TOGO IS VERY RELAXING
Considering TOGO sofas as new design (they are already 35 years of age) i agree that the sitting structure is quite innovative. Just foam,compressed sewed and tight together with a nice cloth or leather top, no wood, no metal just a beautiful design entirely dedicated to your relaxing attitude.
I found two of these in the street 5 month ago, one corner togo and a single, they are worned and in pretty bad shape beut they are so comfortable,
DCW
It's taken me 3 days to read and reread your posts to begin to get your points. I'm still not sure I've followed you into all the dark corners of your fertile mind, but, I do come away with one point that really resonates with me. Current design is not relevant to the world around us. Not like MCM, was for example. Wanders's new stuff (see cover story in this month's Dwell) tells us old is the new new. The Bouroullec's seem to be saying the same thing. And meanwhile back at the ranch our culture is going to h*ll in a handbasket. Politically, socially, musically, artistically, etc. I spend so much time in people's homes with my organizing business and I am thoroughly digusted by the quality and quantity of the crap people keep in their houses. How can anyone grow or develop in spaces so filled with mindless landfill-producing junk? Or maybe that's the problem in a nutshell, we're not supposed to grow or develop anymore, just work and work and work with no joy in our efforts so we can pay for little Billy's soccer uniform and meet the health insurance premiums. Yeah, I guess I'm feeling caustic too.
I sometimes think about clearing out my home to see how it would be to live with the basics, but to have those basics be the best and most functionally designed things I can find. A utopian thought, but it tickes my imagination. Oddly, the things I know I would keep are old designs, a melior coffee press, down duvets, a cast iron skillet, waiter's cork screw, japanese paper lanterns, clogs. I could go on, but why is it that I think of my self as a modernist, but what I can't live without is quite old?It seems to me that our current world is so depressingly out of touch with itself, that I flirt with the idea of trying to 'live off the grid' and go all hermit-y rather than look at another gadget easily clean my floors. Ok, enough depressing blather...
More depressing blather
I guess I'm not done. As I was just sitting here eatimg my lunch, looking at my fork, glass and peppermill and thought...maybe Marcel Wander is right, maybe old is the new new. Maybe I love clogs and cast iron skillets because no matter how old they are they work and they work well. Maybe a simpler life filled with simple thing isn't really it, maybe what I really want are things that work well and world of people that can enjoy those simple things with me. Or maybe I'm a complete idiot and should go back to doing my laundry.
Dear Olive,...
I have mentioned some of these points before, but I am sure you do not mind the redundance. I fully agree with your statement that "Current design is not relevant to the world around us" We are not only facing depletion of raw materials, climat changing levels of pollution and over-use of energy but also a surge of interest for religions that have proven for centuries to be part of the problem and not of the solutions. To top it of we seem to be unable to attract talented or intelligent people to contribute on the political scene and solve our un-certainties with agression and other violent behaviour. Within that context, hanging ballerinas from the centre of a chandelier to serve champagne to the masses(Marcel Wanders)does not seem to be very relevant. It is unfortunate that so much in design is "media-exposure" driven and the frontline battle is no longer to represent properly the aspirations of the users, but to get as much attention as possible. Masters in the field like the Bouroullec brothers are admired in spite of the fact that they either fail (the Cappelini bed) or blatantly copy (Facett)or produce decorative waste (algae). When I put my thoughts on originality on paper (or rather on DA/essays) I was convinced that within a few weeks someone would respond with a far more convincing argument in favour of the restless persuit of originality. When, even after many months it did not show up, I considered writing it myself. Now, years later, I start to see it as a early warning for something that has developed beyond reason. Somehow I can understand the pressure. Imagine to have made a chair by knotting rope and dipping it in resin to make it into a Gaudi-like stiff structure (Marcel Wanders) and to have attracted so much attention in doing it that magazine after magazine is waiting for an encore...As I have mentioned before, the great designers of the past, the Eames', Wirkalla, Colombo, Rams, Bertoia, Wegner, Kjaerholm, Corbusier, Breuer, Van der Rohe, Nelson, you name them, were not the product of media attention but of recognition by their peers and in very much the same way as the media have more attention for the frivolities of moviestars and starlets than for the scientist that is doing his or her part in solving the cancer puzzle, they treat design and designers. Some are tempted and will hang "angels" from chandeliers if necessary, others will be tempted and resist it and quite a number will never been tempted by the media lure. Unfortunately all of us are judged by the image projected by the media and that image is indeed one of "not relevant"
I love me some new Dutch Desi...
I love me some new Dutch Design like:
Hella Jongerius www.jongeriuslab.com
Bert Jan Pot www.berjanpot.nl
Tjeerd Veenhoven www.tjeerdveenhoven.com
Job Smeets www.studiojob.nl
Gebr. Knip (they have the best office clock ever designed)www.gebrknip.nl
Ineke Hans www.inekehans.com
Marcel Wanders www.moooi.com
Demakersvan www.demakersvan.com
Tord Boontje www.tordboontje.com
Richard Hutten www.richardhutten.com
Stallinga www.stallinga.nl
Probably because i'm a Dutchman LOL
Other foreign designers i can think of are:
Konstantin Gricic & Patricia Arquila (i probably misspelled both their names).
Ray
Definition of Design
After reading all this posts about how much design "matters" to the world I've got a little confused. In my opinion, design was in itself a social revolution, in the early days. As I remember when I studied, the definition design came from "preparing a design for mass production". And this design objects produced "en mass" have changed the way people lived. I think that the link between mass production and design isn't on our mind all the time. Nowadays, design does most of the time still the same, but we are already in a world full of mass produced products,...
... continues
... so design doesn't seem to have any effect on the world.
I see three ways in getting out of this dilemma:
1 - Design is the tool for new products through material combination, research ...
2 - Design is the tool for solve practical or social problems (difficult one)
3 - Design goes away from mass production and becomes something very personal (like the carpenter in your neighbourhood but at a higher level
Any opinions about this wacky theories?
PS: Inspiring design that I found http://www.frankie.bz
http://www.frankie.bz
For Olive: Part 1
Olive, I am sorry I am hard to read. I strive for lucid. I'll try to do better for you, but these posts that follow may not be quite there yet.
Regarding your preference for certain old things: I think the explanation is twofold.
First, old things still in use are products of what I like to call artifact natural selection. They have been followed by so many tries at better versions, or substitute solutions, that if they are still in use it is because they are just plain exceptional designs, whether linked to an auteur or not.
A cast iron skillet is a good example. Old cast iron skillets actually are, IMHO, the best to cook in for a very basic reason. Old cast iron skillets, especially the old Griswold skillets, were made out of a cast iron metallurgy forumula that allowed thinner walls, lighter weight and better conduction than contemporary cast iron skillets made as cheaply as possible. The old ones were indestructible and actually cooked better with more use and more age. You can always tell a high quality, old cast iron skillet by comparing its weight to some contemporary cast iron skillet. The old one is always lighter and thinner and conducts heat faster and more evenly. I have been told that the metallurgy and grade of ores used to make the superior old cast iron skillets simply got too expensive to continue making. And one of the newer cast iron skillets is actually inferior to alot of aluminum no stick cookware or enameled iron cookware.
Second, and this is more speculative on my part, I think there is a great deal of satisfaction in owning and using something that was made to be valuable, rather than just stylish. Products can be designed to sell because of their style, or they can be designed to sell because they have exceptionally high function, durability, and quality and styled to make that design look the best it can. This constellation of virtues is what I call value.
The easy example here is a Mercedes from the 1950s-1970s and a contemporary Mercedes. Both are expensive. Both offer prestige. But the old ones were built to last forever and be repaired over and over and over again. If you could afford the initial cost of a Mercedes, and drove it for 20 years, it was a way better value for the money than a Lincoln, which was designed to be a good car for 100k miles and then turn into a rusted heap shortly thereafter. The sheetmetal of the Mercedes was thicker to prevent it from rusting through. The engines were designed to run long and then be rebuilt. Replacement parts were stocked for many decades rather than just one. The styling aimed at lasting appeal and continuity of tradition to avoid quick obsolescence. The leather and wood interiors were designed to give great tactile feel and age gracefully if cared for.
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