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#	Post Title	Result Info	Date	User	Forum
	It is already	1 Relevance	19 years ago	SDR	General discussion
	It is already an historical term. " Postmodernism was" is the first thing to understand about the term. What it might mean today, a generation after its inception, is separate from what it was at the beginning: the first coherent (formal and named) reaction to modernism, a slap at the deity on the pedestal which had been around long enough to have all its secrets revealed, and its gathering chorus of nay-sayers (I'm thinking mostly of architecture, here) emboldened to the point of saying "the king has no clothes -- now." Once the ball was rolling, many noticed, and if the products of the new movement had been really convincing, perhaps it would have lasted longer and gained a respectable place for itself -- though I don't think even then it would have permanently replaced modernism, which is simply too strong a dose of truth and beauty, too elemental and meaningful, ever to be put back in the bottle once released. But they tried, and who can blame them. For many, the purity and self-effacing simplicity of modernism had never felt right; the sentimental and the referential were almost completely missing from the works of the modernists, and the majority found this troubling -- perhaps even threatening ? Sadly, Modern was equated with Elitist to many, I suspect. So Postmodern needs to be assessed in "real time" -- in the sequence in which the concept and then the movement was born and fostered. The architects and designers who, almost spontaneously, initiated and then rode that particular wave, for a few years, can be looked at individually or collectively in order to understand what postmodern design was and what it meant in the context of the time. But to ask today "what does postmodern mean" without taking that trip, is to ask a question that can't be answered -- or so it seems to me.
	Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman Crack in Plywood	1 Relevance	9 years ago	milhausvanhoutten	General discussion
	Hey all! Would love to have some light shed on this question, and to see if anyone else has encountered the same thing with their 670. I've recently come across a vintage 3rd gen. lounge chair and ottoman (based on the date label, I believe 1975) and it's in gorgeous condition. Beautiful, re-oiled gorgeous rosewood veneer, reupholstered seat base, new front shock mounts installed (rear ones are still original and in great shape). The chair belonged to a former employee of Herman Miller who was gifted it upon retirement. There is one flaw that is weighing my decision to buy it: a small crack in the first layer of inner veneer on the back panel, where the ear connects to the back. It was epoxied and sanded sometime ago I believe, and looks to be sound and good. Would hate if it cause me some serious failure in the near future though. Has anyone encountered this before, and if so how was it dealt with? Should I move forward with the purchase given the rest of it is impeccable? Thanks very much!! M
	WoofWoof,	1 Relevance	18 years ago	Pegboard Modern	General discussion
	WoofWoof, It's simple business, and you said it yourself, it's not just design. The thrifts are raising prices, everyone has to raise prices. If sales are down and you are not doing the same volume, you have to increase the margin. Despite the misconceptions around here sometimes, you'd be surprised at the thin profit margins people are operating at. It makes me a bit nuts every time folks act as if the Knolls, Herman Millers, Fritz Hansens (and even vintage dealers on 1st Dibs) are all robber barons gouging people and raking in huge profits. Try it sometime. Create a unique product, pay for its creation (and all the associated costs) and the marketing of that product, build a retail network and then try to sell it wholesale at a price that gives the retailer room to offer a discount and still make something on it for their work. I have. We self published a book, paid all the up-front production costs including design, photography, printing, shipping and storage. Then all the advertising and marketing finding retailers and creating our own wholesale accounts before thankfully being picked up by a distributor and getting the thing on Amazon.com. Even then the profit per unit made the entire project a labor of love. If we'd been depending on it for a livelihood, we'd have been eating a lot of ramen noodles. Or more realistically, not eating. As others have pointed out many times before, the current cost of the things everyone here loves is not really any greater than they were originally in the 1950s and 60s after you adjust for inflation.
	Evacuations, Space Programs and Game Theory...	1 Relevance	19 years ago	dcwilson	General discussion
	Are any architects using game theory to help solve space programming problems. If so, I would like to read any papers written about it. For example, when designing public spaces for emergency evacuations, game theory might help significantly in analysing where to put the emergency exit doors and how wide they need to be. Evacuation can quickly become nonlinearly competitive, i.e., panic can and usually does break out. Panic is a form of competition. Player choices in a competitive environment often differ significantly from those in a non competitive environment. If architects and building engineers design buildings or stadiums for orderly, noncompetitive evacuations, and if evacuations were orderly and noncompetitive, then there maybe a configuration of halls, stairs and door widths that would be highly rational and efficient for that scenario. But what if evacuations were chaotic and competitive; i.e., the quick, survival choices of some alter opportunity set of evacuation choices for the remaining persons. The remaining persons would begin to view orderly evacutation as a futile play and begin pushing and shoving. In this scenario, would the same hall, door. stair width and location make sense? I suspect not, but am not sure, as I have not gamed it, nor have I studied evacuation events close enough to know. Again if anyone has heard of any thing on this subject I would appreciate a link or citation.
	Groundhog day......	1 Relevance	14 years ago	tick	General discussion
	Groundhog day...... Let me make myself clear here. Although I may be impressed with the introduction of paragraphs to your banter, you still seem to be stuck on the same old train of thought. There are clearly two distict subjects we are talking about here. One is copyright and the other is piracy. No-where do I name legitimate, let alone any, companies who produce replica furniture. Also there is no copyright infringement in posting a link to an online document. Nor do I suggest it's illegal to produce replica furniture of designs that are in the public domain. I think we all understand that part of my discussion. You need to think laterally about piracy, and that includes acknowledging that materials such as illegally harvested timber, is sometimes used to produce furniture. No-one is saying its illegal to make a copy, I'm saying that there are some crime gangs who thrive from the production and sale of counterfeit designer goods, which can include classic designer furniture. I couldn't be more clear about this and I do believe that most people are able to follow this narrative. I have a different opinion to you, and it's that simple. The copyright law is going to change in the U.K. and I believe it's a good thing. There are reams of articles about the counterfeit designer goods trade, it's not an imagined phenomena. This is why I always like to know the origin of everything I purchase. I don't buy sweatshop clothes, I don't buy slave labour goods and I don't buy replica designer goods. This is my choice and to suggest that my comments are somehow misleading or libelous is just plain silly. I will let the reader decide. P.S. this is my last comment on this thread because It really is off subject and I want the thread to get back to its original purpose.
	All of this crabbing between Architects and craftsmen reminds...	1 Relevance	21 years ago	dcwilson	General discussion
	All of this crabbing between Architects and craftsmen reminds me... of something Harrison Ford allegedly said to George Lucas when they were shooting the first Star Wars. Ford was struggling with speaking the lines of the screenplay authentically in a scene. "George," Ford said, "Just because you can write this shit, doesn't mean somebody can say it!" IMHO, intepreters of other's work have a long history of bitching and complaining about the difficulties of executing other's work. But here's the thing: it is precisely because creative artists think new things that there is something to complain about regarding execution. The Army in WWII came up with a wonderful acronym for the way things were when they were executing one of the generals battle plans: SNAFU aka Situation Normal All Fucked Up. Great generals, leaders, architects and creative artists create new problems in attempting to solve existing ones. Its organic to the process. Great foot soldiers, citizens, and cabinet makers, interpretative performers, respectively, are able to operate effectively despite SNAFU. Alas SNAFU also occurs when one is subordinate to incompetant generals, leaders, architects and creative artists. In this case they create new problems while failing to solve existing problems. The only solution is to try to work for the best generals, leaders, architects, and creative artists you can. SNAFU holds across the board.
	Essays	1 Relevance	22 years ago	koen	General discussion
	Essays I must admit that it came as a surprise that DA was interested in allowing cyber space for my "Thoughts on originality". Although eight or nine other sites have done the same thing (without my knowledge or permission, but that's O.K. "...the wind blows where he wants..." Considering that I was rather critical about the persued of originality, I was very surprised that nobody wrote an essay to defend originality. I know that it has something to do with the fact that I did not, and have no intention to respect the most basic academic rules on writing.(no notes or references for instance. I hate these things, not only because of their historical origins but also because mentioning your sources means either that the writer can not be trusted or that you as a writer underestimate your readers and expect them to be un-familiar with the same facts). It might also be related to the fact that the need for new and surprising designs is seen as the satisfaction of superficial need and not as an important function in the development of our material culture. To balance the first essay, I guess I will have to write on on the vital importance of originality. Personally I think that essays in DA are a good way of going somewhat deeper into a particular aspect of design. The forum format is fine, and in my own view it is generally used the proper way (I exclude myself because I do not seem to be able to stay within the given space). It would be interesting, I think, to wrap up some of the major discussion subjects on the forum in an essay, like: the legal and moral aspects of granting intellectual property protection, design and sexual preferences and practices (is a designer that takes higher risks on the market more likely to have un-protected sex). Is there a relation between originality, licencing and quality etc. etc.
	Let's carry on then shall we.	1 Relevance	12 years ago	leif ericson - Zephyr Renner	General discussion
	Let's carry on then shall we. The top looks fine. Unless there's something wrong with it that the photos don't show, I wouldn't go to the trouble of re-veneering it. If it were mine, I would sand I very gently, just enough to get the varnish off. I hesitated to mention this before because it is very easy to do more harm than good with a sander and your plan to strip the top with do just as good with much less risk. So do either. Router off a nice clean edge around the top. Apply edge banding. Flush to the top leave excess below. Clamp it tight til dry Then sand, route, or do whatever you prefer to get it to the finish profile. Then put teak oil on (watco e.g.). I haven't really seen a photo that shows the lightness, but odds are good teak oil will fix it. If it is still too light try some more. Or you can get a bit more tint by adding a touch of artists oil paint, just a touch. As for the drawers: I would get new veneer with nice matching grain for all four. I think you could just veneer over the exisiting after patching the missing veneer. But if you really want go all out you can remove the existing veneer first. Palsson your plan to patch and paint the veneer isn't bad, but it is hard to do well, and even the best job only fools so many people for so long. And call it a day. Take a bunch of photos of the work in progress. And post them for us. As to the ID: I've never seen the desk before. I very, very strongly doubt it is a design by anyone famous. But it is a very nice desk anyway and I am glad to see you are fixing it up. If you really want to pursue identification, you will probably need to focus on how it was built, thing like drawer construction (handles, dado, substrate...) and anything little detail that might connect it to some other known or marked desk to try to find the manufacturer.
	Knoll not known for customer service?	1 Relevance	17 years ago	fastfwd	General discussion
	Knoll not known for customer service? Really? I'm surprised to hear that. I've never received anything but excellent customer service from them. In addition to the friendly and helpful service they've given me at their showroom in San Francisco -- from which I've never bought anything -- they've done all this in just the last five years: a) They replaced a barstool after I called to ask whether its glides could be adjusted to fix a slight wobble. Picked up the old one and delivered the new -- no charge for shipping either way -- even though they knew that I'd only paid 15% of the retail price for the thing at their sale over a year before. b) A couple years later, after I emailed to ask for replacements for the collapsed rubber bumpers in that barstool and another one, they SENT A GUY TO MY HOUSE to replace them with improved urethane bumpers. No charge. c) Oh, and they noticed that I'd purchased four barstools and was only asking for two to be fixed. When I told them the other two were 400 miles away in my ex-wife's house, they sent a couple guys to her place, too. d) They identified the vintage fabric on one of my chairs from a photo I emailed. e) They sold me new glides for that chair and its ottoman, and for another chair, for less than what those parts cost on Ebay. f) They gave me -- for free -- a set of hard-floor casters for a desk chair that I'd purchased with carpet casters. g) When I mentioned in their showroom that I had a non-Knoll chair in need of reupholstery, they recommended an excellent local upholstery guy (who unfortunately has a six-month waiting list, but still). I don't do enough business with Knoll to get special treatment, so I would have assumed that EVERYONE got this level of service. what sort of bad experiences have you had with them?
	Eames' banana leaf parable	1 Relevance	18 years ago	Brent	General discussion
	Many of you have probably already read this excerpt from the Norton Lectures of Charles Eames. His words are a bit circumlocutious, but I find the point so enlightening. There's sort of a parable I'd like to . . . In India . . . I guess it's a parable: In India, sort of the lowest, the poorest, the, those, those without and the lowest in caste, eat very often--particularly in southern India--they eat off of a banana leaf. And those a little bit up the scale, eat off of a sort of a un . . . a low-fired ceramic dish. And a little bit higher, why, they have a glaze on--a thing they call a "tali"--they use a banana leaf and then the ceramic as a tali upon which they put all the food. And there get to be some fairly elegant glazed talis, but it graduates to--if you're up the scale a little bit more--why, a brass tali, and a bell-bronze tali is absolutely marvelous, it has a sort of a ring to it. And then things get to be a little questionable. There are things like silver-plated talis and there are solid silver talis and I suppose some nut has had a gold tali that he's eaten off of, but I've never seen one. But you can go beyond that and the guys that have not only means, but a certain amount of knowledge and understanding, go the next step and they eat off of a banana leaf. And I think that in these times when we fall back and regroup, that somehow or other, the banana leaf parable sort of got to get working there, because I'm not prepared to say that the banana leaf that one eats off of is the same as the other eats off of, but it's that process that has happened within the man that changes the banana leaf. And as we attack these problems--and I hope and I expect that the total amount of energy used in this world is going to go from high to medium to a little bit lower--the banana leaf idea might have a great part in it.
	I know it sounds rudimentary...	1 Relevance	18 years ago	NULL NULL	General discussion
	I know it sounds rudimentary... but I always check for a sticker on the bottom that says "Knoll". The majority of tables and chairs that I have come across have still had the knoll sticker affixed to them. I can't remember if they had the patents listed (as does the Eames lounge chair)or not. But if they do, look em up on freepatentsonline.com. This is a great site to do research into design of anything. And it will tell you who the designers were, as well as the parent company. An easier alternative to this is to check eBay and look up "tulip chairs", "tulip tables", "Knoll tulip", "Knoll Saarinen Tulip Chair", etc. Look up "Burke tulip" too and save the HTML files and images into a folder on your computer for comparisons. eBay is the easiest way, in my opinion, to gain experience in telling fakes from the originals. On eBay: Note that if it says "Knoll style" or "Saarinen style" its a dead giveaway that its a replica. Also, originals usually sell for much more than copies (for example: If its a brand new tulip chair selling for $199 as opposed to the original which sells for $999 new, you can be pretty certain its a copy). The thing with copies is that they can be pretty close. However, to avoid copyright infringement, they will always be "off" in some way. Or they will add extras not incorporated in the original design (for instance, some Eames chair copies have metal bars to reinforce the back; something unknown to the original). And if someone says "I'm not sure if its an original or not" he's probably trying to sell you a copy. Anyway, hope this helps. All the best! Chris C.
	Wow, that's really a...	1 Relevance	18 years ago	sharplinesoldtimes	General discussion
	Wow, that's really a... Wow, that's really a fantastic question. I really hope some of the former students in here will take their time to come up with a suggestion. Well, please don't go for all the usual b!llshit about believing in yourself, keeping true to your nature as a designer, the important need for loving the buisness as it does not love you blah blah blah - I'm sure that they already know this. One of the things that personally separates me from my creative friends is that I really use a lot of time and effort in keeping up with all the news within the world of design and to a less degree architecture. It gives me an leep of advance because if I know what's out there, I also know how to set myself apart from it. It inspires me, broadens my horizon, challenges my perception of design and thus helps me create something not nessacerily revolutionary but certainly something fresh and often inventive. My experience with the design school I went to, was that only a passioned handfull of my fellow students were curious enough to use their sparetime to gather useful information about past, present and future design. Most often only did it when they had to do reseach for an assignment. Another thing. My class started at 23 students and after 5 months there were 14 left. Two had to drop out as they got a critical depression and was given immediate psychiatric help. The reason behind the loss of 9 students so quickly was mainly inexperince and too young an age to cope with the reality and enviroment at a design school. But what hit all 23 students was especially stress from trying to read everything the teachers suggested and attend every single course or lecture. I don't encourage people to be lazy of bunk off, but I think it's important to keep your critial sense and expect that not all information or personal tools we're presented with are useful to us all. It's different from person to person and exactly which type of creativity you have and how it works.
	Teak dining table - how to make it smooth	1 Relevance	12 years ago	Teak Table	General discussion
	I just purchased an old teak table from an antique store. It's really heavy and sturdy, but the table top has some gaps and unevenness (near the gaps) that I'd like to smoothen out.Also, the store suggested using beeswax to protect the surface, but online I've been reading stuff about polyurethane, liquid glass, stain, etc and I'm not sure what route to go. I'm pretty sure I don't want to stain it since I like the current color, but given that this is a dining table and I have small kids, do I need to do the liquid glass thing? What about beeswax vs poly?Also, what's the best way to fill in those gaps? I've read online about sawdust from sanding mixed with clear glue or resin...but there are so many options out there that I'm getting confused.Thoughts?
	Similar thoughts and where to buy soap flakes?	1 Relevance	18 years ago	benedicth	General discussion
	Similar thoughts and where to buy soap flakes? I've stumbled on this thread a little late. I'm intending to buy a Wishbone: after much resarch, a soap-treated Oak with a black seat. The only thing that puts me off is the long wait time, as this configuration is unusual and not carried in stock, anywhere, seemingly. I'm going to use the Wishbone as a desk chair, which will shock those who find it uncomfortable. Still, I currently use a Prouve Standard Chair, that my girlfriend picked up at the Vitra Sample Sale and that is very uncomfortable. The Knoll Nakashima Straight Chair I considered buying is uncomfortable too, if less so. I have tried out the Wishbone at a couple of places and, by comparison, the back support suits my body much better, plus the cord seat gives somewhat. Room&Board carry the Wishbone in oiled Oak, and I personally don't love the glossier, browner finish and prefer the soap-treated finish I have seen in photos. But where do you buy the soap flakes to treat the wood with? Incidentally Just Scandinavian in Tribeca, New York City, carry unusual coloured lacquered versions of the Wishbone, like bright green and blue. ApartmentTherapy had a post about the green. I was initially dubious, but it really looks good in person, even if I prefer the natural wood myself. Just Scandinavian also seem to be one of the few people in the U.S. to carry Svenskt Tenn (and their many Josef Frank furnishings).
	ebay. good or evil?	1 Relevance	19 years ago	modernisbetter	General discussion
	there has been some discussion lately of ebay being a horrible entity. i have found it to be incredibly profitable and have been able to obtain things i could not have found using traditional means. collections are much easier to procure as you can buy internationally and from a variety of sellers, be it an individual selling from recent estate finds or a new york or parisian dealer. among a few crazy things on ebay i have either bought or encountered: an eames saarinen organic design sidechair, a set of ten verner panton wooden "s" chairs, a 20 foot long saarinen executive chair "bench", a large barry mcgee/ phil frost painting for 1200 bucks.. so many more. it is also quite simple to buy mislabeled or unknown (to the seller) pieces that turn out to be rare or valuable (or both) for very little and sell back on ebay well described and photographed for outrageous profits. the only bad thing about ebay is the greed from the company of late as the listing fees, final value fees,reserve price fee fees, final fee fees..... fees fees fees.. are getting quite out of hand. there are also a few sketchy people out there with scams but are quite easily figured out .. prices on certain pieces are almost guaranteed such as a papa bear chair and egg chair.. always reaching the same price . there are also quite a few pieces that receive as much or more than large auction houses. good for both the seller and the buyer. that is my opinion for what it is worth.. what's yours?