I hate to say it cause i have loved this forum for so
long but this is really getting to be BORING !!!
I check my email several times a day and look at this forum and it is the same old same old with nothing new or any one adding anything different , tell your friends and neighbors maybe they can add something.....
What the hell
(that's a good start !) -- nobody's been thrown off in quite a while.
Another site I visit warns "Welcome to pleasantville -- please keep it civil and upbeat !" A dozen words are filtered; a bland substitute shows up when you type an obscenity. Funny -- and sad ?
Seriously -- I'd just as soon not hassle Patrick and Alix. But I think they're probably not averse to religion and politics. . .
OK...putting the dish on Paul McCobb
I happen to like Paul McCobb's stuff alot, but have you noticed that his Planner Group stuff - by far the best selling American mid-century furniture line in the 1950's - is a distinct ripoff of George Nelson's Basic Cabinet collection from 1947-1952?
And when Nelson and Herman Miller came out with their thin-walled Rosewood collection, McCobb's Directional line showed up out of the clear blue sky.
As I said, McCobb's stuff is real nice, but it is not particularly original.
Remember, McCobb was not an architect....he was a salesman before getting into design.
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How's that for controversy?
doing good
Just thought it would be fun to shake this party up a bit getting a sleepy and weepy but for free what the hell.
It has been told to many times that Paul McCobb was the poor mans Charles Eames,
His stuff in the 50s and 60s was not sold at the high end stores(hate to say but Eames stuff was sold mostly at office supply stores in the beginning , but McCobb stuff sorta mirrors all the big boys for that era Eames, Saarine, and others,
Herman miller got into the better dealers like Jules Selzer in Beverly Hills and others across America and from there they went to the real high end
modern dealers in the late 50 s
It has been told to many times that Paul McCobb was the poor mans Charles Eames,
No question about it, but let me stress that I like McCobb alot.
I have the following Planner Group pieces;
-a dinette table and two arm chairs in black and a pair of dark walnut stained side chairs,
-a birch side table, and
-a walnut stained coffee table....
-plus I have two individual drawers with pulls; one is black with legs attached and the other is sitting on a side-table-sized platform bench.
Yes, they were designed to be inexpensively produced and sold at popular Department Stores.
But I still think Nelson and Eames created the total home concepts and McCobb, and to an extent, Florence Knoll did their own versions, as a means of competition.
It all gets into a whole different but related conversation; would Bertoia have created his wonderful bench if Nelson hadn't put his platform bench out first?
Certain iconic pieces, like Saarinen's Womb chair and Nelson/Harper's Coconut Chair stood by themselves and no other high quality designer or competitive company tried to do their own version.....but in the case of the casegoods, occasional tables, and the basic chairs, it was essential for each company to have their own lines to compete.
Alot of Florence Knoll's pieces reminds me of Nelson's (I love her stuff too).
The above is really two issues; as much as I like McCobb, I don't put him up on the same plane as Knoll and Herman Miller's designers....
THE RAMBLING HAS STOPPED!
More about McCobb, please?
Original or not, there seems to be a heck of a lot of stuff with his name on it.
Some not bad, and within my reach -- as it would also have been 50 years ago.
What do we know about this guy? A large independent design office? Worked with several manufacturers?
More about McCobb
google can fill you in on any of the info you need on him
the info I have his from old timers that bought and collected his stuff over the years,
Paul never ever got the attention or recognition he deserved cause he was not a archtiect
Paul McCobb (1917-69) American furniture designer and decorator, active Massachusetts and Michigan.
McCobb, like his contemporaries Harvey Probber and George Nelson, helped introduce Americans to modular furniture.
McCobb, who never received any formal design training, first established a studio in 1945. He worked primarily as a decorator and retail display designer, eventually turning his attention to furniture: by 1950, B.G. Mosberg was marketing his stylish, affordable Planner Group.
Other, more luxurious collections followed, including the Directional, Predictor Linear, and Perimeter lines, all produced by Winchendon Furniture and marketed by McCobb himself.
McCobb's pieces were flexible and practical, designed to meet the needs of post World War II middle-class lifestyles. For example, his "living walls", complete with moveable room dividers and storage systems, allowed for maximum efficiency in limited spaces.
He became a household name in the 1950's, earning himself the nickname "America's Decorator". His work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Merchandise Mart in Chicago.
As the first article says ...
As the first article says Paul was a decorator not a designer back then that was a big deal
as the designers, got the large jobs from Instiutions that made their mark today,
I was also told that Paul McCobb marketed his furniture himself and had several manufactures make for him
He died in 1969 at the age of 52 and missed a whole decade of great design like Probber, Kagan, Evans and others
He has become bigger in death than he was in life,
as his furniture had become very collectable. in the last 10 years.
I suggest alka-seltzer.....
Vernor Panton's interiors make me feel physically ill. Anyone agree?
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I'm not crazy about a lot of his stuff, though the flower-pot lamps are beautiful.
If you want to see ugly, try the tacky Geary cardboard furniture.
Talk about disposable...reminds me of the 1960's Dot-A-Mia paper dresses.
whitespike
Whitespike I am getting in my new car and driving to Austin to wash your mouth out with soap !!!!!!
Verner Panton was the coolest, coolest, coolest, of the cool.
He had the design of the pop 60's down ... he was great, His colors were great
what he did at Spielgel Publishing
in Hamburg Germany for the the canteen with circles and pyramids in candy colored palette in 1969 was the greatest and 38 years later looks like he finished it this summer,
His cone chairs and Heart chairs, his s chairs stacking and his lighting
This guy was a genius and a visionary he is what STEVE JOBES is to computer electronics to the design world
If there was ever one designer who dared to be different it was Verner Panton and thank G-D that he was.
His interiors still make me...
His interiors still make me feel physically ill.
I can't help it. I have never been extremely blown away by pop design. Perhaps it really was the first move towards postmodernism. To me, pop exhudes a "jabbing" or "joking" vibe at times. Maybe more about the statement than the design, or more about being witty than solving a problem.
I am not pinning this on every designer of this period. It just does not seem as honest as 40s-50s design to me.
Panton had a tendency to overdo his interiors. Too much pattern, too much contrast, too many angles. This type of design principle makes me dizzy and anxious.
Designers like Girard were able to use lots of patterns, lots of colors, and at times clutter without causing sensory overload. Panton seemed to place his faith in shock value and exuberance.
Chevys and Fords. Whatever.
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