Aircraft

In his celebrated manifesto, Aircraft (1935), the architect Le Corbusier presented more than 100 photographs celebrating aircraft either in imperious flight or elegant rest. Dwelling on the artfully abstracted shapes of noses, wings and tails, he declared: 'Ponder a moment on the truth of these objects! Clearness of function!' In Aircraft David Pascoe follows this lead and offers a startling new account of the form of the aeroplane, an object that, in the course of 100 years, has developed from a flimsy contraption of wood, wire and canvas into a machine compounded of exotic materials whose wings can touch the edges of space.
Tracing the aircraft through the 20th century, David Pascoe considers if from a number of perspectives: as an inspiration for artists, architects and politicians: as a miracle of engineering; as a product of industrialized culture: as a device of military ambition; and, finally, in its clearness of function, as an instance of sublinic technology.
Profusely illustrated, authoritatively written, Aircraft offers not just a fresh account of aeronautical design, documenting, in particular, the forms of earlier flying machines and the dependence of later projects on them, but also provides a cultural history of an object whose very shape contains both the dreams and nightmares of the modern age.

David Pascoe is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Glasgow.