I was very interested in reading this but I was one of the lucky unfortunates who did become sick but it never became life threatening. It did, however, make reading something I just couldn't make myself do and by the time I was able to read and comprehend, the copy had expired and it was no longer available. The premise sounds interesting and I hope to one day have a chance to read it.

I wanted to read this so bad!   I do not have a way to open the file, even on my computer, I cannot get Overdrive, without a chromebook, and the only tablet I have is the Kindle.  I really wish i could read this.  It looked so fun!  I wanted to post a review anyway, but it is hard when I have not really read it.

I am a bit conflicted on this book.  The jet age aesthetic is a broad and interesting topic but here it is confined to how several areas of the 1950s and 1960s (airports, Disneyland/EPCOT, photography) defined people movement/flow in the era.  As such, Saarinen's TWA and Dulles are explored in how they relate to people's comfort as they use the airport (and not as monumental architecture or places for planes), Disneyland is discussed in how it is designed to transport people around the park, and photography is discussed in terms of photographers like Ernst Haase (who became known for his out of focus or blurred images that simulated motion).  Even the term jet set is not about glamour but that people were mobile like a jet. As such, the name feels misleading (especially since I don't consider the science of people movement as 'glamorous').

Those looking for a survey on how the jet age was about movement of people will find a lot to digest here. I can't say that I agreed with a lot of the points (but then, I am not an academic, so what do I know?) and at times it felt like the author was trying too hard to pound a square peg into a round hole (read: the jet age aesthetic definition is the ease of movement and flow of people).  And while I do agree on points such as the Disneyland Monorail, People Mover, Skybuckets, Train, and Main Street vehicles all created a kineticism that is especially missed in Tomorrowland today (now that the Skybuckets and People Mover are gone). But for each of the essay areas in this piece, the focus will eventually center on one subject:  Saarinen, Disney, Haase.  Each of those three defined the points the author wanted to make about how the age is about people flow and movement.

The first section is a discussion on the airport as being not a gateway but a way of moving people efficiently from parking lot to the plane.  With the advent of jets increasing the number of travelers  and putting new requirements on gates and terminals, airports were being redesigned around the world.  LAX and Orly, Dulles and JFK are discussed since those had major airport redesigns at the time.  The author argues that the architects were more concerned about the people than the planes.  From changing ticketing kiosks to positioning of the parking lots, to making sure passengers didn't have long walks in tunnels.  Orly was especially discussed due to its new (for the time) view platform that attracted more visitors than other major tourists stops in Paris. The recurring theme is that airports had to knowingly be rebuilt or redesigned with the idea that they will constantly need updating.

Similarly, the next topic of the book is Walt Disney's focus on transportation in the park and how original that was at the time for amusement parks.  We're not given a history of the park's transportation or how they came about - just that Walt included so many ways to ensure his guests had free movement at Disneyland.  This section felt a bit shallow - as if to try to say that Walt was obsessed with transportation at Disneyland and even that he loved trains because he was obsessed with transportation.  Even EPCOT (the original city plan, not the current park) was about transportation being the key element of utopian living and the raison d'etre of Walt's concept for a perfect city design.

The third (and fourth) section is about journalism in the age - specifically, how photo journalism defined the jet age and photographers like Ernst Haase created a new language in photography.  The first part has a lot of Ernst blurred images and discusses the impact of how magazines such as Life and movies such as The V.I.P.s defined the jet set.  It then goes on to discuss the impact of color (then new) to magazines as well as the crossover between photography and movies (as Richard Avedon did in Funny Face).

Those looking for a coffee table book on the age likely won't find it here.  All the images in the book support specific points in the essays and a lot of them are stills from movies or e.g., Haase's blurred image photography.  There are many other amazing coffee table books if you are looking for eye candy of the era; this book doesn't have a lot of them and they are small in many of the pages since the point of the book is the essay.

This book reminds me a lot of a college dissertation.  The author had a clear point of view, researched it well, and then worked to tie it all together.  But it is a dry read, very academic, and lacking a fun voice to make the topics more interesting.  I was hard pressed to get interested in printing presses and the color revolution at the time; I'm sure they contributed to the jet age aesthetic and attested to the author's meticulous research, but I didn't need to know that much detail to understand how they contributed to the jet age.

So while there were some interesting ideas in there and a lot of information, it also felt like a thesis that was turned into a book. And I can't say that I agreed with the assertions but respected that the author made good points to support them.  Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

The iconic designs that sprang from the dawn of the Jet Era are still classics today and this book gives an in-depth look at how the engineering challenges of the day led to one of the most recognisable aesthetics of the 20th century. The descriptions and photographs allow for a deep dive into the rich futuristic worlds laid out in airports, theme parks and even car design and give the reader a much better understanding of how the field of aerospace, even down to airports and support industries, informed the 50's style that is instantly familiar.

The author obviously has an excellent grasp of the subject and has passed this on without allowing the layman to get lost along the way. I very much enjoyed this book and will definitely be looking out for further reading on this subject.

Thanks to #NetGalley for the complimentary review copy of #JetAgeAesthetic

The photographs in this book are absolutely stunning and allow this book to double as a beautiful coffee table book, as well as a fairly comprehensive nonfiction account defining and telling the history of the Jet Age (~mid 1950s to early 1970s) and what this period meant for society worldwide. This is done with a particular focus on spaces such as airports and theme parks (Disneyland) and a focus on mass media and photojournalism (Ernst Haas). The author starts with an introduction describing the basic timeline and impacts, then goes into detail about various aspects in four generously-illustrated chapters. To be frank, I was expecting a generic photography book with a couple of paragraph-long captions here and there but mostly devoid of text, so this book's comprehensive chapters were pleasantly surprising.

If you wanted to get this book for the photographs alone, it would be worth it. The Jet Age, for the purposes of this book, is from about 1955 to 1970, although there are no definite boundaries. It's mid century modern in all its glory, and there are the ads, album covers, photographs, and movie & TV stills that illustrate why so many of us are still in love with that look. Once you've finished lingering over the pictures, consider Vanessa Schwartz's proposal, that the jet airplane changed the way we look at art, architecture, design, everything. After the first part, which considers the rise of the jet in the modern imagination, she pivots to Disneyland. I am a long time haunter of airports and I also love Disneyland. But I never thought to connect the two until reading the persuasive arguments in Jet Age Aesthetic. From there, Schwartz proceeds to the photographic innovations of photojournalists in general and then of Ernst Haas in particular. I was not familiar with his work, so this was very interesting. Intriguing arguments and dazzling images make this an irresistible pick. (Thanks to Yale University Press and NetGalley for a digital review copy.)