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#	Post Title	Result Info	Date	User	Forum
	Heath	1 Relevance	12 years ago	Eameshead	General discussion
	Heath In the US, art schools vary widely in approach and quality. It is often true that the ones that are strongest on traditional techniques are also sadly out of touch with anything else. In the public sector, I suppose the Universities are the most similar to how you have characterized your own experience. Stronger on ideas, and fairly weak on the basics. There does tend to be a sense that the ship has left the shore with regards to traditional drawing skills, and the study of the formal elements of picture-making is only one of many choices for today's artist. The community college system (first two years of college for those on a budget) is more focused on traditional skills-based outcomes than progressive ideas. If basics are what you want, that is the place one is most likely to find them. Private art schools and design schools are less easy to generalize about, as the quality and approach of each varies. There are some truly great private art schools and some that border on the criminal. I have had a few students from Australia over the years, and it is my sense that Australia has a higher educational rigor and standards than that of most of the universities in America. EDIT PS: In the end, my belief is that a solid grounding in visual skills is obviously important, but that there are various ways skills can be learned. I prefer not to separate skills-building from creative choices of content. One can learn the basics of how to draw or paint while being totally engaged on the idea level as well. It is not a requirement that one turn off the faucet of ideas until the time arrives when they can make "perfect" or refined work. Learning academic skills does not have to be an idea-less endeavor. Sometimes what happens is that the "vision" or the spirt needs to lead, and a student makes a horribly clunky and visually poor version of their idea, but then learns to state it more eloquently or powerfully later, happily developing the skills to do so, but only once there is a sense of purpose or a goal in sight. Learning is a complicated thing. Everybody is different. Public colleges and universities in America are getting like the worst banks. The three vice-presidents at my college got 30% raises while the teachers are offered a 1% raise.
	Willfully Ignorant and Tiresome	1 Relevance	17 years ago	LuciferSum	General discussion
	Willfully Ignorant and Tiresome What's most annoying about this ongoing discussion is the occasional person who jumps into the middle, willfully ignorant of the complexity of the subject and makes some grand sweeping, and usually erroneous, statement. Welcome to the discussion Poach. Let me correct some of the broader errors in your last post: No, Vitra hasn't worked with George Nelson on any of the clocks. They have worker with Jaqueline Nelson, George's wife, former member of Nelson Associates, and executor of the Nelson estate. Vitra produces the clocks to the specifications on original drawings and designs from the Nelson Office archives. These are the same drawings and specs that would have been provided to Howard Miller. And yes, Herman Miller contracts out other companies to make different products - including, in the past, Modernica. But they weren't 'rebranding and existing knockoff' - they were hiring Modernica to make them. But now they dont contract Modernica, and like it or not that means Modernica's case goods are not technically ESUs. (I'm talking about legitimacy, not quality) And the Knoll thing really bugs me. Because no - the Barcelona chair that is available today is not the same as the two made for the Barcelona Pavillion. But Knoll didnt make those changes - Mies did. Himself. In his lifetime. Not just "Florence Knoll buying the license" - Mies worked with Gratz Industries in NY (see this months Modernism) to develop a way of welding the steel to allow the pieces to be single formed instead of bolted. Gratz made the chairs for years....for KNOLL. I'm not saying there aren't some grey areas in the whole field. Modernica has good quality, but really shitty designs of their own - proving that 'design' is more than just aping a form. Vitra has made some changes that people don't approve of - like widening the base of the dowel and eiffel armchairs. But Herman Miller also made changes to the Aluminum group (adding another tine to the bases). The point is, authenticity is a much more complex argument than just all or nothing, and it's tiresome when it is so completely oversimplified.
	Your drawing is cute and...	1 Relevance	16 years ago	guyinSF	General discussion
	Your drawing is cute and... Your drawing is cute and helps us to visualize quite a bit! I still think you should break the chairs up and not put them together and if you end up doing that I would actually keep the womb. Why? 3 reasons: 1. You said you like putting your feet up on the coffee table, well I'm sure your coffee table will not be long enough for you to sit in your Papa chair and stretch your legs out to reach the table right? With the womb chair you already have a matching ottoman so you can put your legs up and get comfy as you watch TV. 2. The cream color upholstery of your womb chair is not terrible at all unless you were talking about its condition. The cream color actually compliments the red color of your sofa much better than the brown of the Papa chair. The brown of the papa chair has the same value as the red of the sofa, what I mean by this is if you were to take a b&w photo of your room the sofa and the papa chair would look like they have the exact same grey color. Cream/white paired with red/orange is always a nice combo that many designers use. 3. Just going by form, the Womb's design (sculptural and organic curves) juxtaposes very well with the minimal and straight lines of the sofa. Of course all these reasons only work if you end up choosing to use only one chair. Why not put the Papa chair in your den/office or another room? Also I don't know why you would even have to put another chair (even if it's smaller less imposing side chair) next to the lounge chair. That's just clutter. I think the idea you had of a tree stump is wonderful! or some small round side table that's contemporary or more antiqued looking. If it's going to be wood side table then try to find a coffee and side table set so they match. Summary, break the 2 lounge chairs and choose just one in that room, my pick is the womb cuz it goes with the sofa more and you can put on legs on its ottoman. Put the Papa chair somewhere else. Find a little side table or a tree stump or cube and put it to the left of the womb chair so you can create a walkway between the womb and the sofa. That will free up your space and give it more of an open airy space because having an MCM decor and clutter is purpose-defeating. One last thing the sofa is good where it is, if you put it in the space where the 2 lounge chairs are to separate your living and dining areas then think about the idea of that big red sofa staring at you in the face the moment you enter your house every time! Good luck whatever you choose though because you have very beautiful pieces that most of you would kill to have in our home!
	cont.	1 Relevance	21 years ago	koen	General discussion
	cont. When the product was chosen as best of category in the annual Industrial Design magazine selection, one of the jury members commented on the quality of that fine detailing, especially on 'invisible' parts like the underside of the handle. I also made sure that the three sizes would form a set. Size and volume are of course dictated by the function but in spite of that I made sure that the nested bowls (one inside the other) would form one horizontal line without the rings and a regular progression with the rings. This time Rosti was happy!...and, in hind sight maybe too happy. Although my effort had been toward creating an less expensive alternative to the existing Bjorn/Bernadotte bowls and in spite of the fact that they were indeed less expensive to make and required less raw materials and less stratification time, Rosti's marketing people were convinced that it would be better to marked it as a 'design' product, at a substantial higher price as the older bowls. To do so a lot of effort was put into nicely designed colored boxed, combination sets with spoon and scraper etc. Shortly after the introduction this approached seemed to be the right one. In the Frankfurt house wares show it was chosen ?Product of the year?, the ID magazine awards came only shortly after and several museums asked for the products to be includes in their design collection. In reality (the market) things were not that bright. When it became clear that boxing highly stackable products was a waist of transportation costs and when the stores started to ask for 'open stock' Rosti developed a rather smart styrene foam frame that in combination with a cardboard strip to hold the ring made a good and compact packaging and both versions stayed on the market. After a few years the production was stopped and the balance of the stock in the U.S. was sold to a large retailer in New York that had been quite successful with the products. In the 9/11 destruction of the world trade center, the debris of the falling towers entered the store and the whole thing was destroyed.
	barrympls...	1 Relevance	18 years ago	dcwilson	General discussion
	barrympls... I am neither upset, nor surprised. The history of industrialization evidences a developmental process that recurs in each case of a nation of persons being made into the next cheap manufacturing base that offers greater economies of scale. I was pointing out that tendency out and the likelihood that China was go through the same process and eventually wind up producing high quality goods. It is almost a certainty that this process will play out. I was not at all condoning the Chinese putting harmful materials in their products, simply noting that this sort of thing has happened previously in societies that were in very early stages of emerging as the next manufacturing base. Read some economic history of early manufacturing in USA. It was really quite hideous. Some manufactures would put most anything they could in products that would lower the cost, so that low price point that had to sell at as a newby could generate profit. Frankly I would be surprised if the Chinese were not putting lead in their stuff, if its cheaper than healtful material. They are relatively unregulated. They are in a early rapacious phase of managerial capitalism. They are selling to the low end of an increasingly uneducated market. They have a surplus of people in their own country and so do not value life in quite the way we in the west do (sometimes). Regarding my admonition not to paint all Chinese with the same broad brush, it only seems sensible, not PC. When USA used to produce crap in its early phase, there were some very high quality producers as well. I am sure there are some high quality Chinese producers, and some higher quality producers, but for now, the majority are rapacious young capitalists. Finally, a country like the USA that allows triple doses of mercury in our Mumps/Measles/Rubella vaccines for years while suspecting for quite sometime that it was causing Autism, is not really in much position to look down its nose at other countries moral values. And since we have torture prisons, a massive prison population, and are using prison labor in somewhat the same way that China does, our once moral high ground is increasingly just another gully. I want to regain the moral high ground, but the way to do it is by making common cause with the Chinese and making doing the right things profitable for both. If we don't, we are most certainly headed to war to determine who conquers whom.
	Hey ScottB, good to hear that	1 Relevance	9 years ago	_	Repair
	Hey ScottB, good to hear that you are making progress with your dining room makeover (can I call it that?) & I am sure it is looking fantastic. I'll try to answer your inquiry...a four square house is one of the several architectural styles of houses built mainly for the working class here in the USA during the early 20th century (at the same time as the Arts & Crafts Movement/Prairie Style/Secessionist, it varies from place to place). There is probably a style similar from where you are. Although from the same period as the earliest modern movement of the 20th century like the Arts & Crafts, these houses are actually the opposite of what that movement was all about. It was mass produced, every part of the house was made in a factory somewhere using the power tools of the earlier period, the industrial revolution of the mid to late 19th century, all rejected by the likes of William Morris, Gustav Stickley & others who started & promoted the Arts & Crafts style. The exterior varies with influences of watered down versions of the real thing or custom made famous houses made for specific clients & designed by the most famous architects during that time, but it had modern amenities like electricity, indoor plumbing & a boiler for heating the size of a VW Beetle in the basement. Our four square home ( with a square plan) is a look alike of a Stickley house no. 95 similar to this, I https://goo.gl/images/mFtThm & as plain Jane as it can be, not designated historic or in such neighborhoods (we are low brow living in the HOOD) so we are turning it into an experiment in living ecologically in the 21st century but furnished with vintage mostly street curb or dumpster dive abandoned & neglected examples of the icons of 20th century designs. I hope this did not put anyone to sleep but I will share an early version of one of the rooms which had been posted here before. The house is a work in progress continually evolving adding several layers overtime. We kept one of the 2 the massive brick fireplaces but stopped using it because it is only 30% efficient.
	Troy,	1 Relevance	19 years ago	dcwilson	General discussion
	Troy, After just finishing John Silber's Architecture of the Absurd, I would probably not compare with photography for the simple reason that designers and photographers, are in quite different professions. Designers build useful things and imbue them with as much beauty as the constraints of use permit. I sit in a chair. I look at a photograph. A chair is primarily functional with some ornamental aspects. A photograph is about as purely ornamental as a thing can get. Comparing design with photography seems like comparing apples and oranges, unless the crux of your thesis is exploring the difference between reissues in the useful vs. the ornamental. A more illuminating comparison might be to consider reissues of highbrow and lowbrow designs, or reissues of "designer" designs vs. no-name designs, or reissues of "designer" designs vs. kitsch. For one example, compare and contrast the reissues of the great designers' reissued objects that interest you with the reissue of the Ford Mustang and imminent reissue of the Chevy Camaro, which have no single great designer's name attached to them. It suggests reissuance currently has more to do with nostalgia for iconography of a reassuring time in the past than with the brilliance of the great designer many admire. Better yet, explore the reissue of these great furniture designers' works with the reissue of certain generic appliances from the MCM era. Specifically, I recall a blue streamlined refrigerator advertized in the back of Dwell for several months now. My parents had a reefer like this one in Dwell. Its designer was hardly an auteur type designer, yet the reefer is being reissued, or at least copied and updated. What does this tell us about the reissuance phenomenon? Again it suggests that there's a strong demand for nostalgic, reassuring icons from a past the present human imagination is fictionalizing as kinder and gentler and more innovative than the present seems to be. Further it seems, at least to significant degree, a marketing phenomenon; i.e., only that which can be spun to fit the nostalgia driving the Modernist Revival gets reissued, not the less iconographically compelling designs, regardless of whether done by great designers or no names. The Edsel is not being reissued, because it was a bust at the time. We're looking for today for successes in the past to reassure us that there can again be successes in the near future, because our present seems littered with failures.
	Muehlbach Hotel...	1 Relevance	17 years ago	dcwilson	General discussion
	Muehlbach Hotel... Oh, yes, THAT was a fine old hotel in downtown KC. It was across from the art deco, poured concrete Municipal Auditorium built by old city boss Tom Pendergast--the auditorium, I mean. Both hotel and auditorium remain, as of a few years ago. The hotel was not much to look at, but it was the most prestigious hotel for a long time and I was always obsessed as a child with the tunnel that connected the hotel to the Municipal Auditorium underground parking structure. Don't know why exactly, but it seemed the closest thing we had in KC to an underground secret passage. 🙂 The hotel was locally owned. The pre-chain top tier hotels were quite wonderful places. Each was very unique and persons tended to collect staying in them in major cities around the country the way that persons visit unique restaurants in major cities today. Here is an interesting bit of history about the great old hotels and suggests IMHO why they were so great for so long in USA, before finally succumbing to the cancer of standardization by chains. In 19th Century America, especially before say 1870, hotels were where many of the affluent and even some of the middle class lived full time. Many of the poorer folk lived in what today are called transient hotels, or flop houses. You can see the low end hotels still in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. America had adopted hotels in the 19th Century, as a dominant housing mode. I suspect it had something to do with the heightened degree of transience in America, but I have never researched Europe, so maybe it was the same there, too. Anyway, the hotels were communities that were part permanent residences and part transient. They were also the central hub of socialization. Hotel restaurants had to cook really great food that one could eat as one's steady diet, rather than the sizzle and bling crap that even most top hotels serve today. Many, if not most top hotels of the 19th Century American midwest and west had French chefs preparing food. America during the first half of the 19th Century had a then seemingly boundless supply of fresh game, plus cattle and hogs emerging, plus a lot of indigenous, fresh, wild and cultivated fruits and berries the cooks drew upon.
	A Designer Formerly Known As Starck...	1 Relevance	19 years ago	dcwilson	General discussion
	A Designer Formerly Known As Starck... Prince tried this--shedding his persona--but gave up giving it up. Frank Sinatra did it by retiring dozens of times and coming back as an even bigger caricature of himself each time. Bob Dylan did it and spent his career pretending to be the exact opposite of whatever he sensed expectations for him were. He describes it as a life and death struggle against being enslaved by expectations that doom one. He writes about doing it in Chronicles. When your celebrity becomes greater than your work, as it almost always does when one becomes a superstar in the media, the artist enters a life and death struggle with his own persona. For the human being to survive awhile longer, the artist's persona must be killed. The pitiful thing is, of course, that in the end the artist's persona always surives the human being, like a shell left behind on a beach by a dead crustacean. Ambitious, talented, often troubled human beings produce these shells of personae and within their confines the human being struggles mightily, often unconsciouly, to dislodge the grain of sand deep in their tissue. In turn, like oysters, they produce a series of pearls, some hugely flawed, and a few magnificient. There are great master craftsmen, like Koen, who seem to do great work out of combination of deep training and an expansive, generosity of human spirit. And then there are these celebrity oysters that produce a few extraordinary pearls and a lot of flawed ones. The fascination of their work seems less about excellence of the work than the heroic/insane struggle of flawed human beings with the agony of an acutely self-conscious life that drives them. This latter group has to kill their personae off, at some point, or else they have to kill themselves. I for one am grateful Starck killed off his personae in order to avoid killing himself. He will do some more good work sometime. It may not come for ten years, but it will come. We need ALL the designers we can get. The world is very fucked up. We dare not turn our backs on those knights errant like Starck. Rather we must hope their journey delivers their talents to a more rational and humane place where they can do some good work that is more cordial to their souls. RIP persona of Starck. "In my end is my beginning."--T.S. Eliot And if the
	Hmmm, I think...	1 Relevance	20 years ago	NULL NULL	General discussion
	Hmmm, I think... that my arms are like the ones you described...solid and no padding at all. I also think that the back of the chair is either solid or has very little padding to speak of. But it's still a super comfortable chair. I think what I may do is send Kyson a swatch of the old vinyl so that they can get me leather in the right thickness and weight. I'm not sure what kind of texture I'll want, but I think I'll want a matte or low gloss leather to contrast with that shiny aluminum. The current black vinyl is low gloss and pebbled and has tiny round perforations (like sports car upholstery of the 1960s and 1970s) I have seen what those stripped and buffed old steel desks and pieces of office furniture look like...if I could get a few pieces with nice lines that at are well build and in decent shape for free or for a cheap price, I think I'd find an auto body shop to do the stripping and buffing. I'm thinking that trying to do that yourself could be very difficult, probably beyond me in terms of the required tools, materials and effort. What a trip to learn you're in Baltimore! You probably missed out on the great Homicide: Life On The Streets prop sale of 2000 that was open to the public in Baltimore -- I am sure that had you been able to go, you could have scored a couple of chairs and some metal office furniture there...I know they sold off the interrogation room table (complete with a set of attached handcuffs)! Of course since one of my other hobbies is TV & Movie prop & costume collecting (and yes I have a few pieces from Homicide bought straight from the props guys private stashes), I wouldn't have done a thing to anything bought from that kind of source...it would hurt the value to a Movie/TV collector. But anything from an auction like the GSA's or a flea market/yard sale or the dump...well that I guess is okay to tinker around with. I might also mess with anything that came from the Ellis Prop House sale (they went out of business at about the same time Homicide went off the air and they had tons of anonymous period things for sale like old dishes and glasses...it would be hard to attribute anything from them to a specific film or show). There's tons of that stuff on ebay all the time. What is the Unika Vaev fabric you used like? Also did you take any pics of your Goodforms after you reupholstered them? If you have pics, I'd love to see 'em. Thanks again spanky!
	pt2	1 Relevance	19 years ago	dcwilson	General discussion
	pt2 But at the same time, I think that once one makes the value shift to desiring more efficiency and/or environmental friendlyness in one's products, then one quickly comes back to the issue of how do we not only engineer these products to be efficient and environmentally friendly, but also how do we make them beautifully. Beauty is beauty. Beauty, or aesthetic appeal, is one of many facets of a thing. Aesthetics are the rules of making things beautiful and appealing. Beauty is not function. Function is function. Beauty is not efficiency. Efficiency is efficiency. We learn this all the time in the innovative things we make. At first, all we care about is getting the function right and just try to make it as inoffensive looking as we can. But then at a certain point, we begin to try to differentiate our product with beauty, or improved aesthetics if you will. It is like it takes some time for producers and consumers to get sufficiently used to the new function, to begin letting our aesthetic urges kick in. An example of this in my life time would be regional shopping malls. For the first 25 years of their existence, a mall could be ugly and flourish simply because it was new and a monopoly in its market and massively improved shopping efficiency of the consumer (one stop etc.). But then everything shifted to malls and butt ugly box stores encroached. And so to keep their customers, malls had to begin to think about visual and contact point aesthetics. They had to be made more plush and less ugly. PCs are another example. Plain manila boxes for 20 years; then suddenly, translucent with all kinds of forms. Cars are another. The Model T came in any color as long as it was black; then many car lines with every color in the rain bow and style, style, style. We can be certain of three things in life: death, taxes, and the early stage of any major new product emphasizing function and paying little attention to aesthetics. There are of course exceptions. Certain large corporations and certain exceedingly wealthy persons find ways to avoid taxes almost entirely. And certain new products, like an iPod, with the rare CEO who has a sense of aesthetics informing him, insists on a splendidly designed product, as well as one with sound engineering. But for the most part, ground breaking new products often take several iterations before they become informed by a truly appealing form language.
	I'm sure the Loblolly house won't be everyone's cup of tea.....	1 Relevance	20 years ago	dcwilson	General discussion
	I'm sure the Loblolly house won't be everyone's cup of tea...Pt.1 to look at, though I love it, but this is a potentially important alternative to build-it-all onsite and build-it-all-at-the-factory. The upside if you are the builder/manufacturer is that you are turning a house into the bricks and mortar equivalent of a car, where you are creating a downstream parts and repair business that takes some of the lumpiness out of your cashcycle and raises yield a little. The downside if you are a builder/manufacturer is that you are doing the same. Lots of future dollars to be made in downstream parts and repair business, but lots of headaches dealing with the public and matching inventory carrying costs with demand I would imagine. Also, something most nonfinance persons just don't grasp about downstream business is this: you have to charge ALOT for the downstream parts and repair to make up for the discounting effect of present value and compound interest. Houses are a long lived asset. Any dollars collected beyond ten years effectively discount to zero in typical financial analyses that a banker or a stock market analyst will use to value your business model and loan money on. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just how it is. Frankly, money realized beyond ten years out is pretty worthless in discounted present dollars unless you can get an analyst to increase average income in the present (to reflect its receipt in the out years of the activity) and then capitalize it in the present, but this is something prudent bankers and saavy investors don't do. The upside for a homebuyer is that you get to spend less time in the high risk (to your pocket book) building phase of new home construction (that's where they nickel and dime you to death). I would suspect it could all be rather cheaper to the consumer, IF the builder/manufacturer passes a decent share of the construction cost savings along...not a sure thing until there is some competition among builder/manufacturers. The downside is you are married to this manufacturer builder the way you are married to your car manufacturer or software maker. It will probably be quite awhile before local craftsmen develop the skills necessary to intervene in repair and replacement, and, of course, the builder/manufacturer can do the old car company trick of voiding the warranty if you use other people's parts, etc.
	Lounge chair restoration project	1 Relevance	15 years ago	dano	General discussion
	I saw my first eames type chair in someone else's home, and became a big fan. Through having it restored, I have gained a new appreciation for well designed furniture. From viewing the threads on this site, it seems clear there is a bias against knockoff chairs... I simply can not see how a middle income person having the ability to own a nice quality knockoff of a chair reserved for the upper class could be a bad thing, and thought the forum could be used to help me with a second project...72 members viewed my post with no responses??? Am I a low brow? I really counted on this site to answer my question as I assumed the members to be experts. Heres my second try... I own and have restored a plycraft lounge, and recently bought a heavier selig version, with a wobbly base. After searching this forum, going to the abacus swivel parts website, and general research, i am confused. The parts website recommends either part 402 or 502...but neither of those have a threaded post like mine. The post comes free from both base and swivel tilt mechanism. A post on another forum, modern hippie, recommends part 11p or 24p. After emailing pics to swivel chair parts directly, they said... "Rather than a Lounge chair, it is an adjustable height chair which can be used as an office chair. You can replace the mechanism with our #475 size 15 ½ Use a hack saw to cut to length. Pay strict attention to the pivot pin!" SO NOW THERE ARE THREE answers to my question! I have attempted to include a link to a photobucket album with pics.I CANT BE THE ONLY PERSON TO HAVE THIS QUESTION! HELP!!!
	((As to your Spinneybeck...	1 Relevance	19 years ago	finch	General discussion
	((As to your Spinneybeck... ((As to your Spinneybeck example, I see that as an anomoly.)) I really wish it were...this has happened a little too often for me not to feel a little embarrassed/upset for spending what I did. ((As to the nuance and quality of licensed items I stand by previous arguments: quality of craft, living wage, quality of materials, enviromental impact, funds being directed back to foundations. I come from a long line of artist/craftspeople - I know what labor & materials cost. A swan chair is 500 stitches- by hand, a barcelona chair is stitched and tufted - by hand. These are not small or inexpensive feats. )) Not for you or me, but if that's all you do? If that is your main thing, it's maybe not as special. I'm only trying to keep some perspective here. It's no mean feat, agreed, but not as crazy as someone on the sidelines. That said, I am for a living wage and craftsmen being paid well for the pride they take in their toil, and the preservation of quality control and legacy. I'm almost a bit of a protectionist on the subject. Just like to see both sides of everything. ((A company like Alphaville is going to clear these hurdles by moving production to China, under bad (at best) production conditions, pollution, & human rights issues. All of that gets wrapped up into the final cost of an auth'd piece. (Modernica is again, an anomoly) I've linked below to my favorite knock-off photostream in flickr - including a production shot in China. Looks fun.)) I wouldn't by shoelaces made in China. I guess I spoke out of turn referencing Alphaville, as I thought they were one of the purely Italian based manufacturers. Must have been thinking of another company. Apologies. However, Modernica, even if it is an anomaly, nevertheless begs the question of quantifiability with regard to price vs. production cost, and the sizable disparity between them and other license holders. ((Overall my feeling is that anyone willing to drop some coin should do a little research - but they should be able to do so in an environment less cluttered with half-truths, misdirection, and downright lying.)) Well...maybe they should, but, so is the odyssey of life. Truly. Large print giveth, etc. This almost boils down to good vs. evil, or life isn't fair type themes. It's also what keeps life interesting. Being duped is sometimes the best way for folks to learn, also known as the hard way. All said, fine and illuminating points on your behalf.
	Ikea influential?	1 Relevance	22 years ago	koen	General discussion
	Ikea influential? It comes as a surprise to me that Ikea would be considered other than what it is, an affordable furniture retailer for a large middle-class. Influential means that you change an existing direction or at least accelerate a particular development. Ikea was certainly influential in the the two decades following the opening of the Kungens Kurva store in Stockholm in 1965. But by that time Igvar Kamprad and Gillis Lundgren's idea of putting un-assembled components in a flat box was already two decades old, and Hans Ax the manager of Kungens Kurva was about to introduce another innovative idea, by letting consumers pick their own packages in the warehouse. (an improvised response to an overwhelming success). These are also the years in which Ikea doubled it's turn-over every second or third year. As far as innovating business and retail practices are concerned these were the years in which Ikea was influential. With some minor exceptions, in terms of design, Ikea has never been "influential". It has honored the swedish tradition of making no-nonsense, quality furniture that might be identified by others as being "modern" but that has not the innovative characteristics that makes design "influential". It should also be credited for having served many people well, including myself, but numbers only confirm the effects or results of something influential, it does not identify the source of the influence. I am with the 3the choice: an affordable airline. It might not be a very "innovative design idea" but in the Europe where mobility in the work force is only a shadow of north america, affordable airlines may change these habits. In recent years car manufacturers like,Renault, Seat, Volkswagen-Audi,Volvo and Nissan have been opening design and technical development offices in Barcelona, an interesting attempt to locate the high end jobs in attractive (warmer) locations with vibrant cultures. It is going to be interesting to see if language barriers can be overcome to a point where these attempts to give well educated europeans more choices, will succeed. I am not sure that an invasion of rich northern europeans is a good thing for the southern european countries...time will tell.