All in good fun
I'm glad you get the joke. You see the absurdity of suggesting to people using the black hole table "you can be careful or not put small objects there".
Let's all put little cards on each piece of furniture in our homes listing, succintly, the appropriate uses of said furniture. I personally would love to see some new furniture with explicit instructions allowing it to be used for sex (didn't we already have this discussion?).
Give me a link to something of his I can like, I want to see some new ideas on new ways we can interact with everyday objects that we tend to take for granted. That's genius.
Louise Campbell...
I find some things to like alot, but again defunctionalism (i.e., the intentional making something less comfortable than it might otherwise be out of misanthropy, latent or overt) rears its misanthropic head in too many pieces.
The Tub: the tub is NOT one of the pieces I like. This is the worst kind of high concept--one that makes no sense on its face. The ONLY thing appealing about tubs for lounging is the hot water. Take that away and they are mostly dreadfully uncomfortable things. Almost every tub I've ever been in has been uncomfortable, except for a few at luxury resorts built for two. The prospect of sitting in/on a piece of furniture shaped like a dry tub makes me wonder if she will next offer a rack, where too many poor wretches spent too much time, that only stretches a little.
Low Lounge chair: here we have quintessential defunctionalism. This is an absolutely gorgeous piece of work guarrantied to leave waffling on the skin requiring plastic surgery. I ask Louise this: why not just go all th way with defunctionalism and sharpen and cerrate the edges? This piece could and should be redeemed however. She should coat it in some kind of spongy material that retained the wonderful pattern and made it a joy to lay on, skin-waffling and all. It would be museum grade work at that point and a huge seller.
Arm Chair: Here Louise openly admits finding inspiration for the chair from a snotfilled hanky, which leads to the rather unflattering metaphor of a chair evincing the lines of a used, lace hanky and people being like the mucus filling it. To boot, the chair is likely to gore someone walking near, it is likely to leave a woman in dress sitting in it few safe ways to keep her legs together, and no practical place to rest one's arms. But despite all that, this is a positively beautiful thing; like a Venus Fly Trap is beautiful.
Louise Campbell Pt. 2
Waiting Room chairs: Now these are utterly wonderful to look at. And if they were for a doctor's waiting room, or a psychiatrist's waiting room, or any waiting room in which you hope you are not seen by others, the blinding wings of these chairs are super functional. However, it looks like that old defunctionalism has hidden in the lower backs of these chairs where rather than lumbar support one finds lumbar torture.
Casual Cupboard: I like everything about this piece.
Very Round Chair: This should actually be called the Natural Log E chair, as that is the pattern it is composed from. This is the same pattern one finds in sunflowers and the Nautilus sea shell, I believe. It is a widely recurring pattern in nature for reasons no scientist can definiitvely answer. It would be remarkable in a chair, if it were comfortable and did not snag clothing. I have questions about both.
Prince Chair: in the doily pattern, it leaves me cold. In the less fussy pattern of interlocking circles, this chair is masterful, one of the best I've ever seen. It even looks fairly conmfy and the neoprene rubber laminated with felt makes me year to strip and lounge. Top notch.
Upholstered Seesaw: I never thought my living room needed a seesaw, but now I know it does. And shopping malls. And play pediatricians waiting rooms. And fast food restaurant play areas. This is just plain great design. Any cocktail party would be more successful with some of these, too.
Honesty chair: She's really pushing out the envelope with this one and the envelope is the better for it. Something important is going on here. I see this as more a model of a new chair than a chair, however. I want her to go ahead and take this skeleton into a medium that would be comfortable and visually stunning.
Spiderman chair: been there, done that already. An insignificant breather between impressive works.
Go, Louise, go! Learn to love you fellow man and woman enough to give them comfort, too.
I hate to think that...
there would be such a fundamental contradiction between our ethics and aesthetics that one would have to choose between one ore the other and that any reconciliation between the two would be just that, a reconciliation or compromis. What it would mean is that our ways of living, and the tools we need to make our lives more confortable are disconnected from our sense of beauty.If I may make an analogy with gastronomy, it would mean that something as essential as food would either be useful and tasty but awful to look at, or it would look very attractive but the taste would actually scare away a hungry person. Without excluding the possibility of doing just that, I do not see why design can not be like gastronomy. Healthy, tasty and a joy to look at. Have we really created a (design) world where "visibility" is such a inevitable and demanding condition that we force young people to throw away all accumulated knowledge, disregard past achievements and solutions and re-invent the wheel, just to get a place under the professional sun?
Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from the cooking profession where you have to go through learning, not only how to choose the very best, fresh ingredients, but also all the classic techniques, all the do's and don'ts. Where you have to compare hundereds of times the right ballance between the dark and the lighter shades of your "crème brulé" before you make your first steps into innovative and unchartered carrot slicing. Yes, m-andersen and dcwilson, Mrs Campbell shows unusual talent, certainly has an innovative mind but she does not need "Billy goes Zen" to show it. The "Folda" chair says it even better, more clearly and it's usefullness is beyond doubt. Comfort should not be the result of guessing or of a friend's recommendation. Something to sit on or in should just say by itself: I am comfortable. All the rest is usefull, trains the creative mind, stretches one's imagination, refines the designer's skills, and I hope we all have binders, files, shelfs and workshops full of these wonderfull experiments, but we should not put them on the menu.
It's a shame Campbell's...
It's a shame Campbell's homepage doesn't show all of her work, there's a few things missing. I think the Felda sofa and chair are wonderful too, though I haven't been able to sit and study them in detail (like I have with the Casual cupboard and Prince chair which gets both thumbs up). Felda was briefly put into production by Bahnsen Collection and then quickly disappeared again. Why, I don't know, because being so beautiful it really deserves all the attention in the world. It seems much of Campbell's time goes into experimenting with different techniques, making prototypes and just having a good time. Most of it is not very usefull, except maybe to her (as valuable experience), but when she's asked to make something for actual production, she's often spot on. I always look forward to her next project because it's impossible to predict what she has created this time. That's a nice quality, I think. One I don't see with Marc Newson.
At the moment, Jørn Utzon's Aurora chair (originally designed in 1965 for the Opera House in Sydney) is one of my favourites, though I can't yet say anything about the comfort:
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r148/m_andersen/JrnUtzonLoungeChairAn...
Great thread here everyone,...
Great thread here everyone, this has really been enjoyable to read. I'm thinking instead of design 'genius', maybe Antonella meant to say Marc Newson is a design 'hyena'. I don't know - someone told me a lot of folks have been getting the two words mixed up lately, which is not surprising, given how they have become almost interchangeable.
Antonella...
Thanks for your in depth explanation as to why you say Carrera marble is "the safest material ever", perhaps you might go on to further explain why you say that Carrera marble is "the safest material ever" now?. There are zillions of completely natural materials im sure but why is this one the safest ever? or were you just generalising?.
Dear Vivienne
I understand your reluctance to recognize Marc's genius in this Carrera bookshelf. Instinctively you noticed that there is not a single flat surface that could hold a bottle, hence your ironic tone on the most safe of all rocks: pure calcium carbonate, nicely cristalized in huge blocs. Imagine to watercut this bloc, expensive enough to discourage the riff-raff from ever being able to enjoy the safety of this material, imagine the easy way of making waste! In addition to that Marble is not only safe, it is not very strong so...you have to pack this shelf in a crate supporting each individual cavity (that does not hold a bottle, nor the occasional glass) The end result is the equivalent of two Steinways! This is design at it's very safest but you have to watch out for your feet. Granit would have been nice to, but the aluminum silicate, feldspar and mica of which it was formed does not do to your bones what the calcium carbonate can achieve, so I am obviously with the president of the Marc Newson fan club on this one.
Thank you Koen..
for your explanation, thats a good reason to call Carrera marble "safe", i just wanted Antonella to say it.I have a low table from Morrison made from the same stuff, its cold to sit on. My bottle doesnt usually leave my grip long enough to get placed on any surface once opened, i have become adept at the "Party buffet" routine, plate, glass,bottle all balanced in perfect harmony. "Riff Raff! i like that, very Rocky Horror. .James, i agree, the fact that its one of the safest substances wouldnt mean anything if it fell on your toes!.
If you need any help, please contact us at – info@designaddict.com