Search result for: the-last-thing-you-aquired-
| # | Post Title | Result Info | Date | User | Forum |
| James, what a great... | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | peter osullivan | General discussion | |
| James, what a great... James, what a great programme! I couldnt believe how much access the tv cameras got, was a real eye opener, the time they spent on the sand casts was amazing! As mentioned it is pretty easy to spot the modern fakes, less easy to spot is the older Ferraris, Cars with a racing heritage or extremely sought after models e.g. 250 GTO?s 250 SWB?s have been known to be ?recreated? by using less sought after models such as the 250GTE as a base, a lot of the companies who offered these conversions did so very openly and above board however it didn?t stop some owners selling them on as the real deal ?The most ambitious fraud concerns Lord Charles Brockett of England. He owned a small Ferrari collection, as well as Brockett Hall, the family manor, which had been turned into a conference and entertainment center. In 1991 Lord Brockett cut up and buried five cars, a Ferrari 195, S/N 0123 S, a Ferrari 340 America, S/N 0138 AM, a Ferrari 250 Europa, S/N 0421 GT, a Maserati Birdcage, S/N 2456, and an OSCA 2000, and then claimed they had been stolen. His insurance claim totaled a whopping 4,500,000 pounds ($2,316,600). Adding to the drama, Lady Brocket had developed an addiction to prescription drugs and was caught forging a prescription. Then, after discovering that her husband had been unfaithful, she aided the police during their investigation. The plot further thickened when it was determined that Lord Brockett had sold Jon Shirley of Microsoft 250 SWB S/N 3565 at a then ?market correct? price of about $575,000, claiming it to be the original 250 SWB S/N 3565. The ?real? 250 SWB surfaced in France and some detective work proved that Brockett/Shirley?s SWB was actually a well?done replica based on 250 GTE S/N 4015. Another two years was added to Lord Brockett?s five?year prison term. Thanks to the ever?growing Internet and some very dedicated Ferrari ?trainspotters,? the chances of a replica being sold as the real thing are becoming more remote. Today?s Ferrari buyers, be they entry?level or buyers of factory 250 GTOs, have learned to do their homework | |||||
| Hold on a second here - if I... | 1 Relevance | 16 years ago | Lit Up | General discussion | |
| Hold on a second here - if I... Hold on a second here - if I make an ID request on something, I think it's in the spirit of the forums to reply with info if you have it. Instead, from a minority of people, some of whom actually have the answer to my query, I get asked WHY I'm asking for an ID request (even though I've made clear who I am, what my interests are and that I'm not a dealer countless times), I'm told to get lost and read a book, and when I ask what book to read, Bentply tells me to go and read a pornographic tabloid. Talk about trolling... So it's pretty rich to throw a tantrum and threaten to leave when all you do when I post something is troll it. (I don't know how long you folks have been using forums but you should know by now that when someone announces their departure or threatens to leave it's an attention seek.) Bentply will start posting again today or tomorrow at the latest. Sorry for not responding positively when Bentply, unprovoked, suggests I read a pornographic tabloid after I've done an ID request or asked for some good material about design. Because I can never "add something to the forum" of the same nature, I'm eternally grateful for that gem of knowledge. All I use these forums for is to share and receive design ideas and info, generally about stuff I find in my dad's home or browsing on eBay. I'm a small time collector trying to furnish a room in a flatshare and I recently bought my first vintage lounge chair. If what I post doesn't interest you, or you don't have anything to contribute to my topic, then why make a post? The posts I make are not off topic but they always end up getting trolled by a tiny minority (one or two people, usually from the UK) who suspect me of some kind of malpractice or deception. I don't know quite what I've done to invoke the wrath of one or two UK keyboard warriors but I guess you don't like newcomers? Young people? (Rob you're nearly as old as my mum). Seeing as you guys are dealers maybe your comments to me have something to do with the dire state of the antiques trade? Maybe you would prefer people like me were buying off you rather than eBay? Maybe you're paranoid that I'm pilfering your knowledge to compete against you? (edited by DA - defamatory remark) I think some folk haven't liked me since I suggested a forum upgrade, but one thing's for sure, I'm here to stay, in one incarnation or another. In the meantime, sincere thanks to everybody who has chimed in with any discussion I've initiated about design - I really like hanging out here and reading/talking about objects 🙂 | |||||
| Ebonized Lounge, upholstery suggestions | 1 Relevance | 10 years ago | Zephyr | General discussion | |
| I have been woodworking and refinishing for a few years now, but never did any ebonizing before. Wow, I was missing out on a wonderful technique! I did 2 chairs yesterday, a Baumritter lounge chair, and a Gio Ponti-like ladder-back chair. The ladder back was in stained beech, and I really like these chairs better ebonized (plus I picked it up for 5 dollars, so it was a perfect experiment piece). The lounge chair I have had for many years. When I got it, it was really loose, the frame had damage, and the finish was in pretty bad condition. I had to take it all apart, fix the frame damage, and re-glue the whole thing. This of course required sanding, on what I thought at the time was walnut, but in my later experience I now know is stained Elm. Anyways, anyone who has had to try and refinish stained Elm knows that it is a pain to try and match to the original finished condition, and this just being a run of the mill American Baumritter lounge, was really not worth the time necessary to get the wood back to an original finish. So it also got thrown into the 'experimental' ebonizing category. I am really impressed with how it all turned out! Using india ink is super easy, which I think even experienced finishers can appreciate. I am going to 'fix' the ink with paste wax as I have seen Spanky suggest in the past, so that I dont get any ink transfer to the cushions over time. Which brings me to a question... currently, the cushions are done in an off-white suede. The upholstery effort also looks to have been an experiment for someone along the way, as well, so I am looking for suggestions of a fabric that would pair well with this ebonized lounge. thoughts? I also need to replace the rubbarized-fabric support straps that are in the seat. I know there are a number of places on line to get these, but if anyone has suggestions on where they have had success on purchasing these (quality, cost), I would appreciate the input. Thanks!! | |||||
| Quick update. | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | Gustavo | General discussion | |
| Quick update. An update Here is an update of the lamp. What make me to post? I don't know what feed me to post, first time was a current protest here. But with last protests in London ... I coudn't resist not to post, no better oportunity... 🙂 Perhaps some DAer could need some help. Just let me know I'll send it one... 🙂 Short update: Is going well, anyway is the first of a bigger series, and others are developing faster. Material: Aluminium, "mirror polished". (It's true stainless steel too hard to work/deform) The mirror polished it's not as a mirror, but it's OK. I tried to chrome the aluminium, to have a perfect chrome. I made it other times with not so bad results. But didn't worked this time. They said was because the quality of the aluminium, I don,t know. The chrome didn't attached well to the aluminum this time, made some little bubbles. The "mirror polished" worked better. About the "designed deformation", was also true, we opted for that kind of "drawing". The little spoon is just for test, but I'll incorporate it, I have just need to find the supplier. (I think I'll go to Jujuy Ave. where are sold wholesale those things for Restaurants and buy some instead to contact factories, buy some to test them and later I'll see) I also bought an (expensive) device to made it work by touch, I didn't connected it yet 🙁 (shame face). [would be for the hanging version/table version by little spoon]. I sold some hanging versions, and was asked to sell some by wholesale for other shops, so that means that seems to work. Cody, an Australian customer said is going to buy one of the table versions. Then he commented me about the stark gun lamp. Provably he thought that was a great compliment to me. I didn't told him that could be more read as not a compliment... I ask myself if that's a sign that I should stop it right now (?) 🙂 On the table version I still have to correct a little bit some proportions...? I think. I'll have to take some pictures of the hanging version, but is the same shade just hanging alone (indeed the idea is to put three, etc) I was worried about to tell or not to tell people about the inspiration. Almost a year later. As a general rule not to tell. I think, the most important thing, is HOW to tell. To tell/not to tell, and How. It's like humor, you have to know how and when to make humor. Intelligent humor. That was the bigger learning on this project I think. I was not good with humor. I'll have to learn. ps.: Just tell me if you need the damage or provably better the undamage as a DIY version. 🙂 | |||||
| I am not a "history" teacher | 1 Relevance | 13 years ago | Eameshead | General discussion | |
| I am not a "history" teacher I teach college level STUDIO classes where people learn to draw, or paint, and develop their skills and point of view as artists. I try to get some excitement going by sometimes setting the assignment against a historical or contemporary parallel or background, so the assignment wont be sterile and "academic", or learned in a vacuum. The school has art history classes. In studio classes I try to set up an arena of intense exploration and investigation, and do some demos, show a bunch of art, throw out some ideas, and then back off enough for people to have room to develop their OWN understanding- rather than tell them what to think. Let THEM decide what aspect of the activity makes meaning to them -- be it process, subject matter, ideas, approach, etc... I see art as one context in which one can explore their own existence. Make their art be about or be a response to any idea or visual phenomena or question that they choose. You seem to want to give history lessons. Thats fine. You also seem to think that just picking an object is the same thing as painting one, and that you should be considered an artist simply because you noticed something, and that I am somehow closed to that. Many of your concepts are very basic cliches that are commonly found in the early stages of ANY art school-- very similar to what people in a beginning art classes start to figure out quickly. Like "anything can be art" if looked at in the proper way, blah blah blah... Seal-coating a driveway is not art. Its a craft. I worked too. Poor me. I painted houses for a living for about 10 years, but I am not sitting here trying to say that was "Art". I took pride in my house-painting, and sometimes it was even more satisfying than art, just to finish a practical project and see it come out well. I put myself through school painting houses with contractors and real estate agents, from the age of 16 to about 26, and was still painting houses for many years off and on, and teaching, to make ends meet, even as I was having major shows in some of the best venues in America. Mostly, its your tone. It reminds me of me, but even more clueless. If that is possible. You talk as if nobody has ever considered any of your ideas before. I have an excuse for why I come off sounding like a pompous ass. Whats yours? I have taught for way too long. And I get so used to delivering things a certain way that Im sure I come off just as bad as you do most of the time. Teaching mutates you into something else. Its not a natural state to be in and you eventually make assumptions about what is known and not known. And it gets ingrained in your tone. | |||||
| As most of you know... | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | koen | General discussion | |
| As most of you know... I hate to participate in this discussion, simply because nobody seems to be willing to move an inch on his or her opinion, no matter what the facts are and without any consideration what?s however for logic or it?s less elitist version: common sense. But I can not resist a few considerations. First of all, I have read the Wikipedia text and I can not find any contradictions or misleading statements, other than the Adler bicycle story?It was indeed seamless Reynolds tubing (patented in 1897) that made the chair possible and it is true that one of the major users of seamless steel tubing was the bicycle industry, but I have never seen any document in which Marcel Breuer made the link between the Adler bicycle and the chair. In fact, it is very unlikely because the direct inspiration was the earlier cantilever chair and that was first produced by Mart Stam in regular tube with cast plumbing bends. As a technician at the Bauhaus Breuer was simply better informed than Mart Stam and knew about the availability of seamless tubes (the patent had just expired). By the way it is not only a difference in the seamless nature of the tube but also the formulation of the steel that made the cantilever chair possible. That the Wassily was mass produced starting 1920 (by Thonet) is accurate. This does not imply that it was continuously in production or on the market. To state that the Wassily has been in continuous production since 1950 seems accurate to?where is the contradiction. All the arguments that Herman Miller and Knoll for that matter are protecting there business interests overlook the fact that nobody prevents them from praising there own record, both in quality, reliability, fame, historical continuity, you name it. But that?s not what they are doing. They claim to make the only real product. This is simply untrue, no matter what your opinion is. It is not because in someone opinion, the sky is red that the blue is going to change color. To user the Campbell/ Progresso example, it would be the same thing as Campbell claiming that they are the only makers of real tomato soups and all the others are knock offs. Instead of playing games by misleading the consumer, they should concentrate on getting the message out that their company simply makes the best quality and gives the best service and everybody would respect that effort. | |||||
| Caplan, cont. | 1 Relevance | 22 years ago | SDR | General discussion | |
| Caplan, cont. "The resultant chairs represented so radical an advance in furniture design that MoMA in 1946 installed a small exhibition called "New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames" -- the museum's first one-man show. (In 1973, MoMA held a large retrospective survey of his work.) The 1946 exhibit, which Eames designed, included a motion-picture dsplay showing the transfer of energy from the seat of the chair to the leg. Even then, his impulse was to communicate process. "Eppinger still remembers the excitement and despair of his visit to the MoMA show. 'As I'm leaving, Eames is still there monkeying with the exhibit. He doesn't know me. I don't know him. I look at the stuff. I'm sick. Nelson was right. . .this guy was five years ahead of us.' "Later that evening, he was less sick, having learned by accident that Evans was looking for a furniture manufacturer to make the chairs. A few days later, DJ De Pree and Eppinger met with Evans and made a deal. "If DJ, Nelson, and Eppinger loved the chair at first sight, Mr Herman Miller's response was no less instantaneous. Reflecting his Grand Rapids background, Miller announced, 'That's never going to go into any showroom that has my name on it!' "For a time it looked as if he were going to be right about that. The old canning factory was already strained beyond its capacity, with no room for the KZAM! machines. Perched at one end of a high-wire act that would make international design history, the Herman Miller Company was unable to take the first step. "They didn't have to. Mr Evans had had second thoughts, and DJ was able to wire Eppinger: A MOST PROVIDENTIAL THING HAS HAPPENED STOP EVANS WANTS TO MANUFACTURE THE CHAIRS FOR US STOP. . .A new agreement was drawn up, relieving Herman Miller of any manufacturing responsibilities -- Evans had actually bought a factory before the deal was settled -- but leaving Herman Miller the marketing and distribution rights. "Two years later, Herman Miller was able to buy the manufacturing rights a well. They improved the quality and lowered the price, but not enough to satisfy either DJ ot Eames. 'We intended it to retail at $15,' DJ says. 'I worked very hard to find a way to get the chair down to that price, but we never did.' " SDR | |||||
| lucky you! I thought these we... | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | HPau | General discussion | |
| lucky you! I thought these we... lucky you! I thought these were very very rare. Probably easier to buy the veneer you need, take it to a cabinet maker and get them to run it through a thickness sander,won't cost much or take long. Do some experiments with finishes on some leftovers and put aside the two best colour matched pieces as face sides. Then cut all your layers slightly oversize (about 1/2 to 3/4 " wider and about 3 " longer. Making the formers is a bitch, I hate doing it. I'd suggest getting a cad file done (trace the outline of the leg onto a big piece of paper and get someone who can use autocad to do the file, won't cost much or take long) and get the male + female parts cnc cut from a few pieces of 3/4' mdf or ply. For a one off I would just use very thin brown packing tape on the surfaces of the former,male and female, the last thing you want is glue bleed sticking the whole lot together into a bloody mess. I usually use urea formaldehyde or poly glues, seeing as you'll have to manually spread you glue find something with a very long open time that is suitable for lamination, how you apply it might take a bit of practice...you can be fairly messy, just keep the formers away from you when you do it and remember to keep the two face sides (a wipe with some shellac on the outer faces before glue up will help prevent any nasty glue spots sticking) away from you until the end, clean your hands if you need to before carefully applying glue to the face pieces. I've found that two small tight rubber bands slipped over each end (one reason why to cut oversized layers) helps keep it all together whilst you get it into the formers. Then clamp it, starting at one side at ending at the other and keeping your layers horizontal, try and use one good quality F clamp every 3 inches. Remember to do all of this on a non stick surface, glossy formica works quite well. Once the glue has set and a full 24 hours later (don't even attempt to test its flex beforehand) you can remove the excess, roughly file off the squeezed out glue. I use a router to clean up my laminated edges but it took a long time to work out how to do it well, it does a great job...there are ways, I'd google it, but if that fails use a hand plane or pay someone to do it...indeed if it didn't sound like you wanted to DIY I'd suggest paying to have it done. Best of Luck! PS Fine Woodworking on Bending Wood is a great little collection of articles. | |||||
| Dear KRP | 1 Relevance | 22 years ago | koen | General discussion | |
| Dear KRP You are right in pointing out that industrial production of consumer goods has been the standard now for almost a century, and yes, many artist/designers are working inside a very small margin kept alive by guaranteed income, teaching jobs, museum stores, foundations (like the Fondation Cartier for Marc Newson's pseudo-plane) and most of all the news-needing media. It does not mean that they do not have a role to play, and that they could and should play that role well. The fact of the matter is that design schools have been more succesfull in attracting students with artistic ambitions (self expression) than students who want to serve consumer expectations and go beyond it. There is nothing wrong with self expression other than that it is also self-serving and that makes it un-compatible with serving someone else. I do not think that schools have chosen this path deliberatly. Art has distanced itself so much from the general culture that even young people with artistic ambitions have lost contact. In loosing that contact they can't imagine any future for themselves inside that art world and they turn to design educations as a viable alternative. There are few exceptions on this trend and so we have to make the best out of it. I like the critical role they are playing and I would encourage them to continue to do so. In spite of dozens of awards, museum selections, publications, patents, and hundreds of products on the market, people like myself have no ambition of even being mentioned in a design encyclopedia. The reason is simply that it is not part of the package that motivates us. At the same time, in order to serve the consumer you have to use a form language that is part of our culture and that form language is not a stable, cast in concrete thing. It is something that is developed inside a society with the help of creative people and sometimes through self expression. As I have mentioned here before, 25 years ago the word "cool" did not mean anything else than a moderatly cold temperature. Now we understand something else. The same mechanism applies to form language, someone has to start using it before it can slowly but surely be understood by everybody...The development of that language is a deeply democratic process. Some ideas are adopted by society, some are rejected, but someone or a group of people has to be that fountain of new form ideas....and let them be known for it and famous...society does not give them any other satisfactions. | |||||
| Thank you all very much for | 1 Relevance | 12 years ago | Peter Dalsgaard | General discussion | |
| Thank you all very much for your feedback. An accident waiting to happen. Well, that’s kind of what I like with these designs. They have a form of ambivalence expression. They look fragile and robust at the same time. The Danish chairs at least, have had more than half a century to prove their worth. If I had to compare the style to an animal, it wouldn’t really be a dolphin. It would be the cheetah. A gracious cat, but immensely powerful. Enough with the metaphors. I did a little digging regarding the Danish and Italian characteristics of the design, and found out that there might actually be a Danish-Italian connection (I know. It sounds like a drug-cartel) As Leif mentions, a lot of Danish designers had similar design. The “grandfather” of Danish design, Kaare Klint, was very conservative in his designs, so I ruled him out as the source of inspiration. Instead I found the “Great grandfather” of Danish design, Nicolai Abildgaard. Never heard of him before? Neither had I. Nicolai Abildgaard was born in 1743 and died in1809. He was a man of many talents. Painter, sculptor, professor at the Copenhagen Art Academy and furniture designer. But where did Abildgaard get his inspiration? Well, as it was common for creative persons in those days, Abildgaard went to the center of the world. Rome, Italy, where he allegedly got the inspiration for his chair. But where did the Italians get the inspiration? Well, they “stole” it from the greeks. This chair, called the Klismos chair, is of old greek design. As greek history has never really been my thing (poems with 16000 verses can bore anyone to death) I didn’t dig any deeper. I know it’s a far stretched theory, but I didn’t have anything better to do this Sunday J P.S. The first picture is not a chair. P.P.S. Really liked Carlo Mollino’s photo gallery 😀 | |||||
| Why knife blocks suck. | 1 Relevance | 16 years ago | fastfwd | General discussion | |
| Why knife blocks suck. Let me count the ways... 1. They're rarely deep enough for 10" knives, and never deep enough for 12" knives. 2. If you keep kosher or have some other reason for preventing two sets of knives from coming into contact with each other, you'll need to buy two blocks even if each is less than half-full. 3. Blocks with slots cut in various sizes only work with knives that fit in those slots. Have two wide knives? Too bad, there's only one wide slot. Have a cleaver? It has to go somewhere else. The distribution of knife widths in your collection is pre-ordained by the manufacturer of your block. 4. Angled blocks must have shorter slots in front than in back, so the distribution of knife LENGTHS in your collection has been decided for you, too. 5. Blocks with pre-cut slots only hold as many knives as there are slots. 6. Stuff falls into the slots and stays there forever. Put a wet knife in the block and you may get mold. Put a soapy knife in the block and you'll draw it out a half-dozen times with soap on the blade. Put a dirty knife in the block and god knows what'll be growing in there next week. 7. If you have carbon steel knives, your block must be kept away from moisture to avoid rust. 8. Straight blocks like Niceguy's force you to remove the knives by pulling straight up. This is probably awkward for short people, and it also means that the block can't live on a counter under a cabinet. 9. Accidentally twist the knife or catch its heel on the slot as you're removing it, or miss the slot as you're replacing it, or get a little tipsy and bump into the block or the knife handles -- or do any of the other clumsy things that people occasionally do -- and you're likely to knock the thing over. When you do, the knives will fall out. If the block is angled and you tip it forward, the knives will probably FLY out. Toward you. I saw this happen once and it was terrifying: A couple of the knives skittered across the counter and fell to the floor right next to my roommate's bare feet. 10. Blocks live on countertops, which means children can reach them... Or worse, can ALMOST reach them. I don't ever want to see a child on tiptoes reaching over the edge of a counter to tug on a block full of knives. 11. Blocks hide your knives. This is not only aesthetically disappointing, but also a usability problem: You have to pull each knife out just to see whether it's the one you want. Differently-shaped handles help, but there are only so many different shapes. Always putting each knife into the same slot helps, but that isn't easy with blocks like Niceguy's which don't have well-defined pre-sized slots... And neither of those hints will help anyone who's new to your kitchen. Ok, I'm tired so I'll stop there. Hang your knives on magnets. | |||||
| cont'd | 1 Relevance | 12 years ago | mgee76 | General discussion | |
| cont'd You don't want a sharp edge... just straight and thin. After the stripper sits and congeals for a bit, take it off with the scraper and put it in a bit or a trash can, whatever you want. It isn't super toxic but it's easier if you have something to discard it into. If you wait too long, it will be dry and brittle and won't come off as well. If you don't wait long enough, it will be soupy and sloppy. The ideal time is when there is just enough wet stuff on the top of the stripper that it won't drip everywhere, but is still fairly wet. The finish is going to dissolve fairly easily if you applied it right and kept it wet, so it's better to take it off at this point than waiting for it all to dry up and having to do it again. Scrape it off with the scraper... it isn't math and you'll get a feel for what's going on as you go. My guess is that the lighter spots are water and other types of damage to the finish, which I would assume is lacquer. This is going to soak up the stripper quickly and should come off clean if you apply it correctly. If not, or if you'd rather go the more anal route... use a liquid stripper that you rub on that contains methylene chloride. This is a safer play but it contains harsh chemicals and takes forever. You soak a pad or steel wool in it and then rub it gently on the surface, dissolving the finish. Methylene chloride is the heavy stuff professionals use. It works fantastic, but it's a harsh chemical and you're gonna burn through steel wool or whatever pad stripper you use if you do this from the get. This stuff is best to clean up whatever is left behind after using Citrustrip, as you can rub it on with a rag (wearing gloves, of course) and most of what remains will disappear. If this table is veneer... again, don't be afraid. As long as you're not soaking the wood with water or other types of stuff and working in a garage or place where there is plenty of ventilation and reasonable temperatures... you can't go wrong. You will hit the learning curve for the stuff and come out thinking you can refinish anything. A flat surface like that will be no problem to strip. If you don't choose Citrustrip, the same rules will apply for using thin coats quickly to build a surface and then wetting drying spots until you've got the whole thing congealed at once. Use Mineral Spirits to clean up everything. You can use Murphy's Oil Soap, but I would do so sparingly and only in the event that there is an actual stain that has been mottled... come back for more advice in that case. Mineral Spirits on a rag that are gently wiped and the cleaned up with a clean rag will be the safest and will allow you to see what the wood will look like when you apply the new protective coat. Just don't pour it on the wood and you'll be fine. | |||||
| Thanks for calling designers attention to public vs. private... | 1 Relevance | 21 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Thanks for calling designers attention to public vs. private rights...Part 6 In turn, the tendency of drift toward greater oligarchic influence matters, because it determines not only how the institution of property rights will evolve regarding public and private interests in property rights, but in how and where and when the moral imperatives of society should be injected into the process to skew it towards fair outcomes for every thing from employement, to welfare, to civil rights, to the rights of designers and sovereigns regarding the designers' creations. For a few centuries now, designers and the rest of us have ridden a rising tide of liberal democracy that brought generally increasing protection of the private interests of the designer and manufacturer, at times even favoring the designer. This could happen, because the manufacturers and designers (mostly the manufacturers, but both had some mutual interests) were able to apply considerable influence on the sovereign/public to get a preferred distribution of costs and benefits, because, frankly, it was for a time in the USA sovereign's interest to encourage the flourishing of manufacturing and design. Now, however, the game is changing. The sovereign/public's influence and central role seems to be being eroded and perhaps even eclipsed by central banking and linked corporate oligopolies. In a world where the sovereign/public's influence is diminished, the question becomes: will the manufacturers and designers interests still coincide and produce institutions that foster the designer and the manufacturer's well being, or will reinstitutionalization begin to shift to favor the manufacture far in excess of the designer, as it already has vis a vis organized labor? Or will manufacturer AND designer begin to find themselves on the short end of the stick to some new constellation of influence and force that makes manufacturer and designer and organized labor largely subservient to, say, an alliance of finance, information and security organizations? I am not taking any kind of a political position in this overly long post. I am not saying what should or shouldn't prevail. What I am trying to do is lay out some of the contextual forces relating to institutions that will continue to come into play to shape the role of designers and design in information age, and in turn alter the public and private interests in the property rights to designs created. | |||||
| cont. | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | koen | General discussion | |
| cont. Not that I have any ambitions in that direction, but I can understand that designers or architects, especially those who know their art well, are tempted to make small detours into the more visible and exposed world of cosmeticism. I have done so myself and yes it has not given me the satisfaction of seeing them used by thousands of people but it gave me a place in the permanent collection of the MoMA and a few other quite places. Yes, as a society we need and generally applaud authenticity and clarity of intention and execution, but we also rejoice in the extravagant, we applaud exuberance and need both the marginals and the risk takers. I have often stated that these contradictions should be guidelines in where we use our talents. So I enjoy extravagant and exuberant graphics because their inherent lifetime is short and unless we are talking important editions, the validity of their message is of the same nature. I enjoy fashion and personal expression in clothing for the same reasons. I do not mind when technology driven products are frivolously designed. We know that technical improvements will soon get the better of them. So I sometimes wonder if some architects should have chosen to be graphic artists or fashion designers, and the same applies to designers. The all important question of what that new architecture might be? Of course we can not introduce a ?market-place? in architecture in which every building could be challenged by a similar one for a better price are a better one for the same price?or a much better one for a higher price. In the first place I think that the division between engineering and architecture has encouraged cosmeticism. As in every division of labour you end up emphasizing the typical aspects of the different parts, including the abuse that could result from it. Architects and designers are in this not different from stock brokers. If architecture is reduced to concerns about how it will look in architectural magazines, it is inevitable that cosmetics will gain in importance. We see the same thing in industrial design. The illusion that ?anything is possible? and basic knowledge of how things are made is no longer required, has started a Sunami of superficial, self satisfying design and every day more of it is produced in the limitless virtual world of attention seekers. My appreciation of Piano?s work is not based on the fact that he is always right. Remember architects do not have the benefit of great public input or discussion. As a society we are willing to live with an environment that is imposed by developers and the chaotic result seems to be experienced as a reasonable facsimile for the diversity we need and want. | |||||
| continued | 1 Relevance | 17 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| continued A ship, a hydro dam, and an earth mover are machines that do work for us. As great tools, their designers pretty much dispense with the aesthetics that make these machines intimate and nurturing to us and instead get on with the sizing and scaling of them required for them to use brute force to do their work for us. But buildings, most buildings anyway, are man-made habitats for human beings to live and work in. If all a building were designed to do were to store boxes in one place for a period of time and for a cost per cubic foot/per week, as in the case of a warehouse, or a storage library where there were no book readers, just maintenance persons (like shiphands on a ship), then there would be some appropriate analogy between buildings and machines like ships, hydro dams, and great earth movers. But the analogy of a building being a machine for living/working in breaks down completely, when one is talking about a house, an apartment building, or an office building, or a shopping center, etc. These are engineered habitats for human beings. So what is/was the valid logic in architects adopting the forms of machines doing brute force work in the design of libraries, classroom buildings, office buildings, shopping centers and so on? It always felt wrong to me and now its seems utterly illogical and rather inhumane, also. I could perhaps justify using brutalism, or some other extreme formalism, as an expressionistic means in monumental architecture that does not have to be used by human beings for living and/or working in. From the Great Pyramid, to the Arc d' Triomphe, to the Washington Monument, to much abstract modernist sculpture for public spaces, monuments can be effective simply because they are gigantic and impersonal and not very hospitable. But a library? a classroom building? an office building? a house? an appartment? a shopping center? Gads! Brutalist architecture only makes sense to me if one reasons that a building is not a building, not a habitat for humans, but rather a machine for processing them from one thing into another. Processing human beings, like cattle? Now where does that lead? I refuse to go there. I can see the brilliance in some brutalist architecture. But I still think it a misguided and unfortunate architectural language. | |||||
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