I like the notion...
of object oriented modernism as Olive puts it. But historically the main difference is really the result of two different traditions in modernism. The Eames' are not part of the more "Germanic", over rationalized Bauhaus tradition. They are through their Cranbrook education part of the more "crafts oriented" Scandinavian tradition. In this context the simplest way of differenciating the two is that one (Mies and the Bauhaus tradition) considers the home as an object, whereas the Eames' and to a large extend the Scandinavians consider the home as an "container" for objects. Corbusier who studied in Germany with Behrens, too considers the building an object. Properly tarnslated his "machine à habiter" means more "a machine to live" than a "machine to live in" but in both cases it is a object, large enough to have interior space, but not necessarely "flexible" interior space. Both the Dutch and German architects of that period allowed for very little "mobile" furniture. Most furniture was build-in. It also expresses itself in the basic "organic" lay-out of the homes. Only Le Corbusier makes exceptions to that organic approach, which will become one of the main reasons for Frank L.Wright's criticism and refusal to meet the French architect when he visits the U.S.
Being an industrial designer, I am more object oriented. With the exception of potter's-wheel-made ceramics I do not have the tendency to "collect" objects, and even the ceramic collection is something I could do without, and yet I organize my home, more as a container for objects (that I think we need)than as one big object in which I live. I guess it is not just a question of different schools of thought but also a result of being different.
"Ah-Hah" moment
Ohhhh, now I get it! Thanks Koen, that really gives substance to the ideas expressed on this thread. Interesting, I should fall into the more scandinavian school of thought, since that's my heritage, but what you said about a home as a container really clicks. I think of home as sanctuary and I move things around seasonally to create 'nesting spaces' according to mood, time of year and where the natural light is. I find that different spaces get used quite differently based on the season. I guess I'm a Bedouin in my own home!
Double AH-HAH! An ikoenic moment...
Container vs. object. So obvious. So fundamental. And yet as with all such things, I (admittedly the village idiot around here) missed it. Good lord, Koen, you've clarified my understanding of 20th Century design by an order of magnitude just with one short post. I never know what I don't know until I discover/learn it. Amazing. Thank you for rekindling the fear and wonder at what I don't know yet. If I don't learn something like this at least every year or so, I begin to feel like a prospector who thinks the river has run out of gold nuggets. Today, I will return to the river and resume panning with new vigor.
Object oriented space programming...Pt.1
Olive, as long as we're being a bit conceptual, or at least metaphorical, here, Koen's reference to your thinking as "object oriented modernism" triggered a somewhat related but tangential thought of my own. You write that you like to move objects around your house. You also characterize your work as being a professional organizer. Are you not engaging in a form of object oriented program and using the house (or other space) rather like a graphic user interface in object oriented programming? What I am suggesting here first seemed like a metaphor to me, but the more I think about it, the more I think it maybe conceptual as well. In my epistemology, metaphors are useful ways of explaining complex phenomena or complex designed processes through simplification to a layman. Concepts on the other hand are tools for actually thinking about how to do something. Object oriented programming is a concrete approach to computer programming/use based on reusable chunks of code tied to graphic digital artificats (i.e., icons, bundled routines, etc.). Use of these objects reduces the temptation to either stand pat to avoid rewriting code, or waste time in changing a program by reinventing the wheel. In a very literal sense, that seems to be what you are doing spatially. You are saying why stand pat to avoid buying or designing new furniture/interiors, when you can rearrange existing chunks of furniture/interior in an object oriented reprogramming of space. Now, this has many implications for actual work and thinking about work, at least it seems to me. For one small example, it might make sense to scan a space (from a closet to Central Park) into your computer and reCAD it, so to speak, working chiefly with existing objects. This approach could significantly rationalize adaptive reuse of designed objects at all scales of space. This would in effect facilitate (by creating an operational framework) some of Koen's thoughts about designers and design needing to move back towards durable design in order to lighten the environmental load of human artifact production, among other benefits. Distilled, it could decrease costs and increase benefits achieved from design by increasing adaptive reuse of designed artifacts via systematized process/discipline emphasizing digital and actual object oriented programming.
Object oriented space programming...Pt.2
Translated to more ordinary language, improve the livability of your space by rearranging your things, throwing out clutter, and adding only what would make the legacy furniture program work better. Many persons would look at this distillation and say, "but why go through the gyrations of language that proceeded it when every Tom, Dick and Harriet understands already." The answer is: because they don't, or there wouldn't be dysfunctionally cluttered houses, offices, and public spaces (note: I do think some clutter is functional, but that's another post). And its not only the ordinary person that does not understand it. Home interiors are mostly self designed. But offices and public buildings and spaces tend to be professionally designed. These professionally designed spaces are often dysfunctionally cluttered too, either because the designer didn't get it, or because people cluttered it.
I think there needs to be a design field called "clutterology", or perhaps "orderology," or perhaps more usefully "objectology," the systematic study of the optimal interface between clutter and order. It seems to me that some modernists design such astringent environments that one CANNOT functionally clutter them and so the very human tendency to some clutter become dysfunctional largely because the context is so inhospitable to it. Conversely, some more conventional design so masks the pleasures of order with its inefficiencies and/or prosaic boredom that one is almost encouraged to clutter it dysfunctionally to escape it.
Perhaps the time is ripe for a Robert Venturi of interior design, or of professional organization. Consider a treatise called "Clutter and Order in Object Oriented Design." Of course, to be taken seriously, one would have to substitute "Complexity" for "Clutter", though I personally far prefer the more concrete "clutter." So: how about this "Complexity and Order in Object Oriented Design"? The slogan of the field should be: "Live the Graphic User Interface."
Ah, I will go back to my flowers now.
Delightfully and briliantly said, DCW!
I shall take 'objectology' as my new phrase to explain the concept of organizing. So many folks think that organizing means 'martha-stewart-ization' which it emphatically does not. I heartily agree that there is such a thing as functional clutter, but sadly, many homes are disfunctionally cluttered.
Beyond my aesthetic sensibilities, I am particularly offended by McMansions which have some of the worst ergonomic spaces I have ever seen. Fabulously enormous bath tubs and nowhere to store the towels. As a genre, McMansions or 'Garage-Mahals' are an abysmal failure in containing people's lives. (thanks for the container metaphor, koen)
But beyond the faux castles, many homes and many homeowners simply do not have systems for living. And what you say about object-oriented programming really hits the nail on the head when it comes to what I do for my clients. I insert logic-based methodologies, object/furniture placement and spatial use 'programs' into people's lives. I 'improve livability' as you put it. In fact my business is named "Livable Design" to convey exactly this concept. Sadly, the biggest lack in all this is common-sense. If designers had to use the spaces they designed they would quickly discover the failings. The lack of human-habit considerations that are constantly overlooked. Storage and a place to rest common use objects is the biggest failure in most homes and a lack of creativity in creating solutions is the biggest failing in most homeowners.
I admit to being a freak. I am mega spatially-oriented. I critically look at every space and try to discover why it works well when it does and why not when it doesn't. I measure distance around objects that feel good to move around, I watch my clients move around in their space and note where they drop things ans where clutter builds up. I made one woman estatically happy when I placed a big hamper basket where her 13-year old always dropped his book-bag and coat. Now the kid puts all his crap in there. I often wonder why the mom never thought of doing this, to me it was just common-sense!
Object oriented programming cont'd
I think that the rational use of space is my biggest attraction to modernism. Modernist homes seems to be designed by people who actually tried to 'contain lives'. Sometimes as you pointed out, DCW, the over-minimal homes have nowhere to put the flotsam & jetsam of life. But mostly, modernist homes are logical spaces. I also really appreciate the Shaker traditional which was rationalist to a fault but always placed the needed storage right where it was most critical. The wall pegs, the skinny broom cupboards, the bench-boxes for shoes, that kind of thing. And yet, both Modernist and Shakers weren't prone to gadgets, solutions were integrated directly into the living space. I hate gadgets. I am forever coaching my clients to throw away the overly-complex organizer crap that's sold to the hopelessly disorganized that serve only to defeat them further. One does not need a special wall cupboard to contain their keys. In fact, the existence of the closed door and the myriad of little hooks ensure that the device is rendered unusable by the disorganized person, it's simply too dificult for them to use. An attractive bowl placed near the main point of entry for the home will work. It will look good and it will work. If homes could be created with the sample simple logic, life would be grand, but the need for acquisition and statement-making homes will keep me in business!
Ah, I was saying... and then you said-
Olive wrote:
> I think I am most like ChrisG although I
> really don't collect much and what I do
> collect, I use (asian teapots). I find
> objects with no function to be nothing
> more than clutter.
My collection is functional- I wear cufflinks almost every day, except during the warmer months.
Olive wrote:
> I drive my spouse to distraction with my quest
> for the "perfect _______"
My wife could relate.
SDR wrote:
> How many homeowners take this approach,
> storing the majority of their "stuff" and
> displaying (ie, enjoying) only a few
> objects at time ? Not me. . .but it seems
> like a plausible option, doesn't it ?
Once when my wife and I were discussing, in some hypothetically future, what things the perfect home would need (home as in free standing house), I suggested it should have a large hidden storage room, managed like a prop room. So we could keep the place clutter free, and still rotate out different pieces of furniture or art work as needed/desired. She thought I was kinda' crazy (she's much better at tossing stuff than I am). But truthfully, most of us do this to some degree. I tried to make the comparison to vases- We own maybe a dozen vases. They are all kept in the same closet on a shelf. It is seldom that we have more than one out at a time, as needed for flowers. She wasn't ready to make the leap from vases to furniture, but I'm sure she would humor me, were I able to afford such a place.
koen wrote:
> Scandinavians consider the home
> as an "container" for objects.
The Scandinavian way?
I thought that was the George Carlin way.
George Carlin said:
> That's all your house is: a place to keep
> your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff,
> you wouldn't need a house. You could just
> walk around all the time.
>
> A house is just a pile of stuff with a
> cover on it... a place to keep your stuff
> while you go out and get...more stuff!
-----
dcwilson wrote:
> This approach could significantly rationalize
> adaptive reuse of designed objects at all
> scales of space... in order to lighten the
> environmental load of human artifact production,
> among other benefits.
Isn't that what Ebay does- I don't need this stuff that you need. You buy my stuff, freeing up my capital for other use (another example of the internet removing friction from the marketplace).
Ah, we love our homes, but we really love our stuff.
> quote
.
Use the ">" key a lot after the [RETURN] key. It is labor intensive, but achieves good results.
[RETURN] + ">" + [SPACE] + ["content here"]
[RETURN] + ">" + [SPACE] + ["content here"]
[RETURN] + ">" + [SPACE] + ["content here"]
[RETURN] + ">" + [SPACE] + ["content here"]
Or you can utilize an app like BB Edit, which will automate this for you, though I did that particular post manually.
,
Completely off topic, but...
...my favorite George Carlin skit is Rain Dance:
>
> If you do a rain dance, wouldn't you
> have to do a rain dance practice first?
> If you have rain dance practice, does
> it rain during practice? If it doesn't,
> how do you know you have it right?
> And if it does, why bother holding a
> rain dance, just call a practice?
>
> There will be a rain dance Friday night,
> weather permitting.
>
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