Category: Everyday Design
Plastic: Remaking Our World at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein
In 1997 Euro-popsters Aqua declared that “life in plastic, it’s fantastic”.
And in 1997 a greater part of humanity would have readily, and unquestioningly, concurred with Aqua that plastic was indeed fantastic. And that plastics offered us an endlessly fantastic, undimmably bright, future.1
But that was 1997.
Last century.
An eternity ago.
And, as so oft, the passage of time has shaken once firmly held convictions and forced fundamental re-appraisals of all that which once seemed so eternal, so certain, so bright. So fantastic.
With the exhibition Plastic: Remaking Our World the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, explore the (hi)story of plastics of all ilks and in doing so not only chart the transformations in popular perceptions of plastics over the past 150 years, but also pose questions of our future use of, and our future relationships with, plastics…….
Lost Furniture Design Classics: The Gabriella Chair by Gio Ponti for Walter Ponti
“Dear Architect” wrote Maria Chinaglia Ponti in 1967 to the architect, but no relation, Gio Ponti, “why don’t you design us some modern furniture? Daddy Walter is worried because our traditional stuff is not selling as it used to”.1
An unsolicited request, from a company of whom he’d never heard, an architect of the status of a late 1960s Gio Ponti could have turned down, it wasn’t as if a late 1960s Gio Ponti needed the commission; however, something about the letter from Maria Chinaglia Ponti interested, intrigued, Gio Ponti. Beyond the shared surname. For as he continues, in his recounting of the tale, “Ci vado“.
“I went to see them”…….
Monobloc by Hauke Wendler
With furniture, as with so much in life, it is rarely the showy, high profile, works, or individuals, that teach us most, but those works, and those individuals, who in their anonymity and modesty accompany us in invisible silence.
Or rather the anonymous and quiet could teach us most, if we spent less time being distracted by, letting ourselves willingly be distracted by, the noise of the showy.
With the project Monobloc author and director Hauke Wendler, and a team of co-collaborators, offer us all an opportunity to focus on, and learn from, an object we’ve all seen and used, but only rarely, if ever, openly engaged with…….
Chairs: Dieckmann! The Forgotten Bauhäusler Erich Dieckmann at Neuwerk 11, Halle
“…one only finds warmth of life and sincerity where human nature is allowed to flourish”, opined the German designer Erich Dieckmann in 1931, “one shouldn’t forget that in our apartments. Let’s treat our contemporary homes to something humane. Something unelaborate, something provisional, with some leeway and space for things to grow as they wish over time.”1
With the exhibition Chairs: Dieckmann! The Forgotten Bauhäusler Erich Dieckmann, the Kunststiftung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt and Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin extend an invitation to explore how Erich Dieckmann understood an unelaborate, humane, contemporary apartment full of leeway and space to grow…….
Furnishing the Metaverse…….
We were obviously off ill on the day of the great global public debate about whether, given the myriad problems of contemporary societies, our resource emergencies, and the effortless manner in which we’ve managed to turn the Internet, the greatest tool ever placed at the disposal of a member of the Animalia, into a platform for hate and vanity and greed and crime; if given all that, if we all wanted to, if we all should, move to the Metaverse.
But that debate must have occurred, for the decision has been made; and ever since global society decided of its own free will that we should all move to the Metaverse those Californians who hope to reap billions of dollars from our presence there, can’t stop extolling just how utterly brilliant it’s all going to be.
Which means that slowly we do all need to start reflecting on our furniture for the Metaverse, start considering how we’re going to furnish the Metaverse once we get there……
Konstantin Grcic. New Normals at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin
Familiar as our objects and rituals of daily life are to us, to someone from the 16th century they would appear most, most, odd, just as their familiar 16th century objects and rituals would appear most, most, odd to someone from the 11th century: yet as Simon & Garfunkel teach us “that’s not unusual, No, it isn’t strange”, for as societies develop they acquire new objects and rituals, daily life continually evolves anew alongside, and in conjunction with, new objects and new rituals. And if we were to be acquainted today with objects and rituals from future societies we would consider them most, most, odd.
With the exhibition New Normals at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Konstantin Grcic presents some exceedingly odd things and in doing so invites us all to reflect on the fact that that which is not yet, will one day be…….
Spot On: Women Designers in the Collection at the Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot, Weil am Rhein
The popular (hi)story of furniture design is, no-one could argue, a very male (hi)story.1
Which doesn’t mean that furniture design is a profession at which males excel more than females, a profession for which males have a natural affinity above and beyond that of females, that females’ natural domains are textiles and colours; much more is because that popular (hi)story of furniture design contains flaws, biases, inaccuracies and under-illuminated corners.
A great many of which can be traced back to those institutions charged with recording, documenting and mediating the (hi)story of furniture design, who are responsible for nurturing and validating the popular narrative of the (hi)story of furniture design.
With the project Spot On: Women Designers in the Collection the Vitra Design Museum Schaudepot shine a critical spotlight into some of the under-illuminated corners of their own collection…….
German Design 1949–1989. Two Countries, One History at the Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden
Whereas politics, economics or sport in West Germany and East Germany are well and widely studied, and the similarities and differences regularly and publicly analysed and contextualised, thereby allowing for more refined, nuanced, popular understandings; design in and from the two Germanys remains, largely, a niche subject for a small band of specialists, and on a popular level something not only repeatedly reduced to a few works, institutions and protagonists, but also defined by understandings that, popularly, have barely changed since 1989.
With the exhibition German Design 1949–1989. Two Countries, One History the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden challenge those ingrained understandings and thereby allow for the development of more differentiated and detached perspectives……
Radio smow: A Tables Playlist…….
Of all the genres of furniture which accompany global society, none, arguably, is more self-explanatory, more obvious, than the table.
Yet for all the simplicity, or perhaps exactly because of all the simplicity, the table is, arguably, the most versatile of all the genres of furniture which accompany global society; the contemporary table existing as it does in a myriad forms and contexts.
And not just physical forms and contexts………
The Historia Supellexalis: “F” for Front
Front
An Anna; A Sofia; A Charlotte; A Katja; A Conduit.
Chairs. For children only! at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig
What is a chair?
You sure?
With the exhibition Chairs. For children only! the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, explore the (hi)story of and developments in children’s seating, and in doing so not only allow for insights into an all too often undervalued, underappreciated, ignored, genre of furniture, but also forces you to reconsider your response to what you thought was a very, very straightforward question…
Simson, Diamant, Erika. Formgestaltung von Karl Clauss Dietel at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
“In his work the designer seeks to find the constancy of the good”, wrote Karl Clauss Dietel in 1973, a lightly articulated yet not so straightforward task for, as he continues, not only is the assessment of such dependent on a myriad varying factors, but “the search for what defines design, what it grows from, where it comes from and where it wants to go, takes on new dimensions against the background of our cultural upheaval”.1
With the exhibition Simson, Diamant, Erika. Formgestaltung von Karl Clauss Dietel the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz allow insights into not only how Karl Clauss Dietel understood “what defines design, what it grows from, where it comes from and where it wants to go” but how those understandings aided and abetted him in his own search for, understanding of, “the constancy of the good”…….
Cultural Affairs. Art without Borders at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig
Although cultures very often arose in splendid isolation, only very few remained splendidly isolated for very long.
For much like a young child who having learned to walk intuitively understands what a powerful tool mobility is/can be and seeks to exploit it to the fullness of their abilities, so too did our youthful human civilisations very quickly understand that there was, in all probability, a world beyond their own, and began wandering, at first in their immediate vicinity but increasingly further afield. Increasingly beginning to settle in those further afields.
With the exhibition Cultural Affairs. Art without Borders the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig reflect on the thereby arising cultural exchange in context of art, craft and design…….
5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for June 2021
“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it is always June”, ponders Anne Shirley in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1915 novel Anne of the Island.
“You’d get tired of it”, sighs her adoptive mother Marilla Cuthbert by way of reply.
“I daresay”, responds Anne, “but just now I feel that it would take me a long time to get tired of it…”
Thoughts we very much concur with as we survey and contemplate the varied profusion of new architecture and design exhibitions sprouting forth in June 2021. Who could ever tire of such a joyous abundance? Who?
Our five recommendations from that early summer crop can be found in Leipzig, Hornu, Berlin, Bloomfield Hills and Chemnitz…….
The Historia Supellexalis: “D” for Denmark
Denmark
A Peninsula; An Archipelago; A Context
German Design 1949–1989. Two Countries, One History at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein
In the final decades of the 19th century the lands of the, then, German Empire, established themselves amongst the leading protagonists in the developments of contemporary applied arts as they moved towards that which we today term design. A leading position which, in certain regards, became a European dominance in the course of the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s through the contributions made to the evolving practices, processes, expressions and understandings of the period by institutions such as, and amongst many others, the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau, the Deutsche Werkbund, the Frankfurt city building authorities and, and perhaps most famously, the Bauhauses.
Then, as so oft in 1920s Europe, came the 1930s, the War and subsequently the establishment within (part of) the lands of the, former, German Empire two new nations: West Germany and East Germany.
And what became of the design understandings and approaches that had developed and evolved in that region over the previous half century?
That, to misquote Hamlet, is one of the questions the Vitra Design Museum pursue in German Design 1949–1989. Two Countries, One History.
5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for March 2021
Following the declaration of the French Republic in 1792 a new calendar was introduced in the realms of France: the Revolution had washed away France past and the Republic marked the start of a new reality for mankind, one of universal Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and therefore demanded a resetting of the collective clock, a new measuring of time, and thus out went the Gregorian calendar and its historic associations with church and state, and in came le calendrier républicain, the French Republican Calendar.
And while, yes, one can consider the belief amongst the new republicans in the eternal gloriousness of the coming future as somewhat naive, one must remember that we can reflect on their optimism with the benefit of over 200 years hindsight and experience.
The argument for a new calendar appears however as compelling and self-evident as it must have done at its adoption on October 24th 1793. Or 3 Brumaire II, as we believe le calendrier républicain would date the day of its adoption.
Aside from its ten day week, an early attempt at bringing decimalisation to our time keeping, and the bequeathing of every day its own unique name, the principle difference between the Gregorian and Republican calendars is the move from the 12 months of varying lengths inherited from the Romans to twelve months each comprising thirty days, three ten day weeks, and the renaming of the months to give them a connection to nature rather than to Romans: the period between 19/20th February and 19/20th March, that period in which we find ourselves at the time of writing, being known as Ventôse, from venteux, windy, and was preceded by Pluviôse, rainy, and followed by Germinal, germination
Which all strikes us as particularly apposite as we move towards the next phase of our post-pandemic society; as a fresh wind blows the global rain clouds away and ushers in a period of re-birth and springing forth. Yes, such optimism may be as naive as that of the French revolutionaries, but we have a much better understanding of history today, and for all a much better understanding of the sense and logic in, utter necessity of, making use of the myriad lessons of history in order to avoid the pitfalls and follies of the past, and to allow us to chart an untroubled course forward……oh…..hang on……
Although, now is as good a time as any to start. The theory is known, we just need to move into the practice. And so given that all nations and all peoples have had their Corona tribulations should we not think about re-setting our global clocks, starting afresh at a new global year zero for a new global society?
We’ll leave others more qualified than us to work out the practicalities and technicalities, and decide on the basis of the nomenclature, and instead recommend here four new exhibitions scheduled to open in Germinal CCXX, and thus, one hopes, once the winds of Ventôse have begun to do their job, and also recommend a radio station that’s been online since the rains of Pluviôse….
Eames Lighting Design… Or, A search for light in the Eames Universe…
Wandering aimlessly through the digital Marcel Breuer Archive one afternoon, we stumbled across a letter dated July 25th 1950 from Peter M Fraser, one of Breuer’s employees, to the Eames Office, enquiring about a lighting design by Charles and Ray that Breuer was interested in using in one of his architectural projects, and requesting…
…”a lighting design by Charles and Ray”???
Eames lighting???
Eames furniture ✔ Eames toys ✔ Eames exhibitions ✔ Eames textiles ✔ Eames films ✔ Eames photography ✔
But where is the lighting design in the portfolio of Charles and Ray Eames…?
A World of Vernacular Furniture: The kubbestol/kubbstol
As Peer Gynt reminisces with his dying mother, they dwell long and fondly on how, when Peer was a child, they would imagine his bed was a sleigh whisking them across a frozen fjord, a sleigh pulled by “fleet-foot horses”.
Or more accurately by a cat proxying for fleet-foot horses; a cat who before being pressed into service as a horse had been peacefully “sad på en kubbestol“1, sat upon a kubbestol: a chair hewn from a tree trunk, and an item of furniture which is as closely associated with Norway as is Peer Gynt, and which may have led just have as many lives and have just as many tales to tell…..
Radio smow: A Candlesticks Playlist…….
In the northern hemisphere* December marks not only the darkest period of the year but also that moment when light begins to return: following the Winter Solstice our days start to get a little longer, and a little brighter.
And in December 2020 not just astronomically, but metaphorically.
Midwinter 2020 symbolising a moment when a particularly dark year, a particularly dark period, starts to get a little brighter, a moment when a little more light will start to slowly seep into our days, weeks, months, lives: and not just because of that, but also; nor just because of that, but also; and, yes, also because of that. But definitely not because of that.
And so by way of celebrating a particularly notable Midwinter, a Radio smow playlist devoted to one of the earliest objects to make artificial light manageable and functional, and thus one of the earliest objects to literally bring a little more light into our lives, to literally aid making our lives a little brighter…….
A World of Vernacular Furniture: The Orkney Chair
The study of vernacular furniture can teach us a lot about not only the development of understandings of furniture, nor only of the development of societies and cultures, nor nor only only about relationships between furniture and wider realities, but also how the position of furniture as a cultural good, as a good embedded in a culture and society, can see furniture serve as a component of projected understandings of heritage and identity, and in doing so can endow attributes on an object of furniture it doesn’t naturally, inherently, possess.
Or need.
Something particularly well expressed in the (hi)stories of the straw-backed chair, a.k.a. the Orkney Chair1
Radio smow: A Clocks Playlist…….
The sense, logic or otherwise of the biannual changing of the clocks is a subject that can keep any conversation animated until the next change occurs……When it can start all over again.
The biannual repositioning of the hands of time is however also an opportune moments to consider our relationship to time, for all our measurement of time, our harnessing of time, our charting of time, and of time metaphoric and time symbolic as represented by that embodiment of time tangible … the clock.
A World of Vernacular Furniture: The Settle Bed
“Trunk-hasped, cart-heavy, painted an ignorant brown.
And pew-strait, bin-deep, standing four-square as an ark”1
Reading Seamus Heaney’s musings on his Settle Bed one could be forgiven for considering it a thoroughly unremarkable object. Ignorant even.
That would however be to misunderstand the nature, spirit, essence, of poetic construction. And the nature, spirit, essence of the Settle Bed.
Radio smow: A Bookcase Playlist…….
“At the present day a library has become as necessary an appendage to a house as a hot and cold bath” wrote the Roman Stoic Seneca at some point in the first century CE, “I would excuse them straightway if they really were carried away by an excessive zeal for literature; but as it is, these costly works of sacred genius, with all the illustrations that adorn them, are merely bought for display and to serve as wall-furniture.”1
And today?
While the glossy coffee table book may be have become an increasingly popular, and commercially successful, use of books as idle representation, we’d be interested to know how many individuals in the past months have deliberately positioned themselves in front of a carefully reorganised bookcase for work video conferences, or how many politicians have ensured that an appropriately stocked bookcase serves as the background for their video interview?
For, and despite the, alleged, reduction in the relevance and importance of the printed word in contemporary society, the bookcase remains, in contrast to the bath, not only a near ubiquitous piece of domestic furniture, but a strongly symbolic object…….
