Kosmos: A Portrait of the Russian Space Age
Princeton Architectural Press, 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. Item #182711
ISBN: 1568983085
176 pages. 11-3/8 by 9-3/4. Photo reproductions depicting 'the invisible men and the secret masters behind the Soviet space exploration' -- from the essay. Images printed in color, one per page, sometimes recto only. Notes on the photos are cataloged in a 9-page section. First edition (first printing). Brown cloth bound with a silk bookmarker. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Minor edge wear. Inscribed on the title page by Bartos to a former Ford Foundation exec: 'with best wishes, Adam Bartos.'.
The Space Race was an exhilirating moment in history, alternately frighten-ing, thrilling, awe-inspiring, and ultimately, sublime. Its most enigmatic element was the competition. The Soviets seemed less technologically sophisticated (at least from the American perspective) but in fact won many of the races: first satellite to orbit the earth; first man in space; first unmanned landings on Mars, Venus, and the Moon; first woman in space; most powerful rockets; and, until its recent fiery death, the most long-lived space station to name but a few. The inherent contradictions of the age--the mixture of technologies high and low, of nostalgia and progress, of pathos and promise--are revealed in Kosmos, Adam Bartos's astonishing photographic survey of the Soviet space program. Bartos' fascination with this subject led him to seek out places like the bedroom where Yuri Gagarian slept the night before his history-making flight into space, located in the Baiknour Cosmodrome, the one-time top-secret space complex in the Kazakh desert. Bartos also takes us inside the cockpit of the Merkur space capsule, used to ferry crew members and supplies to the super-secret Almaz orbital space stations, and behind the changing screens cosmonauts used before being fitted for their space suits at Zvezda, the chief manufacturer of Soviet life-support systems. In total, Kosmos presents over 100 of Bartos's photographs, rich with the incongruities of the history, science, culture, and politics of the Space Age. Professor Svetlana Boym's insightful introduction to the technological and cultural aspects of Soviet space exploration provides a fitting context for the photographs. For anyone interested in the space age, Kosmos is an essential and fascinating portrait.
Price: $75.00