About this item
If you're one of the 200 million Americans who drink coffee every day, you may have marveled at the ubiquitous plastic coffee cup lid, with its clever combination of indentations, protrusions, tabs, and score lines that can be pinched, pulled, pushed, punctured, and tucked to create an opening to sip from while also keeping a piping-hot liquid in its place. Louise Harpman and Scott Specht have collected these familiar triumphs of industrial design, in their many variations, for decades, creating what Smithsonian magazine calls the world's largest collection of coffee cup lids. In addition to oddly compelling close-up photographs, Harpman and Specht include lively field-guides to their classification system and patent drawings for many of the most unique designs.
About the Author
Louise Harpman is the founder and principal of Louise Harpman__PROJECTS whose work focuses on architectural design, design research, and urban design. Her website is www.louiseharpman.com.
Before founding PROJECTS, Louise Harpman was, for 20 years, a principal in the architecture and design firm Specht Harpman. Specht Harpman was recognized in Wallpaper* magazine's Architects' Directory as one of the "top 50 up and coming architectural practices from around the world." The firm received multiple Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects and was named Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York. The firm's designs were featured at the Museum of Modern Art, the Municipal Art Society, the Van Alen Institute, and in gallery shows in the US and UK. Specht and Harpman were named "Tastemakers" by House and Garden magazine and were frequently listed as New York City's "Top 100" architects by New York magazine.
Louise Harpman is Associate Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. She taught previously at the Yale School of Architecture, the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, and the University of Pennsylvania. She was Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs at the University of Texas at Austin.
