Shipping Container (Object Lessons) by Craig Martin

Object Lessons

by Craig Martin

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

The shipping container is all around: whizzing by on the highway, trundling past on rails, unloading behind a big box store even as you shop there, clanking on the docks just out of sight…. 90% of the goods and materials that move around the globe do so in shipping containers. It is an absolutely ubiquitous object, even if most of us have no direct contact with it. But what is this thing? Where has it been, and where is it going? Craig Martin's book illuminates the “development of containerization”-including design history, standardization, aesthetics, and a surprising speculative discussion of the futurity of shipping containers.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Technology, Anthropology

Paperback

First published August 27, 2015

Reviews

[TNVR · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very breezy history and discussion of the intermodal shipping container. It might be a good, short introductory text for anyone unacquainted with the ‘revolution in logistics,’ but otherwise Martin largely repeats what everyone else says about containerization with less elaboration. The main (correct) thesis of the book is that the major innovation of containerization was not the container as such—various kinds of containers had been used to ship goods for a while—but the standardization of both the shipping container and the entire infrastructure of transportation across different modalities (rail, ship, truck, etc.). Much of the book is then devoted to a discussion of modularity, repetition, and intermodality.

I found the book most useful in providing tidbits of information and technical details that I wasn’t entirely aware of, for instance in Martin’s discussion of corner fitting, the twist-lock, and the sizes of shipping containers (37-42). I also liked his brief discussion (via Reyner Banham) of container ports’ tendency towards flatness or horizontality, speed and ‘smoothness’ requiring the construction of a flat surface upon which vehicles can move and containers can be stacked. This was clarifying to me as another reason for ports’ tendency to be located away from urban centers (“given the density of urban space”) and nicely complements an earlier article by Martin on the material construction of logistics’ imaginary of a global surface for economic flows.

Overall, this is just a book for the casual reader interested in learning a few facts about shipping containers—not a surprise, of course, given the publisher and book size.

[Katie Parsons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of interesting tidbits about...you guessed it...shipping containers! Consumerism, globalization, logistics, design, The Wire... All are touched upon in this brief exploration of a ubiquitous but mostly ignored object.

Fewer stars because I don't love it when the author devolves into design-jargon-babble, but that's kind of par for the course with this kind of book.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up in Sydney Harbor, at the maritime history museum bookshop. It's part of the object lesson series - an investigation of every day objects and the space they hold in our daily lives. This is the first I've read - and it took me a while! It's dry - it's written closer in style to an academic essay - and rigorous. At times it belabors or repeats previously made points - though that again is the style of an academic proof paper. So that's part of what made it a little hard to churn through its 108 pages.

However, like all academic reading, if you follow the sources, from the McKinsey article that first proposed shipping on a global scale, to Adhocism, one of the books at the end as it explores container cargo-tecture, you find a rich vein of ideas tied together.

At the end of the day, big shipping interests me. This was a good book to read for its works cited, and for the thorough nature in which the author outlines the history of the shipping container, its physical and tangible impacts, and an unexpected place to explore the philosophical and moral ramifications of being able to put anything in a box, and by boat, by rail, by truck, get it anywhere in the world without ever looking inside at what's due to arrive.

[Pascal Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is my first object lessons book and i really love the whole idea,, this was a really interesting read and was clearly well thought out and researched. im only giving it two stars because i hoped it would be more than that. like it i feel like i know so much more about shipping containers and how much meaning they as objects hold but i wish it talked more about the art world! i can see that if i was an artist interested in making works about or using shipping containers this would be the most perfect book ....but im not .... im just a silly little reader who wants to know about how art affects our world. i feel like this book didnt move me in any one way or another to feel about the massive shipping system that exists and i wish it did.. i do feel like i know so much about shipping containers now tho so thats good.
basically this book was really well researched and interesting but wasnt what i wanted from an art book or a book about the larger supply and demand chain

[Nikki Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is part of a series called Object Lessons - which is a series about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

This one being about the shipping container and how it is used from transporting goods across the sea, to now being used to create liveable and usable spaces - which I do think is pretty cool.

Unfortunately other than the stories about the rubber ducks, containers being washed up on a beach and the x-ray machine used to check containers, I really can’t tell you much else of what this book was about - filled with language that my brain just couldn’t comprehend and things that I just didn’t find relevant.

This girl needs things in laymen’s terms.

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this for a class so it kind of diminished from me actually enjoying the book- but for a girl who doesn’t love non fiction this was a surprisingly good read. It makes you think very differently about materialism and how human life and consumerism actually functions all while focusing on a seemingly simple object. If you’re into consumer history or world trade networking it’s a pretty interesting book.

[Vinayak Hegde · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short and sweet book (which could be even shorter) on the design, history and evolution of the ubiquitous shipping container. It is also a short history of consumer, globalization and shipping logistics. There is some useful and interesting information in this book but it could have benefited with more drawings about container design and photos of containers used in architecture.

[Lihong Chew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who would think a book about an object as commonplace as the shipping container could hold my attention for hours? I love the format of this series of books about objects we take for granted. In studying the objects we create, we study ourselves. Somewhat an anthropological take on objects.

[Noa Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first in this series. Started off with excellent detail and storytelling that unfortunately fell away and left a rather unfulfilling 2nd half. An interesting surface level analysis of the topic but which could have gone further given more pages.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of titles is really interesting, about some things that we may see every day and possibly take for granted. If you're interested in everyday 'things', add this series to your list.

[LOL_BOOKS]

WHAT ARE YOU READING, JUST FINISHED OR ARE PLANNING TO READ? I WANT TO PUT SOME NEW STUFF IN MY KINDLE.

I JUST READ "SHIPPING CONTAINER". DON'T BUY IT BECAUSE IT'S ONLY LIKE 100 PAGES, BUT IT WAS WEIRDLY INTERESTING.