TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

Alongside this transformation of listening into a domestic activity, the audio equipment industry also met a growing desire for portability. Built into a leather valise, Paillard’s “portable” or, in German, its “Reiseapparat,” was the gramophone in fashion in the late 1920s. Usually weighing less than ten kilograms, its spring-driven motor meant it could be operated anywhere and taken along on a holiday or a voyage. The user’s mobility was interiorized in the device-in-a-suitcase, designed to fold and close on itself. Similar concerns affected the design of radios for the colonial market, which the company sought to make more compact, mobile and sturdy.