Alexander Miles, American inventor, patented an electric elevator 11 October 1887
Richard Meier, American architect, birthday 12 October 1934
Paul T. Frankl, Austrian-born furniture designer, painter & architect, birthday 14 October 1886
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Although Alexander Miles did not invent the elevator, nor
even the electric elevator, the innovation in his 1887 patent improved the
overall safety of the contraption that still was not entirely comfortable with
the general population. With U.S. Patent
#371207, Miles improve the method by which the doors opened and closed so as to
protect passengers from falling into the elevator shaft, which was still a real
danger at the time. His mechanism
automatically closed access to the shaft when the car was not properly aligned
with the desired floor. As buildings
climbed higher and higher, this advancement helped the public adapt to the
ever-growing cityscape. Imagine falling
from the top floor of the Burj Khalifa because someone forgot to close the
elevator door all the way. 
Speaking of the Burj, the legendary firm that designed the
tower, S.O.M. has fostered a fair share of burgeoning architects including a
brief stent in 1959 by Richard Meier who would become one of the famed New York
Five. He would also go on to work under
Marcel Breuer, no doubt encouraged by his fascination with the work of Le
Corbusier. It has been argued that Meier
perfected Corbu’s own theories of architecture more so than the master
himself. 
Known as the “White Architect”,
he espouses that white is in fact the rainbow of all colors in that it reflects
the hues of the environment in which it resides. One look at Meier’s Douglas House nestled
among the green hillside and you understand his three essential concepts: Light, Color
& Place. Meier, like Hejduk,
experiments with plain geometry and at the same time allows light & shadow
to become part of the comprehension of the total space. It is as if he has fully embraced the fourth
dimension, time, to complete the spacial composition. Other buildings by Meier include the Getty
Center in Los Angeles, California (1997), the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary
Art, Spain (1995) and the controversial Arca Pacis in Rome, Italy (2006) where
recently a compromise has been made to reduce the site wall to improve the view
to the river. 
Inspired by the soaring heights buildings were reaching
thanks to the invention of the elevator, Paul Frankl ventured into furniture
design which became known as “Skyscraper Furniture”. When he emigrated to New York City in 1914
after studying at the Berlin Polytechnic (as did Alfred Stiglitz), he embraced
new materials with his furniture such as cork veneers and metal, shaping what
would become known as the American modern aesthetic. After moving to the west coast, Frankl’s work
trended more toward biomorphic shapes which were reflective of clothing
fashions of the time. Until his death in
1958, Frankl was a vocal proponent of the modern design movement in numerous
writings helping to validate these emerging designs into popular culture. 
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