"Real" Telephones

[Pangloss62]

It remains the most intimate technological device known to mankind. I speak here -the word "speak" being the key- of the telephone. Bad news, good news, death, divorce, romance, the telephone allows otherwise mute and disparate humans to express in real time the complete range of language and emotion.

But ever since the dawn of wireless, the phone itself has morphed into a disturbingly portable and convienient entity, so much so that any trivial thought or picayune piece of information is now worthy of being communicated at any time and at anyplace. Ironically, now even formerly priviledged and personal information -"I'm having a really heavy period this month"- is blathered in public as if the latter does not exist.

This is why I still embrace the venerable land line and the Western Electric telephones of Ma Bell. There is no more beautiful marriage of sculptural form and technological perfection than the Henry Dreyfuss-designed telephone (1938-1963). I have several old but ever-dependable Western Electric telephones. They are are beautiful to look at and to hold. Because they were leased rather than sold, each had to be built to withstand decades of use. That utilitarian imperative led to a "form follows function" beauty not seen since the Bauhaus.

My personal favorite is the Trimline, an often-copied but never duplicated work of techno-art. The Trimline was Dreyfuss' last design before he and his wife killed themselves with carbon monoxide in 1972 (his wife was dying of Cancer and preferred to go quietly with her). The telephone would never be the same.


Trimline. A sublime object of art and technology, both its dial-in-handset and Touch Tone models.