chewbacca rug...
Please read Gerry Spense's book on how to argue to win; then make your case.
Only zealots and fools stick to positions without making an effort to bring reasoned persuasion to bear those who disagree with them.
I cannot believe you are either.
I can only infer then that you are angry and frustrated and uncomfortable with defending arguments.
Gerry Spense's book has helped me a lot over the years in this regard.
I apologize for making you think I was patronizing you; that is never my intent.
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I'm quite confident Koen and Olive are correct, however I just can't shake the feeling (and I suspect Chewbacca can't either) that when people do this it is a predatory and lazy approach to making a profit, if the pieces in question were being developed to cope with new requirments or used an improved technology and were manufactured under good conditions I'd have no problem at all, build on talent...its always been the way forward but most of the copies don't do any of these things.
No question; this argument
is at the basic crux of the collecting of mid-modern. And besides the bickering, it DOES bring up some fascinating points to consider.
Buying vintage furniture does not enhance the profits of Herman Miller, Knoll, Artifort, Cassina, Fritz Hansen or Artek.
Reading books about the designers, certainly during the post-war period, most of these designers were creating furniture that could be inexpensively produced and sold at a price that the public could afford. The current pricing of the companies are far and away beyond the intent of the designers. Eames and/or George Nelson would be shocked at the prices the companies are charging for their stuff.
Price-wise, Fritz Hansen and Knoll are probably the most expensively priced, with Herman Miller, Artifort and Cassina right behind.
But, the most expensive is probably Vitra. Imagine how upset Nelson would be if he knew how much Vitra is charging for their own Nelson clocks. Outrageous!
Like it or not, Herman Miller was at the forefront of changing materials (like the latex foam and fiberglass, that are currently considered usually bad for the environment).
99% of the stuff in my house are vintage pieces. I bought a new large square Eames table for my record room because I couldn't find a vintage square work table. I bought two 62" Nelson benches from Home Office Designs because they were cheap and slight seconds. I bought an Aalto Artek 401 Tank lounge chair from a local dealer because they selling the display model for half price (who got it from Herman Miller during the short time HM distributed Artek in the US).
So, most of my furnishings do not profit the designers or companies, either. I have very few known knockoffs.
Since most of us tend to buy vintage and get them fixed (if need be), we're not at the forefront of suppling the companies and designers their due profits.
Just one other consideration
Although I do not collect I fully agree with Barrympls' point of view and his way of collecting. I am not so sure that these well designed products were all that affordable in the early days of their production, at least that's not how I recall it.
I would like to submit another thought to you Heath, just as a fellow designer, and ask you to consider the choices the Herman Millers, Knolls, Vitras etc. of this world are making by not only keeping products in the collection, which is a statement of their timeless quality, but mostly to scrape the bottoms of the drawing piles to re-edit products on the narrow basis of the celebrated name of the designer. One of the reasons why design or, re-design as Jan Michl would argue, is part of our culture is that it reflects the priorities and cultural preferences of the time in which the design was produced. Each generation can and should design according to these priorities and preferences, explore them and to some extend influence the direction in which they evolve. The companies that we so kindly celebrate used to employ designers that did just that. My feeling is that by going back time and again to those well established names, they are taking away attention and possibilities away from those young designers who would and could give form to the environments of our generation. I know, they do that to some extend, and I am sure we would all be surprised in seeing the statistics on how important the "other" business is, but still...just a thought.
There seems to be this inevitable evolution in business where the next generation seems to hold on to the products that made the prior generation succesful, but not to the entrepreneurial spirit of that prior generation.
Another related topic
is how these companies are to deal with.
Whenever I have called Herman Miller with a suggestion or request, they have been very friendly and knowledgable.
I have a friend who does upholstery and he agrees that Herman Miller are fine but Knoll are difficult, cold and not particularly helpful.
At the retail level, Hive and late, lemented Retromodern were both swell to deal with. (I bought my square Eames table from Hive and my yellow Bertola seat pads from Retromodern.)
Vitra and Artek don't bother replying to emails, by the way. Neither does Modernica.
Ya know it's funny...
I own 4 MCM pieces. One is the Eames shell chair, which is vintage. I've got a Nelson bench from HM and a Womb chair from Knoll. Both were bought new through an architect friend that got me 40% off retail. I also have two Wasily chairs. These are nice, high-quality italian repros bought through DWR when they were first starting out. So, from my point of view, I don't own any 'knockoffs'. The Wasily's have been through so many hands and had so many changes, I don't really count those, vintage is the only 'real'. And the design has been around since the very very early MCM days. The chairs I have are well-made and good quality, so I'm fine with them. What matters to me is that the items are well made and of the best quality I can afford.
I guess I'm not a collecting type of person. I buy current designs, or vintage pieces according to my taste not according to their membership in the MCM club or any other design period. I can't seem to get my head around the passion for such a short period of design history, there is SO much more out there that fits the modernist aesthetic.
And how do those two concepts connect at all?
Thay aren't even related topics. One has to do with design specs and the other with following governmental regulatory codes (or ethical stewardship beliefs)
It doesn't mean 'unlicensed" as in practicing medicine without a license. Geesh, Lunchbox, that was a real stretch at fomenting argument, even for you.
To get an idea of...
just how deeply this issue is tangled up in subjective value models, rather than legal and ethical standards, note that no one even mentions the legal, or ethical, arguments in regards to pedestrian designs; i.e., those that are not iconic and done by high profile masters.
A law is supposed to apply to all and yet I hear no one standing up for the firms and designers that do pedestrian work that also get their products ripped off, while still under protection, or copied, after the designer's and producer's legal protections have lapsed (or they are unable to afford to enforce those still valid).
It seems we need to rewrite these laws and do so a little more narrowly: the protections need only extend to those who are collectible.
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