The Ice Palace That Melted Away: Restoring Civility and Other Lost Virtues to Everyday Life

The ice palace of the title was an elaborate castle in St. Paul made up of 350-pound blocks of ice enclosing colored electric lights. The labor of architects, engineers and electricians was donated, and for Stumpf it symbolizes a sense of community and the love of play and pleasure that used to characterize America, in contrast to today's emphasis on speed, utility and function. In a sometimes rambling, occasionally crotchety, often nostalgic, but consistently engaging book, Stumpf exhorts us to recapture those qualities that he classifies as ""civility."" The term is stretched somewhat out of shape to include ""grace, comfort, hidden goodness, social lubrication, personal worth, and helping others"" as well as joy, compassion, trust and good will. Being a designer himself, Stumpf sees design as the means for transforming society to the ideal of civility--humane design of ""things, places, and paths."" This includes everything from 747s with domes to supermarket bags with handles, fresh baked bread at McDonald's to clear sight lines in cinemas, eating uninjected sweet corn to designing a way of growing old. Since Stimpf defines design as giving order to objects, community, environment and behavior, perhaps this breadth is justified. However, too much may be claimed for the power of good design to transform life, and the world of the past may not have been all that exemplary. Things aren't what they used to be, but then they never were. (Oct.)