocop (1987) Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1994), point towards "the human not as ever more artificial but the artificial as ever more human" (Telotte, 1995, p.22). However, these cyborg bodies are also gendered bodies providing metaphors for the contemporary anxieties about 'masculinities'. Just as the tale of Prometheus is problematic in that there exist many variations of the myth [9], with varying accounts capable of producing a range of readings, concepts of 'masculinity' are neither stable nor uniform, and are subject to recasting and reconstruction. Likewise in Promethean science fiction film masculine identities are multiple, fragmented and dynamic. These films do not simply recreate masculinities in the sense that they mirror extant anxieties but recreate in the sense that they 'play' with these anxieties, possibilities of otherness and permeate boundaries. We may see this 'play' as liberating, in that it offers possible ways of being and understanding difference, or conservative, reinstating hegemonic masculinity by asserting old hierarchies. As versions of the myth are reconstructed what new types of creator/creature will emerge? What will they say about our understanding and experiences of "masculinities"? What new possibilities and identities may we envision? Perhaps the most significant aspect of our Promethean heritage is that, as Prometheus is chained to his rock and tortured, through the perpetual regeneration of his liver, almost as if to counterweight or ballast the image of masculinity in crisis, comes the 'reassuring' notion that whatever the strains cracks or injuries the patriarchal image endures: 'we can rebuild him' [10]. We not only can but will, for in doing so we are also reconstructing ourselves. Footnote According to Bulfinch (web) he gave him an upright stature so he could look to the Heavens and gaze on the stars. Linking to Science Fiction narratives of space exploration etc. (Encyclopedia Mythica – [web]) -The liver was once regarded as the primary organ of our being (the heart being our contemporary equivalent) where passions and pain and were felt. Both physically constructed and sociologically, with woman as inferior lesser being and implying gender determinism. This is further articulated to effect in the James Whale film (Frankenstein, 1931), where 'Henry' Frankenstein's creation is regarded as his 'first born' and notions of lineage predominate, ultimately implying he will now pursue more natural methods of (pro)creation. Frankenstein is seen by some as the first cyborg novel in its linking of technology and creation and also often cited as the first science fiction film (although there were others). For example in Andrew Niccol's Gattaca (1997), the creation of man occurs through conscious construction of the self, acknowledging that we are all constructed and acknowledging that masculinity must be reconstructed if it is to be validated. Patriarchy has worked to mythologise our relationship to (mother) nature, so that the human becomes distinct from the manufactured. What is perhaps the most vital aspect of the character Vincent in Gattaca is his acknowledgement that the body must be altered, restructured, reshaped and defined in order to pass from insignificance to significance in terms of hegemonic masculine identity. It is therefore through a reappraisal of the external that the internal gains validity. See Foucault on resemblance and similitude (in The Gendered Cyborg, 2000). See Scott Bukatman on Blade Runner in Kuhn, 1990. The tale of Prometheus had long existed in oral traditions and folklore before Hesiod wrote of it in Theogeny and Works and Days, and Aeschylus, elaborated on Hesiod, when he wrote Prometheus Bound (460B.C). Catchphrase used in the 1970's popular TV series The Six Million Dollar Man in relation to Steve Austin the 'bionic' character of the title. References Bernink, M. & Cook, P. (eds.) The Cinema Book (2nd edition). London: British Film Institute Publishing, 1999. Clute, J. Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopaedia. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995. Cohan, S. & Hark, I.R. (eds.) Screening the Male. London: Routledge, 1993. Hall, S., Held, D. & McLennan, G. (eds.) Modernity and its Futures. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press in association with The Open University, 1993. Jancovich, M. Rational Fears: American horror in the 1950's. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. Jeffords, S. Can Masculinity be Terminated? In Cohan, S. & Hark, I.R. (eds.) Screening the Male. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Kirkup, G., Janes, L., Woodward, K. & Hovenden, F. (eds.) The Gendered Cyborg: A Reader. London: Routledge, 2000. Kuhn, A. (ed.) Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema. London and New York: Verso, 1990. Sobchack, V. Screening Space. New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press 1999. Telotte, J.P. A Distant Technology: Science Fiction Film and the Machine Age, Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 2000. Telotte, J.P. Replications. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995 Bulfinch's Mythology, The Age of Fable – Chapter 2: Prometheus and Pandora: (accessed 21st March 2000) http://www.bulfinch.org/fables/bull2.html Bulfinch's Mythology: (accessed March 21st 2000) http://www.bulfinch.org.html Encyclopaedia Mythica: Greek Mythology: (accessed June 15th 2000) http://oingo.com/topic/20/20246.html Encyclopaedia Mythica: Articles (accessed 15th June 2000) http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles.html

Introduction Cookbooks are an exceptional written record of what is largely an oral tradition. They have been described as “magician’s hats” due to their ability to reveal much more than they seem to contain (Wheaton, “Finding”). The first book printed in Germany was the Guttenberg Bible in 1456 but, by 1490, printing was introduced into almost every European country (Tierney). The spread of literacy between 1500 and 1800, and the rise in silent reading, helped to create a new private sphere into which the individual could retreat, seeking refuge from the community (Chartier). This new technology had its effects in the world of cookery as in so many spheres of culture (Mennell, All Manners). Trubek notes that cookbooks are the texts most often used by culinary historians, since they usually contain all the requisite materials for analysing a cuisine: ingredients, method, technique, and presentation. Printed cookbooks, beginning in the early modern period, provide culinary historians with sources of evidence of the culinary past. Historians have argued that social differences can be expressed by the way and type of food we consume. Cookbooks are now widely accepted as valid socio-cultural and historic documents (Folch, Sherman), and indeed the link between literacy levels and the protestant tradition has been expressed through the study of Danish cookbooks (Gold). From Apicius, Taillevent, La Varenne, and Menon to Bradley, Smith, Raffald, Acton, and Beeton, how can both manuscript and printed cookbooks be analysed as historic documents? What is the difference between a manuscript and a printed cookbook? Barbara Ketchum Wheaton, who has been studying cookbooks for over half a century and is honorary curator of the culinary collection in Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, has developed a methodology to read historic cookbooks using a structured approach. For a number of years she has been giving seminars to scholars from multidisciplinary fields on how to read historic cookbooks. This paper draws on the author’s experiences attending Wheaton’s seminar in Harvard, and on supervising the use of this methodology at both Masters and Doctoral level (Cashman; Mac Con Iomaire, and Cashman). Manuscripts versus Printed Cookbooks A fundamental difference exists between manuscript and printed cookbooks in their relationship with the public and private domain. Manuscript cookbooks are by their very essence intimate, relatively unedited and written with an eye to private circulation. Culinary manuscripts follow the diurnal and annual tasks of the household. They contain recipes for cures and restoratives, recipes for cleansing products for the house and the body, as well as the expected recipes for cooking and preserving all manners of food. Whether manuscript or printed cookbook, the recipes contained within often act as a reminder of how laborious the production of food could be in the pre-industrialised world (White). Printed cookbooks draw oxygen from the very fact of being public. They assume a “literate population with sufficient discretionary income to invest in texts that commodify knowledge” (Folch). This process of commoditisation brings knowledge from the private to the public sphere. There exists a subset of cookbooks that straddle this divide, for example, Mrs. Rundell’s A New System of Domestic Cookery (1806), which brought to the public domain her distillation of a lifetime of domestic experience. Originally intended for her daughters alone, Rundell’s book was reprinted regularly during the nineteenth century with the last edition printed in 1893, when Mrs. Beeton had been enormously popular for over thirty years (Mac Con Iomaire, and Cashman). Barbara Ketchum Wheaton’s Structured Approach Cookbooks can be rewarding, surprising and illuminating when read carefully with due effort in understanding them as cultural artefacts. However, Wheaton notes that: “One may read a single old cookbook and find it immensely entertaining. One may read two and begin to find intriguing similarities and differences. When the third cookbook is read, one’s mind begins to blur, and one begins to sense the need for some sort of method in approaching these documents” (“Finding”). Following decades of studying cookbooks from both sides of the Atlantic and writing a seminal text on the French at table from 1300-1789 (Wheaton, Savouring the Past), this combined experience negotiating cookbooks as historical documents was codified, and a structured approach gradually articulated and shared within a week long seminar format. In studying any cookbook, regardless of era or country of origin, the text is broken down into five different groupings, to wit: ingredients; equipment or facilities; the meal; the book as a whole; and, finally, the worldview. A particular strength of Wheaton’s seminars is the multidisciplinary nature of the approaches of students who attend, which throws the study of cookbooks open to wide ranging techniques. Students with a purely scientific training unearth interesting patterns by developing databases of the frequency of ingredients or techniques, and cross referencing them with other books from similar or different timelines or geographical regions. Patterns are displayed in graphs or charts. Linguists offer their own unique lens to study cookbooks, whereas anthropologists and historians ask what these objects can tell us about how our ancestors lived and drew meaning from life. This process is continuously refined, and each grouping is discussed below. Ingredients The geographic origins of the ingredients are of interest, as is the seasonality and the cost of the foodstuffs within the scope of each cookbook, as well as the sensory quality both separately and combined within different recipes. In the medieval period, the use of spices and large joints of butchers meat and game were symbols of wealth and status. However, when the discovery of sea routes to the New World and to the Far East made spices more available and affordable to the middle classes, the upper classes spurned them. Evidence from culinary manuscripts in Georgian Ireland, for example, suggests that galangal was more easily available in Dublin during the eighteenth century than in the mid-twentieth century. A new aesthetic, articulated by La Varenne in his Le Cuisinier Francois (1651), heralded that food should taste of itself, and so exotic ingredients such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger were replaced by the local bouquet garni, and stocks and sauces became the foundations of French haute cuisine (Mac Con Iomaire). Some combinations of flavours and ingredients were based on humoral physiology, a long held belief system based on the writings of Hippocrates and Galen, now discredited by modern scientific understanding. The four humors are blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. It was believed that each of these humors would wax and wane in the body, depending on diet and activity. Galen (131-201 AD) believed that warm food produced yellow bile and that cold food produced phlegm. It is difficult to fathom some combinations of ingredients or the manner of service without comprehending the contemporary context within they were consumeSome ingredients found in Roman cookbooks, such as “garum” or “silphium” are no longer available. It is suggested that the nearest substitute for garum also known as “liquamen”—a fermented fish sauce—would be Naam Plaa, or Thai fish sauce (Grainger). Ingredients such as tea and white bread, moved from the prerogative of the wealthy over time to become the staple of the urban poor. These ingredients, therefore, symbolise radically differing contexts during the seventeenth century than in the early twentieth century. Indeed, there are other ingredients such as hominy (dried maize kernel treated with alkali) or grahams (crackers made from graham flour) found in American cookbooks that require translation to the unacquainted non-American reader. There has been a growing number of food encyclopaedias published in recent years that assist scholars in identifying such commodities (Smith, Katz, Davidson). The Cook’s Workplace, Techniques, and Equipment It is important to be aware of the type of kitchen equipment used, the management of heat and cold within the kitchen, and also the gradual spread of the industrial revolution into the domestic sphere. Visits to historic castles such as Hampton Court Palace where nowadays archaeologists re-enact life below stairs in Tudor times give a glimpse as to how difficult and labour intensive food production was. Meat was spit-roasted in front of huge fires by spit boys. Forcemeats and purees were manually pulped using mortar and pestles. Various technological developments including spit-dogs, and mechanised pulleys, replaced the spit boys, the most up to date being the mechanised rotisserie. The technological advancements of two hundred years can be seen in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton where Marie-Antoinin Carême worked for the Prince Regent in 1816 (Brighton Pavilion), but despite the gleaming copper pans and high ceilings for ventilation, the work was still back breaking. Carême died aged forty-nine, “burnt out by the flame of his genius and the fumes of his ovens” (Ackerman 90). Mennell points out that his fame outlived him, resting on his books: Le Pâtissier Royal Parisien (1815); Le Pâtissier Pittoresque (1815); Le Maître d’Hôtel Français (1822); Le Cuisinier Parisien (1828); and, finally, L’Art de la Cuisine Française au Dix-Neuvième Siècle (1833–5), which was finished posthumously by his student Pluméry (All Manners). Mennell suggests that these books embody the first paradigm of professional French cuisine (in Kuhn’s terminology), pointing out that “no previous work had so comprehensively codified the field nor established its dominance as a point of reference for the whole profession in the way that Carême did” (All Manners 149). The most dramatic technological changes came after the industrial revolution. Although there were built up ovens available in bakeries and in large Norman households, the period of general acceptance of new cooking equipment that enclosed fire (such as the Aga stove) is from c.1860 to 1910, with gas ovens following in c.1910 to the 1920s) and Electricity from c.1930. New food processing techniques dates are as follows: canning (1860s), cooling and freezing (1880s), freeze drying (1950s), and motorised delivery vans with cooking (1920s–1950s) (den Hartog). It must also be noted that the supply of fresh food, and fish particularly, radically improved following the birth, and expansion of, the railways. To understand the context of the cookbook, one needs to be aware of the limits of the technology available to the users of those cookbooks. For many lower to middle class families during the twentieth century, the first cookbook they would possess came with their gas or electrical oven. Meals One can follow cooked dishes from the kitchen to the eating place, observing food presentation, carving, sequencing, and serving of the meal and table etiquette. Meal times and structure changed over time. During the Middle Ages, people usually ate two meals a day: a substantial dinner around noon and a light supper in the evening (Adamson). Some of the most important factors to consider are the manner in which meals were served: either à la française or à la russe. One of the main changes that occurred during the nineteenth century was the slow but gradual transfer from service à la française to service à la russe. From medieval times to the middle of the nineteenth century the structure of a formal meal was not by “courses”—as the term is now understood—but by “services”. Each service could comprise of a choice of dishes—both sweet and savoury—from which each guest could select what appealed to him or her most (Davidson). The philosophy behind this form of service was the forementioned humoral physiology— where each diner chose food based on the four humours of blood, yellow bile, black bile, or phlegm. Also known as le grand couvert, the à la française method made it impossible for the diners to eat anything that was beyond arm’s length (Blake, and Crewe). Smooth service, however, was the key to an effective à la russe dinner since servants controlled the flow of food (Eatwell). The taste and temperature of food took centre stage with the à la russe dinner as each course came in sequence. Many historic cookbooks offer table plans illustrating the suggested arrangement of dishes on a table for the à la française style of service. Many of these dishes might be re-used in later meals, and some dishes such as hashes and rissoles often utilised left over components of previous meals. There is a whole genre of cookbooks informing the middle class cooks how to be frugal and also how to emulate haute cuisine using cheaper or ersatz ingredients. The number dining and the manner in which they dined also changed dramatically over time. From medieval to Tudor times, there might be hundreds dining in large banqueting halls. By the Elizabethan age, a small intimate room where master and family dined alone replaced the old dining hall where master, servants, guests, and travellers had previously dined together (Spencer). Dining tables remained portable until the 1780s when tables with removable leaves were devised. By this time, the bread trencher had been replaced by one made of wood, or plate of pewter or precious metal in wealthier houses. Hosts began providing knives and spoons for their guests by the seventeenth century, with forks also appearing but not fully accepted until the eighteenth century (Mason). These silver utensils were usually marked with the owner’s initials to prevent their theft (Flandrin). Cookbooks as Objects and the World of Publishing A thorough examination of the manuscript or printed cookbook can reveal their physical qualities, including indications of post-publication history, the recipes and other matter in them, as well as the language, organization, and other individual qualities. What can the quality of the paper tell us about the book? Is there a frontispiece? Is the book dedicated to an employer or a patron? Does the author note previous employment history in the introduction? In his Court Cookery, Robert Smith, for example, not only mentions a number of his previous employers, but also outlines that he was eight years working with Patrick Lamb in the Court of King William, before revealing that several dishes published in Lamb’s Royal Cookery (1710) “were never made or practis’d (sic) by him and others are extreme defective and imperfect and made up of dishes unknown to him; and several of them more calculated at the purses than the Gôut of the guests”. Both Lamb and Smith worked for the English monarchy, nobility, and gentry, but produced French cuisine. Not all Britons were enamoured with France, however, with, for example Hannah Glasse asserting “if gentlemen will have French cooks, they must pay for French tricks” (4), and “So much is the blind folly of this age, that they would rather be imposed on by a French Booby, than give encouragement to an good English cook” (ctd. in Trubek 60). Spencer contextualises Glasse’s culinary Francophobia, explaining that whilst she was writing the book, the Jacobite army were only a few days march from London, threatening to cut short the Hanoverian lineage. However, Lehmann points out that whilst Glasse was overtly hostile to French cuisine, she simultaneously plagiarised its receipts. Based on this trickling down of French influences, Mennell argues that “there is really no such thing as a pure-bred English cookery book” (All Manners 98), but that within the assimilation and simplification, a recognisable English style was discernable. Mennell also asserts that Glasse and her fellow women writers had an enormous role in the social history of cooking despite their lack of technical originality (“Plagiarism”). It is also important to consider the place of cookbooks within the history of publishing. Albala provides an overview of the immense outpouring of dietary literature from the printing presses from the 1470s. He divides the Renaissance into three periods: Period I Courtly Dietaries (1470–1530)—targeted at the courtiers with advice to those attending banquets with many courses and lots of wine; Period II The Galenic Revival (1530–1570)—with a deeper appreciation, and sometimes adulation, of Galen, and when scholarship took centre stage over practical use. Finally Period III The Breakdown of Orthodoxy (1570–1650)—when, due to the ambiguities and disagreements within and between authoritative texts, authors were freer to pick the ideas that best suited their own. Nutrition guides were consistent bestsellers, and ranged from small handbooks written in the vernacular for lay audiences, to massive Latin tomes intended for practicing physicians. Albala adds that “anyone with an interest in food appears to have felt qualified to pen his own nutritional guide” (1). Would we have heard about Mrs. Beeton if her husband had not been a publisher? How could a twenty-five year old amass such a wealth of experience in household management? What role has plagiarism played in the history of cookbooks? It is interesting to note that a well worn copy of her book (Beeton) was found in the studio of Francis Bacon and it is suggested that he drew inspiration for a number of his paintings from the colour plates of animal carcasses and butcher’s meat (Dawson). Analysing the post-publication usage of cookbooks is valuable to see the most popular recipes, the annotations left by the owner(s) or user(s), and also if any letters, handwritten recipes, or newspaper clippings are stored within the leaves of the cookbook. The Reader, the Cook, the Eater The physical and inner lives and needs and skills of the individuals who used cookbooks and who ate their meals merit consideration. Books by their nature imply literacy. Who is the book’s audience? Is it the cook or is it the lady of the house who will dictate instructions to the cook? Numeracy and measurement is also important. Where clocks or pocket watches were not widely available, authors such as seventeenth century recipe writer Sir Kenelm Digby would time his cooking by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Literacy amongst protestant women to enable them to read the Bible, also enabled them to read cookbooks (Gold). How did the reader or eater’s religion affect the food practices? Were there fast days? Were there substitute foods for fast days? What about special occasions? Do historic cookbooks only tell us about the food of the middle and upper classes? It is widely accepted today that certain cookbook authors appeal to confident cooks, while others appeal to competent cooks, and others still to more cautious cooks (Bilton). This has always been the case, as has the differentiation between the cookbook aimed at the professional cook rather than the amateur. Historically, male cookbook authors such as Patrick Lamb (1650–1709) and Robert Smith targeted the professional cook market and the nobility and gentry, whereas female authors such as Eliza Acton (1799–1859) and Isabella Beeton (1836–1865) often targeted the middle class market that aspired to emulate their superiors’ fashions in food and dining. How about Tavern or Restaurant cooks? When did they start to put pen to paper, and did what they wrote reflect the food they produced in public eateries? Conclusions This paper has offered an overview of Barbara Ketchum Wheaton’s methodology for reading historic cookbooks using a structured approach. It has highlighted some of the questions scholars and researchers might ask when faced with an old cookbook, regardless of era or geographical location. By systematically examining the book under the headings of ingredients; the cook’s workplace, techniques and equipment; the meals; cookbooks as objects and the world of publishing; and reader, cook and eater, the scholar can perform magic and extract much more from the cookbook than seems to be there on first appearance. References Ackerman, Roy. The Chef's Apprentice. London: Headline, 1988. Adamson, Melitta Weiss. Food in Medieval Times. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood P, 2004. Albala, Ken. Eating Right in the Renaissance. Ed. Darra Goldstein. Berkeley: U of California P, 2002. Beeton, Isabella. Beeton's Book of Household Management. London: S. Beeton, 1861. 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