PHEA – The Plastics Heritage European Association. Hipoms – Historic Polymeric Materials.

On 08/09 January 2018, PHEA, the Plastics Heritage European Association was founded in the Brussels Design Museum ADAM. Coming from 10 European countries, 18 representatives from different organisations (universities, museums, national societies) decided to establish PHEA, the Plastics Heritage European Association.PHEA’s intention is to build up a network of European organisations with the focus on activities relating to and the research on plastics heritage and ‘Historic Polymeric Materials’ (‘Hipoms’

Poliversal-Plasteme: 50 Years of Commercial and Industrial Success in Quality and Innovation

Established 1966 in Luanda, Angola, by Portuguese businessman Armando Augusto Morais, the company Ultramar Comercial had already asserted its market position as the exclusive product distributor of the Italian petrochemical company Montedison in the Portuguese overseas provinces. Driven by political-historical forces to move, via Brazil, to its Lusitanian homeland, today’s Poliversal-Plasteme plastics company has found its place among the producers and distributors of plastics masterbatches in Portugal in these five decades

The Use of Plastics in Soviet Household Appliances. Plastics Rarities from the Collection of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum

In the first half of the 20th century, two main types of plastics were produced in industrial volumes in the USSR – cellulose nitrate and phenolic resins. At first, these materials were used to make household items and some electrotechnical products. The most interesting of them are represented in the collection of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum, one of the oldest science museums in the world, founded in 1872. The first models of home vacuum-cleaners and washing devices with cases made entirely of phenolic resin appeared in the USSR in the late 1940s. While the range of household appliances produced expanded after the middle of the 20th century, production of household electric vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and refrigerators continued. To begin with, these novel devices were produced for only a short time. For the curators and researchers of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum, these rare examples are unique and valuable objects for studying and preservation

Hermann Mark – A Pioneer of Polymer Science

Hermann Mark can be credited for being one of the founders of the field of polymer science and for being the father of polymer education in the United States. From the beginning, Hermann Mark understood how polymers behaved as they underwent temperature changes or as they were deformed. Over his long and productive lifetime, Hermann Mark published 20 books and over 500 articles. His Institute of Polymer Science at the Brooklyn Polytechnic University in New York served as the incubator for some of the most notable polymer scientists of the second half of the twentieth century

Let’s pretend – conservation of an early imitation tortoiseshell.

Tortoiseshell has been used as a decorative material in the arts since the beginning of recorded history. It has always been scarce and is therefore often imitated. Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, has a cabinet from the 1840’s in its collection with a rare imitation finish: itis not horn, nor is it one of the semi-synthetic plastics that were developed in the nineteenth century. Over time the finish had become dull, cracked, distorted and fragments have chipped off. In order to develop an appropriate method of treatment, it was necessary to study its composition and material properties. It proved to be a rare imitation material, made outof animal glue

Publicising Plastic and Plasticising Public in Ralf Schüler and Ursulina Schüler-Witte’s ‘Indapt System’ (1970-72)

In architecture, external factors are often seen as the cause of a work not being brought to completion. I believe that often the reasons for a scheme not being implemented are to be found not externally but rather in the fine detail of the job itself. I will consider the case of Ralf Schüler and Ursulina Schüler-Witte’s ‘Indapt System’ (1970-72) and show how the contributors, the work produced, and the research project’s structure may have contributed to BASF’s decision not to build the plastics megastructure. This decision has been attributed to the Oil Crisis of 1973. Instead, I will outline a causal relationship between the protagonists - Schüler, Schüler-Witte, Robert Jungk, Norbert Adrian and Otto Walter Haseloff - and their plans for modular plastics housing, and their failure to instruct BASF on what type of polymer to use. With that, the group members proposed a view of plastic less as architectural material and more as social ideal, something also reflected in the contributors’ various specialisms. The ‘Indapt System’’s model had greatest impact outside the architectural community. Interpreting this finding, the work will end by contending that, rather than producing architectural knowledge, the principle aim of architectural research should be to create public knowledge of architecture through communication or restoring publicness in architecture

The Museum of the Comb and Plastics Industry in Oyonnax

The Museum of the Comb and Plastics Industry (‘Musée du Peigne et de la Plasturgie‘) in Oyonnax, France is dedicated to the decorative arts and the plastics industry that mark the industrial history of the town of Oyonnax and its valley. Describing its history and development has made for a museum rich in collections connected to plastics, showing the world of fashion, and the art of hairdressing and design

An Interdisciplinary Project on the History of Plastics in Portugal

This work aims to investigate aspects of the history of plastics in Portugal and document how these materials are related to social, economic, cultural, artistic, industrial, energetic and environmental trends, in order to better understand the contemporary material world, by establishing a national plastics museum collection

Boosting Plastics’ Image? Communicative Challenges of Innovative Bioplastics

Image-boost versus green washing – are bioplastics able to overcome the negative image and drawbacks associated with petroleumbased plastics? Qualitative research through focus groups reveal a skeptical consumer perception on topics related to bioplastics such as land use and genetic engineering as well as a general lack of knowledge about bioplastics

The Malleable Glass of the Ancients

For centuries, alchemists tirelessly sought to create a transparent material that was at the same time flexible, i.e. the ‘malleable glass’ of ancient times. The intensive work of our forefathers in alchemy was in fact not in vain, because it led to the transmutation, not of base metals into gold, but rather of a secret, hermetic, cryptic and often obscure field of activity into modern chemistry and polymer science, with all its astonishing contemporary success