Cookware for Pawson-philes...  

Nice cookware. Very direct...
Nice cookware. Very direct and functional. Pawsons bold masculine minimlism translates well to cookware. I'm seeing some 80s post modernism in form, not a criticism.
DC, yours and Koens absence has been noticable. I do miss your contemplative posts.
http://www.demeyere.be/default.asp?CID=7916&SLID=1#

Iittala counter
Oddly, I just had these in my hands last weekend, have been trying to buy some good cooking pots. Our local cookstore stocks the complete range of Demeyere (D. has several lines, at different price points).
The guys that run the cookstore did tell me that Demeyere did hire Pawson to design a line to counter Iittala's popular Tools - range (they have been loosing the younger, desingminded, customers to Iittala). I am sorry to say, I don't think they will succeed with their new top-line ..
I think mrs. Pawson cooks at home (or perhaps they dine out, or they may order take- away). Anyway, I don't think the pots were designed by someone who does a lot of cooking. They don't handle very well. I have held a lot of pans, saucepans, grilling pans etc. to figure out if / which ones would be easy & pleasant to use (thankfully the cookshop guys are very patient and knowledgeable).
The Pawson pans easily have the worst handles of all pots in the shop. For instance : they are very straight + very broad. The best grip is with a somewhat rounded handle, and not as large: your hand should be able to wrap around it comfortably. If the handle is too wide, your grip is not as tight (more force required, less easily to turn). I have small hands, these pans don't work for me at all. Plus they are too square. Perhaps a very wide, tall guy might do okay with them, who knows ? So unfortunately, it seems to be form over function with this Pawson design. However, in their less pricey (!) range, Demeyere does have a couple of very nice sauce pans.. I was tempted.
PS .. I left the store with a most excellent Iittala cooking pot of the Tools - range :o)
http://www.iittala.com/web/Iittalaweb.nsf/en/products_cooking_tools

ite,
you are my new hero! Function first...always! I loooooove Pawson, but I agree those pans stink.
Koen, on the other hand, being a true product designer, has developed his ceramic tools for actual humans to actually use! I completely adore the mortar and pestle I have from his Atelier Orange collection. It's a wonderfully designed item.
As far as good pans go there are lots that are good in many price ranges. I was given Calphalon (the original commercial type) when I got married. Twenty years later they are still surviving daily use and abuse. I also have a bunch of vintage Michael Lax for Copco, and Dansk, which are enameled cast iron. Nothing looks like that stuff! And there is something viscerally satisfying about hauling a heavy steaming pot of Coq au Vin out of the oven! Just did that last Sunday!

To design cookware
...is certainly one of the great challenges in line with designing chairs. Both products have a long history and their emotional value is certainly as rich as the embedded traditions that divide users between for instance the French tradition where the center of gravity of the contents is below the axis of the handle (French chefs always make a curved movement to poor, starting low and slightly to the left of their own body axis and turning the saucepan while lifting and bringing it to the right) and the Germanic tradition (Northern and central Europe) where the axis of the handle goes through the center of gravity of the contents. In spite of the fact that rivets are a nuisance when cleaning and will losen over time, lots of people in the U.S. prefer them over the much stronger projection welding. A pooring lip should be an obvious, but Iittala obviously disagrees. We know how to shape handles to make them comfortable and attach them in such a way that they do not heat up even after hours...very few cookware manufacturers do it. Yes, as with chairs it is a lot easier to design something "original" that does not function well than it is to do a very time consuming study of Akerblom, Mandel, Grandjean and Diffrient and to do lengthy sessions of prototyping and testing yourself and find out that within the parameters of real comfort, only marginal changes can be made. It is one of those amazing reflexes of the human mind. We love to be surprised even if we see from the start the glare in the lighting fixture that eventually will motivate us to throw it away. Even when we see clearly the irritants in the new product in front of us, we will still be more attracted by it than by a product that is true to a long legacy of gradual improuvements, especially if by buying it we can show that we belong to that small in crowd that appreciates. I guess there will always be designers in both camps and somewhere in between. Those who have read my essay on originality on this fine site know on which side I have been fighting. Those who know the Demeyere cookware lines also know which ones I designed. After so many years in this wonderfull profession I still don't know where the designer should stand, but I know where the users stands and frankly, between the spotlights of the mostly short lived public recognition and the kitchen I prefer to be in the kitchen.
And...dear ite (BE), based on technical quality, on durability craftmanship I would prefer the Demeyere Pawson over Iittala...but than again...I am still learning.