...Similarly, at each and every design week or furniture fair we invariably ask ourselves if we need ever more sectional/modular shelving and storage systems, as we stand in front of another interpretation of the concept... In terms of shelving and storage we're much harder than we are with chairs, and often decide that we don't...
It's more or less a century since the first steel tube furniture was developed, and looking around you it's relatively easy to believe that since then everything has been done, that steel tube furniture has reached its full potential. Or perhaps more...
...As is the synthetic plastic employed in the Eames RAR that stands, rocks, literally and physically, next to Rietveld's Crate Lounge Chair; a RAR, a member of an Eames' 1950 plastic shell chair family, whose (hi)story is also a succinct overview of the use of synthetic plastics in furniture: originally in fibreglass, at that time an achingly novel material, and, arguably, the first synthetic plastic to enable the production of durable furniture in synthetic plastics, before considerations on the ecological sustainability and impact of fibreglass saw production switch to polypropylene, which itself began to be increasingly questioned in context of its ecological sustainability and impact, questioning which saw Vitra switch production of the Eames plastic shells in 2024 to a novel synthetic plastic won from recycled waste... A 1950s Denmark that also saw the origins of considerations on the possibility of a chair that it would be 1967 before it was realised and 1968 before it became a series product: Verner Panton's eponymous chair through Vitra...
...Or, for example, the ninth and tenth of the eight cabinets: two vitrines in the permanent exhibition space specially curated in context of Organizing Things to allow for reflections on Office Arrangement, via, for example, folders of varying genres, rubber stamps or index cards, that unassuming tool that was of such fundamental importance to the development of commerce in the early 20th century; and to allow for reflections on Systems Design, via, for example, the Braun Lectron modular electronic experimentation kit, Wilhelm Wagenfeld's Kubus storage system, or index cards, that unassuming tool that was of such fundamental importance to the development of museal and archive collections... Going forward our physical, tangible instruments and tools will without question change, or perhaps better put, going forward ever new physical, tangible, digital, instruments and tools will emerge and become dominant, an inevitably underscored not only by Serverraum, but by, and amongst many other examples to be found in the Museum der Dinge, the iPod, the index cards, Wilhelm Wagenfeld's Kubus storage system, or by the two photographic slide storage cabinets in the temporary exhibition space, which all confirm that over time our accustomed physical, tangible instruments and tools for organizing become obsolete, become replaced by, to partially misquote a Konstantin Grcic, New Normals...
...As with most furniture genres, save arguably the bed, shelves are an essentially human invention, one universal amongst the numerous peoples of the earth, and one whose (hi)story can be traced back to the earliest peoples; for example, in the remains of the neolithic settlement at Skara Brae on Orkney one finds evidence of shelving units, both stacked systems and wall recesses, and, one presumes, that those early shelves were conceived as places of storage and display... In the intervening 5000 years since the Skara Brae community established itself, the purpose and functionality of shelving has barely changed; however, and as with all those objects with which we share our lives, the cultural relevance of the shelf has taken on all manner of metaphorical, idiomatic and figurative uses, meaning that shelving has long since ceased to be a purely physical place of storage and display...
...And not just physically as storage spaces, be that as a kitchen cupboard, office filing cabinet or domestic wardrobe, but also figuratively as keepers of the unknown... Promising a mix of cupboard/storage designs, both historic and contemporary, and by the likes of Le Corbusier, Maarten Baas, Willy Guhl or Enzo Mari, and art projects, including representations of cupboards in cinematic and literary contexts, Cupboard Love aims to explore not only the physical cupboard, past, present and future but also the social, cultural and metaphorical relevance and importance of the cupboard, and thereby seek to revaluate our relationship to our storage objects ...
..."You can't lose ideas in a small space" with this simple piece of almost Confucian wisdom Italian architect Renzo Piano explains part the deeper philosophy behind Diogene, his collaboration with Vitra... And the latest object on the Vitra Campus...
