Shapes and forms matter. In the pattern-seeking modules of the human brain, shapes and forms communicate; what they communicate to you will be a product of the culture and territory in which you were formed. For some reason culture is particularly when shapes are combined into more complex configurations. The one exception is organic forms, especially plants. Their symbolism tends to be more universal as they are seen to be pleasing and comforting by all. To us, a plant's asymmetry conveys spontaneity. The history of plants being used in the sculptural forms and motifs of many traditions goes back eons. These motifs were seen as a way of expressing everything from long life, healing, renewal, to fertility, strength and longevity. Perhaps for their medicinal as well as poisonous characteristic––life giving and life ending––plants supernatural project supernatural qualities in traditional art like magic, prophecy, and all seeing also charge traditional plant symbolisms in art.
Organic forms can also have a transformative role in the context of a design. As in the Sebastian Errazuriz Tree Table below, the mix of the organic with the industrial in the material and shape of the branch table base has the effect of softening the industrial-ness of glass.
Korean designer Chul An Kwak's eschews the static. He found inspiration in the movement of a running horse but knew he wouldn't get there with straight planar legs and right angles. Through his use of sculpted wood, the designer wanted to convey not just dynamic motion but dynamic emotion. The table have feeling of unresolved tension, as if it trying to escape from the room, a horse galloping to freedom.
Below, another Korean, artist MyeongBeom Kim takes the concept to the extreme, in the case of the carved out chair from the tree he plays with industrializing the chair's organic source material, and in the urinal piece below that, nature beautifully blooms from the abundance of human waste. Below Kim's work, nature—either as a single element or as a faux jungle—projects a sense of vigor and hope into a stark hardscape or an otherwise barren vista.
Below, Kim may be commenting on the diminishing natural environment, our profligate use of water, and unsustainable production of waste.
Above, the accidental forest; below, the domestic micro-jungle; and below next, an integration of the urban with what it replaced.
A forest appears to be grow from the model's head like Athena out of the forehead of Zeus. Below, nature manipulated by nature as if they were bespoke creations made to order. At bottom: The building's glass gives back some of the sky.
At first glance the buildings of Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa appear severe and nearly monolithic, a kind of Brutalism meets Deco by way of Japan with a few splices of Russian Constructivism and Italian sensuousness.
Only upon closer study are the delicacy and detail of his buildings revealed. It's those meticulous watchmaker-like details that draw us in.
For his Brion Tomb the Japanese Ensō intersects the long plane of a poured stone wall: Under Scarpa's delicate hand they are like two bullet holes of zen enlightenment artfully blasted into a military bunker.
The stroke of the chisel above and the caress of the sandpaper below.
Below, a riff on the Fibonacci sequence: Curves, spirals, and triangles mingle with the quadrilinear while neutrals and colors converge with wood and stone.
What is now a dying art was once the artist's telescoped message to the observer of the designer's mysterious process: Another unfortunate artifact in the age of computers, Scarpa's drawings are as distinguishable to the master's work as were Frank Lloyd Wright's to his own.
Below, Scarpa's drawings for Olivetti Design Camp competition, 1956.
Below, studies for the Gavina store mosaic, 1961-63:
Below, drawings for a holy-water stoup (left) and constructional details for a candelabrum:
Images and quotes below taken from the book Carlo Scarpa: The Complete Works by Francesco Dal Co & Guisseppe Mazzariol.
Scarpa's work is made up of fragments without being fragmentary. Vittorio Gregotti
... these fragments are both the remains of a completed construction and the uncompleted and unplaced elements of a construction yet to be built. But they are not fragments of history, nor are they splinters of the future. These fragnemts are the remains of a solitude, that of a master who had the courage not to desire pupils. Franco Purini
Plastic, the word has become the very symbol of superficiality, the excess of our modern industrialism. But it wasn't always so. Once, plastic was the possibility and triumph of the Jet-age. Even French philosopher and semiotician Roland Barthes couldn't help but rhapsodize on its romantic power: "[Plastic] is in essence the stuff of alchemy... more than a substance, plastic is the very idea of infinite transformation."
Another who was seduced by plastic, clear thermoplastic in this case, was Charles Hollis Jones. Jones was both a pioneer and a prodigy. Interested at an early age in the material qualities of glass, the advances in acrylic technology during World War II, especially in its use in aviation, made acrylic an industrial material worthy of designer crushes. For Jones, its transmissivity, i.e. transparency with a low reflectivity, were the qualities worthy of career long affair.
His work with the material began at the dawn of the Rock and Roll Age in 1961 but didn't hit its full stride until the arrival of the Disco era of 70s.His work would find a roster of marquee champions including John Lautner, Raymond Loewy, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tennessee Williams, and others.
By the early seventies Jones's stools were in the Playboy Club and his vanity tables in the Mondrian Hotel. His work had risen to the archtype of evil cool appropriate enough for the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever." But this success brought imitators selling downgraded knock-offs that would scratch and cloud. The effect would be devastating on the acrylic furniture market, by no fault of Jones it'd go from swank to stank within a decade.
While plastic furniture—for better or worse—has become omnipresent, clear acrylic wouldn't make a significant comeback until many years later.Even now, at the relatively spry age of 67, Jones is still working and very much dedicated to the material.
Beyond design, Jones also pioneered techniques in manufacturing. He developed a method for joining large acrylic castings in perfectly transparent and seamless joints as well as a proprietary technique for joining acrylic to metal without screws or fasteners.
Built-in seating (table optional) can give a project a more formal, architectural look. It can also provide an architectural point of interest for luring guests outside. The orderliness and permanence of it contrasts nicely with plantings and other organic materials surrounding it.
Sean has designed and built seating fixtures for various Knibb Design projects over the years, some of which can be seen in this newsletters, here and here.)
Note the rough natural edge to the underside of both the table and the bench:
Constructions can offer a zen-like appearance to a garden as well, with their resolute lines, boundaries, and geometry. A built planter can also achieve this to a degree but seating adds the human component. By inviting us in it makes us another aspect of the garden of the garden itself.
The mixing of culture and traditions can very often yield exciting new possibilities, sometimes, even radical ones. When it comes to design this mixing may include aspects of style, material, era, technology, region, language, etc, etc, and any combination of the above. It is in these intersections that the real leaps forward occur.
Above, a chair as an homage to the George Corliss, inventor of the first independent steam engine and great Rhode Islander, as created by the Providence based Studio Dunn.An aluminum back harmoniously intersects the curve of the maple seat.
Below, the Il Capo Dining Table by Creazioni: divided into ¾ minimalist and ¼ ornate sections which can be separated with different finishes.
The Recession Chair by Dutch company Tjep:
The symbolic piece begins as a stock IKEA wood chair and is then sanded down to skeletal proportions. By the end of the process the chair is too fragile to be of much use for sitting.
The Bare Bones Ghost Chair: Six pieces of driftwood and and two sheets of Acrylic. Each chair is custom made to order; from the Esty universe.
Christian Fiebig's rendition of the classic Chesterfield chair in polygonally trimmed foam and square powder coated tubing:
The Eros chair from Philippe Starck: A mash up of the Donald Knorr 132 Knoll Chair and the Lina Bo Bardi Bowl Chair with the legs of the Eames Eiffel Tower.
Look closely at the couch below—it's actually molded concrete.
The W(hole) Commode designed by Ferrucio Laviani for Fratelli Boffi: A mahogany and brass Louis XV pierced with a fuchsia hole.
The French designer Christian Astuguevieille’s Saulorme Chair has a bent chestnut wood frame and rope shag seat:
Thrown out pieces of Victorian furniture are repurposed with concrete by James Plumb, a cooperation between British designers James Russel and Hannah Plumb.
The Louis XV-cum-Age of Plastic style of Queen of Love comes in a variety of day-glo colors and is suitable for both indoors and out. Designed by Graziano Moro and Renato Pigatti, the full sized chair is spacious enough to seat two intimately. Their managed vulgarity had one blog referring to them as the "Big Pimps of lawn chairs."
We are pattern seeking animals. We love our symbols and icons. Before there was shared religion or tribal customs that provided the arteries that kept humanity in a shared cultural stream. Doesn't it make sense that in our contemporary culture, so centered on commodification, that iconic furniture would prove to be so integral?
Japanese artist Makoto Azuma has been described as a "florist who creates punk art using plants and flowers." Here, he uses something like AstroTurf to cover a classic Aeron chair for Herman Miller.
Sori Yanagi's Butterfly Stool reworked from recycled cardboard boxes by Kin ichi Ogata:
An old classic, the Windsor chair, remade with new sustainable materials–Bamboo–by Bo Reudler.
Two new takes on the popular Thonet chair: Top, #18 by Matthias Pliessnig, and bottom, Mike Kann for Studio 801.
Thonet in the colors of M&Ms:
Two retakes on an Arne Jacobsen classic:
Studded:
Eames chairs are so ubiquitous that they certainly don't need reworking to rekindle interest, but some game designers decided to take a few swipes at it anyway:
An Eiffel Tower chair with kitschy graphics:
The Rocker Arm chairs feature unique hand drawn graphics by illustrator Mike Perry. Each chair is drawn to order.
A couple of irreverent hacks:
An Urban Outfitters version of the Eiffel with some added notches and a few less bends:
The ever popular Eames Lounge chair featuring some experiments with upholstery:
Originally designed most likely as a way to extend the use of precious timber, pergolas—going back at least as long as the Egyptians, say 3000 years give or take—were in their earliest forms coverings with spaced slats. Over these slats were grown vines or fruit trees. These covered seating areas would used in the more temperate regions as a cool respite for the sedentary pursuit of watching the wildlife from your back porch, de rigueur for the noble class of 17th century England.
Here, paradise and cocktails under the logs:
If their design began as a practical matter we've so long ago grown enamored by their sheer object beauty of the things that their essential function hardly matters anymore. We just love to look at them. Most of the great gardens have at least one if not more.
A stone cold rush of rustic with a mixer of Mediterranean:
Wine and pyramids under the shady green:
Detached from the natural garden and incorporated into the paved one, pergolas are often used as a poolside shelter.
The word pergola, originally from the Latin, literally refered to a "covered eave." It is part of a tradition that traveled the world. Moroccan style, below:
It's been argued that it was the Italians during the Renaissance who first incorporated the shelters as free standing elements in their formal gardens. In Italian pergola means "a close walk of boughs."
Here, a constructed forest featuring roses and waterlilies.
As interpreted by Andrea Cochran:
Cloth will work nicely, too.
A more finished rendition from architect Daniel J. Lieberman:
It seems the hue we think of as teal tends to be more of an umbrella term than a specific color. We know it's generally considered blue-green but it can run the gamut of light blue to greenish gray. One person's teal may be another person's turquoise.
As colors tend to have faddish runs in design culture, teal had a brief one of its own recently. Teal is also a classic hue that never goes out of fashion.
The word itself comes from the Teal duck which displays the color on its head. Also below, a tropical sea, peacock feather, satellite view of a plankton bloom, and an agate rock give further proof of nature's own predilection for the hue.
In an environment of neutrals teal bangs up nicely.
Subject to the cycles of fashion Teal is also a classic that never goes completely out of fashion. Land's End and Abercrombie & Fitch will always have space for teal in their catalogs.
Part of teal's success as afashion color has to do with its complimentary effect on the natural pinks of light skin. As you can see above, it seems to work with skin of any tone.
Designers design. Clients expect something designerly and magical. In the process a designer is often tempted to leave some of him/herself behind. Actors might call this chewing up the scenery. For a designer it's more like a spitting out, leaving his/her DNA all over the place. It's an affliction that effects young designers especially. It's not necessarily a bad thing, the only test worth considering is whether the work is good. In making the case for restraint, great industrial designer Dieter Rams said: "Good design is as little design as possible." (See here for Rams's Ten Principles of Good Design.) Interior designer Ettore Sottsass said the best decoration is a kind of "ritual whisper."
But not everyone is looking for a whisper. For those who prefer their design with a louder voice, there's plenty of support for that too.
The image above from Elle Decor's A-list of Top 25 Decorators. (See more here.)Not to decry design that is designerly, minimalism and reductivism present a different ambiance. As a vibe it's a whole other frequency. There are always many possible solutions for good design, Dieter Rams aside.
A room from legendary interior decorator Albert Hadley:
Hadley creates a spirited conversation with texture, bold patterns, shocks of color, and material contrasts: Like a family discussing politics during a holiday dinner.
Now, for something completely different: The infamous Lower East Side apartment of MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach.
The color scheme is black and white and his decor is nearly non-existent. "Empty" and "vacuum" are some of the words critics have used to describe it. Biesenbach believes the room should frame the spectacular views outside his window, no obstruct it with decoration. The above mentioned Hadley might not agree: “So many people arrange furniture in order to see what’s going on outside. But why? The view isn’t going anywhere.”
It brings to mind the movie cliché of the brilliant scientist who fills his closet with copies of one essential outfit. Here, the quiet, minimal approach seems also to be attempting an ambiance to save valuable brainresources like the brilliant scientist's closet. A piece in the New York Times put it this way:
"I hate design," Mr. Biesenbach will tell you emphatically. When he travels he has the habit of stripping his hotel room of anything that moves (furniture, colored pillows, desktop accessories) and stuffing it all into the closet. "It's a little bit of a curatorial disease," he said. "I like to reduce everything to its surface."
Biesenbach's closet, not unlike the scientist's:
An overview of the space including balcony garden:
After living in an mostly empty apartment, Biesenbach lent an artist friend his apartment for a summer. The friend brought in a white sofa and table and chairs. To offset the potential "clutter," one supposes, the friend painted every other remaining non-white surface white, including the TV and microwave (the TV survived the painting, the microwave didn't).
Interesting how controversial the apartment is on the interwebs. Some have the called the project "anti-design." Well, if that's what it is it's hostile territory
CBS Sunday Morning spoke with Biesenbach about the apartment:
Whatever we think is the way to a more spiritually fulfilling life—no matter our tradition, culture, or inclination—most likely it will never be found behind a glowing screen.
In guru-speak, the outdoors is where humans first met God (in whatever that means). Our ancestors were taught in the outdoors and every culture has its tales of pilgrims and heroes meeting spiritual fulfillment there. Often, it was the deeper into the wild, the deeper the experience.
Even on the micro-world of our own own gardens, it can be a space where "we can restore our emotional and spiritual balance and nourish our senses and souls, away from the noise of everyday life." The garden is a facilitator.
Early gardens paid worship to gods and the dead. Gardens in Egypt were often found near tombs of the elite. It may've been the Romans who first secularized gardens and treated them as an extension of indoor space. It could be said that gardens engage all five of the human senses in a way few experiences do.
More than anything else a garden is a portal, a passage into another world, one of your own thoughts and your own making; it is whatever you want it to be and your what you want to be.
William Longgood
Green is the fresh emblem of well-founded hopes. In blue, the spirit can wander but in green it can rest.
Mary Webb
Some of the ideas in this post were found in The Spiritual Garden: Creating Sacred Space Outdoors by Peg Streep and John Glover.
