Weinberg Modern

Mid Century/Vintage Modern Design & Arts

[weinbergmodern]

Where’s My Space Age

Originally posted June 3, 2010 on interiordesign.net

I got around to perusing a design book this week that was on my summer reading list. Published in 2003, it's called "Where's My Space Age," by Sean Topham. Subtitled "The Rise and Fall of Futuristic Design," it traces the roots of the Space Age to WWII rocketry (Werner von Braun et al) and Cold War technological competition, though after a chapter on space flight it brings the disquisition down to earth with a long section on the impact of space-mania on 1960's living environments.

Rather than a book review, this is a book reaction, and that reaction is visceral. Topham sets the stage for his book with a comment from a 12-year-old boy on the eve of the lunar landing in 1969. I was ten at that moment, and so was a child when manned space flight went from dream to reality. Part of Topham's argument has to do with a child's sense of wonderment representing a broader cultural reaction to the exploration of space-he suggests the idea of a fresh start several times, and notes that space travel entered the home first in the form of children's toys.

It is hard for someone my age to look back at the imagery of the early postwar space age without a tinge of nostalgia, but look back we must because Topham argues, rightly, how important visual information was in disseminating ideas about space travel. From Arthur Clarke's 1951 "The Exploration of Space" on, a succession of images prepared people for the coming conquest of space. Confidence, swagger, and technical mastery were suggested graphically, and awe was elicited with photos of rocket launches and breathtaking views from space. Shown here is a rendering from Clarke's factual rather than fictional account, and a shot of the jammed nose cone on Gemini 9.

This visual component was brought home, literally, by architects and designers during the 1960's. For Topham, the futuristic "look" of the 60's was deeply influenced by themes and imagery drawn from space, more directly in references to space helmets, space suits, satellites, and capsules, less directly in the use of aluminum--the material of early satellites--and perhaps the vivid blues of shots of earth from space. Moreover, space helped usher in an era characterized by disposability--multi-million dollar rockets were discarded after one use, as were paper dresses, while plastic chairs and tables would be replaced rather than repaired.

Topham illustrates a wide array of futuristic 60's design, including Haus-Rucker-Co's "Fly Head" (1968), shown here, but the essence of it, for him, can be distilled into Matti Suuronen's ellipsoid Futuro House of 1968, and the furniture designs and interior landscapes of Verner Panton. Topham points out that the flying-saucer shaped Futuro House, shown here, which represents the concept of pod living, was designed as a transportable ski cabin. Panton's Visiona 2--depicted here--captured the exuberantly colorful and youthfully irrepressible (and irresponsible) character of space age design, while shifting styling from the clean lines inspired by spacecraft interiors to a more organic terrain--more "Barbarella" than "2001."

Ultimately, according to Topham, the era of space age design was undone by its own excesses and by the oil embargo and recession of the early 1970's--the cost of plastics rose with the price of oil, and a scenario of resource scarcity trumped the scenario of disposability. Curiously, Topham fails to bridge the idea of pod living into the era of sustainability. Surely, some notion of living in a compressed space, analogous to a spaceship or space capsule, remains relevant at a time when our greatest drain on resources comes from our egregiously outsized residences.

Ironically, the smallest prefab dwelling at a recent MoMA exhibition was intended as a ski cabin--40 years later, an idea of pod living still has to be couched in recreational terms.

[weinbergmodern]

What’s in a Catalog? George Nakashima, 1962

Originally posted May 6, 2010 on interiordesign.net

“Furniture, we feel, is a development of mood besides being purely utilitarian. Basic forms with the reflection of the constancy of nature find satisfaction in times like ours. A small poetic haven in an unsettled world where excitement seems so necessary.” 

George Nakashima, from his 1962 catalog

The 1962 Nakashima catalog shows the same artistry and meticulous attention to detail as his furniture. Like his tables, chairs, case pieces, and lamps, like his writing, architecture, and his business, it is suffused with his philosophy. Humility, simplicity, serenity, natural beauty, harmony, pride, dedication—all were a way of life to him. The catalog expresses his philosophy in its artful and well executed photographs and uncluttered layout, in the choice of fonts, the use of Japanese hand made wrappers, endpapers, and pages, and hand-sewn binding. It states his philosophy and his approach, succinctly, in its text.

On craftsmanship and modern design: “In a world where fine manual skills are shunned, we believe in them, not only in the act of producing a better product, but in the sheer joy of doing or becoming. We feel that pride in craftsmanship, of doing as perfect a job as possible, of producing something of beauty even out of nature’s discards, are all homely attributes that can be reconsidered. It might even be a question of regaining one’s own soul when desire and megalomania are rampant…” “In proportion to the flood of consumer goods, we are probably at one of the lowest ebbs of design excellence the world has seen. It requires a genuine fight to produce one well designed object of relatively permanent value.”

On the idiosyncratic nature of his output: “Many of our pieces are one-of-a-kind and cannot be reproduced nor accurately shown. They often depend on a particular board with extraordinary characteristics. Such boards are at times studied for years before a decision is made to its use, or a cut made at any point. Distinguishing features are fine figures in graining, burls, rich and deep coloring, unusual profiles, and even areas of decomposition.”

On using solid wood: “Solid wood is a challenge. It is continually ‘alive’ and ‘moves’ depending on weather conditions, moisture content of the air, and temperature. Each board of each species is individual and must be understood; the good characteristics exploited.”

And, significantly: “Furniture should be lived with and not considered something overly precious.”

The Nakashima catalog is unlike any other I can think of. Part admonition, part jeremiad, it enjoins or challenges his customers to see things differently and to share with George his deep respect for craft traditions, nature, and the well-springs of creativity. Cost was not a formidable obstacle. The 1962 price list shows a Conoid triple chest with sliding doors selling for $360.00; a seven-foot hanging wall case with free-edge front for $350.00; a floor lamp for $105.00; a 66-inch slab coffee table for $150.00, a double pedestal desk for $225.00, and a New chair with rockers and arm for $125.00. This at a time when a Dunbar chest of similar size cost up to $1,500.00, a Herman Miller desk cost $500.00, and Eames aluminum group armchair cost $195.00. Clearly, on some level, George was at least as interested in getting his message across as turning a profit, or maybe he just enjoyed what he was doing.

The 1962 catalog shows George walking the walk as well as talking the talk; it is a document that embodies and projects what he is about, both in word and act.

[weinbergmodern]

People Who Live in Glass Houses

Originally posted May 27, 2010 on interiordesign.net

Thanks to an invitation from interior designer and friend, Brad Ford, who procured tickets for a group of people including Joan and Jayne Michaels, I was able to tour Philip Johnson's Glass House last week, my first pilgrimage to a modernist icon outside of New York. 

The White Gods (Tom Wolfe's term for Gropius, Breuer, Mies, et al) were smiling on us—the day was warm and overcast, with enough sunlight for reflections and shadows. I entered the 47-acre property in New Caanan with an open mind, ready to be enchanted by the combination of natural and man-made beauty, and in this I was not disappointed. The story is that Johnson purchased the initial parcel five minutes after he saw it, because of the promontory overlooking the woods and the pond. Built atop this promontory in 1949, the Glass House took the idea of a glass box, where the view became the walls, to an extreme: farther than the Eames house, which had about half glass and half multicolor panels in its cladding, and as far as Mies' Farnsworth House, built in 1951 but designed in 1945.

Walking around the Glass House, and the Brick House opposite it, the dynamic and avante garde elements are apparent: with its charcoal-painted steel I-beams and glass walls, the house disappears into the landscape as much as a house can. The relationship between inside and outside is fluid, influenced by lighting conditions and where you are standing. From outside especially, ever-changing reflections of trees make the view layered and complex. In some respects, this was something new and daring, and to the Beaux-Arts establishment, vaguely threatening.

Yet, the overweening impression at the estate is of classicism, or neo-classicism, and the direct representation or allusion to classical architecture. This is not a new observation, and Johnson's Wikipedia entry points to his classical scholarship at Harvard, and to his two grand tours of Europe. Surely, the stripped-down modernism of the Glass House and Brick House is more Doric than Corinthian, with the vertical steel I-beams and the row of tall trees behind the house referencing colonnades. Also, the triangular paths between the house and the guest house govern the sight lines along 45-degree angles, a Greek practice. In more overt ways, the underground structure housing the painting collection has a façade based on Agamemnon's tomb on Mycenae, and the building housing the sculpture collection is a postmodern archaeological essay.

What all this means, I don't know, and when Johnson was alive, it didn't matter much, as it was after all a private residence. On one level, the Johnson estate makes a statement about the intimate connection between classicism and avant-garde modernism, a connection refuted for a time at least by most practicing modernists.

In Johnson's life, the abiding relevance of history is tantamount, and this makes it harder to forget Johnson's more than brief flirtation with Nazism prior to WWII. Given Johnson's youthful fascistic tendencies, and given his bequest of the estate to the National Trust, what were private issues have become public matters. Did Johnson see himself as a citizen of the world or as emperor of his own domain? Was he referencing Greece of the Agora or Rome of Caesar's Palace? Was he aware that Agamemnon has been portrayed as stubborn and arrogant? That he left the estate to the common weal is a good sign; what exactly the estate signifies speaks to whether the bequest was an act of altruism or an inside joke.

[weinbergmodern]

Czech Modern

Originally posted February 10, 2011 on interiordesign.net

Many mid-century surveys of decorative and industrial arts have an agenda of celebrating and promoting the work of a nation, region, or city. So it is refreshing to come across one that finds industrial production wanting, and posits room for improvement. And you have to like a picture book that begins with a chapter entitled "Craftsmanship and Cybernetics." "Modern Design in the Home," by Milena Lamarova, is the book in question. Published in 1965, it surveys postwar Czech design in furniture, glass, ceramics, and textiles. Glass and textiles had particularly rich and deep traditions in the region. But beyond her national design heritage, the author is absorbed by the Big Questions in modernist aesthetic theory. Like, regarding domestic objects such as bed, bowl, and cup, with prototypes in antiquity, "should (we) take national culture into consideration or simply throw out the old traditions," and "Should (we) look for totally new forms and shapes or should (we) adapt and develop the traditional ones?" Behind these questions is a reckoning of the role of craft in the machine age. It is precisely in the domestic arena that battle lines between old and new are drawn, literally hitting home. As Lamorova notes, "we look to [familiar and constantly used objects] for the physical assurance that there exists an organic connection between the world of man, the world of things and the world of production." If these things disappoint, we become disoriented and disturbed.

Ultimately, Lamorova speaks for an extension of mechanical production in service of human needs, including the need for diversity. She sums up thus: "The value and beauty of an object should be related to the force and depth of thought which gives birth to it. There is no reason why it should not be produced by the machine. This is nothing more ore less than an attempt to give a deeper meaning to our modern technological civilization." The themes developed in the first, discursive chapters continue through the book. They echo what was going on in progressive design circles in America and Western Europe with the following key difference: in 1948, all Czech industries were nationalized, and in 1959, an umbrella organization responsible for glassware, ceramics, plastics, fabrics, clothing, and furniture was created, called the Institute of Home and Fashion Design. So what developed in the private sector in the West was essentially governed in the command economy of Czecholsovakia, with mixed results. A cross-section of Czech production design, as presented here, confirms at least one supposition as to why mid-century Czech design is not better-known in the West: much of it is derivative of Danish and American design, and of average visual quality. Still, there are notable exceptions, particularly in the areas of glass—an unbroken eight century tradition in Bohemia—and textiles. Six examples across the board, follow:

A sideboard in natural and laquered ash with metal legs, designed by Frantisek Jirak, and produced in 1963. Also in this shot is a hand-knotted rug by Jiri Mrazek.

Metal-frame chairs by Otto Rothmayer, produced 1960-63.

Blown glass jars with lids. Designed by Vratislav Sotola and produced at the Borske works, 1963.

Decorative bottles in opaline and colored glass, by Josef Hosopdka, also for Borske, 1963.

Tapestry-style woven fabric in cotton. Designed by Vera Drnkova-Zarecka, and produced by Umelecka remesla, Prague, 1963.

Group of vases in coarse clay by Julie Horova-Kovacikova.

[weinbergmodern]

Patrick Jouin: MAD Man du Jour

Originally posted November 18, 2010 on interiordesign.net

For Patrick Jouin, ascendant French design star and subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), exposure to the precision, rigor, and poetic potential of the machine came at an early age. His father was a technician and craftsman; in the family basement was a Roger Tallon "Gallic" lathe--a room-sized machine tool designed by France's pre-eminent modern industrial designer. Jouin cites this circumstance, along with a trip to a Da Vinci exhibition, as formative influences. Da Vinci and Tallon: it would be hard to find two better avatars for a career spent relentlessly sketching and innovating, finding surprising beauty in pushing technical boundaries.

After studying industrial design in Paris, and an apprenticeship with Philippe Starck, Jouin opened his own studio in 1998. Some fifty pieces of product design from the decade-plus since are featured at MAD, in what is Jouin's first solo show in the U.S. (He has had several elsewhere; most recently at the Pompidou Centre). Included are greatest hits, such as the One-Shot Stool, part of the Solid line of polyurethane pieces produced by 3D rapid prototyping (2004); Optic Furniture Cubes for Kartell (2008); the Alessi Pasta Pot, designed in collaboration with Alain Ducasse (2007); and the Chaud line of ceramic tourines hand-made by Vallauris potters (2002). Also included are current and forthcoming designs such as the Zermatt line of stainless steel cutlery for Puiforcat; the "Bloom" table lamp, also produced by stereolithography, that has a one-piece hinged "bud" that easily opens or blooms; G.H. Mumm's champagne accessories; and a modular sofa for Bernhardt.

In discussing his work, eloquently, at a presentation last Thursday, Jouin referred repeatedly to simplicity and the role of gesture, obviously two keywords for him. By simple, Jouin means something like direct, honest, and unpretentious; less a matter of egotistic self-expression than a deep meditation on the program and the context. What appears simple or self-evident is the product of a long process of research, engagement with the problem or problems to be solved, technical experimentation, and endless sketching, often done at a favorite café. Beauty is often a byproduct of technical and formal inventiveness bumping into physical and economic constraint. Gesture, for Jouin, apprehends the context in which design is used, and assigns to design a large social role as non-verbal communication.

Repeatedly, he likens design to dance. In designing the chair for the Jules Verne restaurant at the Eiffel Tower, for example, Jouin imagined a couple on a first date: the ritual or gesture of being seated at the table became an important part of the romance--the visual impression had to be memorable, the chair had to slide easily, so the lady could be seated gracefully, etc. So too with the Chaud turrine--taking the top off and putting it under the bottom saves the waiter a trip--and the Zermatt cutlery, which are curved so that only two points touch the (dirty) tablecloth. This type of attention to detail and usage defines Jouin's work. His objects embody a rigorous yet graceful and intimate choreography that plays out hundreds of times a day as his products are used.

Jouin is a household name in France, for his product designs, his public commissions, and his architectural and interior work with Sanjit Manku. It is said that one of his designs is encountered in Paris every 340 feet. In New York, we are more fortunate--we can see one of his designs every 3 feet, but only by visiting MAD before February 6.

[weinbergmodern]

Circular Reasoning: On the Geometry of Chairs

Originally posted November 24, 2010 on interiordesign.net

Beginning with de Stijl, geometry became an obvious metaphor for the scientific and mechanistic modes of thinking associated with avant-garde modernism. Mondrian's canvases, arguably influenced themselves by Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie School architecture, became templates for mid-century wall systems and modular case good systems, as well as graphic inspiration for architecture.

All of these applications self-evidently involved rectilinearity or at least linearity--the so-called deconstruction and reconstruction of the box, applied both to surface and volume. Famously, this was the approach taken with Rietveld's Red and Blue chair, which was explicitly linear, a rigid composition of wooden planks designed with little regard for comfort. Much cantilevered, Bauhaus-inspired furniture would also fit into this camp, though with somewhat greater interest in comfort. In the opposing, organic camp, are chairs such as the Womb chair, ergonomic in character, curvilinear, and fitted to the human form.

The circle occupies a place somewhere in between though much closer to the geometric camp; in Platonic terms, the circle is perfect, the ultimate geometric symbol of wholeness, unity, infinity. With tables, there is a long tradition of circular design: the Knights of the Round Table, round table discussions, etc. (note the underlying egalitarian aspect of this shape--no one sits in a privileged position).

Though curvilinear, the circle does not suggest itself for chair design--people have curves but are not hemispheric or conical, at least generally speaking. A circular or spherical chair is not inherently ergonomic, though it can be rendered comfortable with slings, padding, pillows, or butt-shaped indentations. Partly for this reason, and likely for technical reasons also, relatively few chair designs hewed to the geometry of the circle. And those that did tended to have an agenda: either experiments in form or ideological or symbolic statements of some type.

Beginning in the early 1950's, the circle was deployed in chair design in the work of Donald Knorr, Lina Bo Bardi, and Roberto Mango. Knorr's chair, shaped from a ribbon of sheet metal, shared first prize in a 1950 MoMA Low-Cost Furniture competition. Distributed by Knoll, and painted red, yellow, or black, with black metal legs, the chair possessed a minimalist and elegant beauty. Intended to be comfortable, the chair was also offered in a padded version, just in case. Bo Bardi, the Italian/Brazilian architect and designer, contributed an eye-catching chair consisting of a hemispheric seat floating inside a round tubular metal base. The chair could be used parallel to the ground or at an angle, for a variety of seating or lounging positions. The image here, which uncropped shows two such options, is from the cover of an Interiors magazine from the early 1950's. It is notable, and surely meaningful, that Bo Bardi is a woman designer and the circle is a female archetype. Unlike Knorr and Bo Bardi, the Mango chair illustrated here is made of wood--in this case shaped plywood--and it looks like a James Prestini bowl on legs. This chair is part of a series done by Mango in wood and metal, exploring the possibilities of the circle as a chair frame. Significantly, all the designs referred to here had one thing in common: a lack of commercial success, and hence a small production run.

Continuing this tradition were three circular chair designs from the late 1960's. In the case of Arman's 1969 chair for Atelier A, consisting of two steel rings with a leather sling, the intent was not serial production but design/art; more a functional sculpture than a seating solution. Joe Colombo's 1969 Tube chair for Flexform cleverly used round tubes looking like paint rollers to achieve a variety of seating options. Despite advertisements pointing to the comfort obtainable through the flexibility of assembly, the chair was far too radical for prevalent taste cultures.

Somewhat more accessible, and commercially viable, was the work in plastic by Finnish designer Eero Aarnio. His Pastille chair of 1967, with its contoured seating indentation, took the circle in an ergonomic direction, while his Ball chair of 1969, shown here and based on a sphere, required cushions and pillows to suggest comfort. The Ball chair stood, and stands, as a production analog to the utopian 1960's preoccupation with self-contained living environments.

While this is not an exhaustive list of post-war circular chair designs, the two clusters around 1950 and 1969 do suggest an underlying cultural rationale at those moments—some metaphoric or symbolic reason for this attraction to the circle.  A topic I will deal with when I get around to it…

[weinbergmodern]

Norwegian Wood, and Other Substances

Originally posted January 21, 2011 on interiordesign.net

Scandinavian Design, as understood in the modern design marketplace and the secondary literature, is a major constituent of Western modernism in terms of style, influence, and popularity.  Even through the recession, demand for vintage, high end craft production from Denmark, Sweden, and Finland remained strong.  Left out of the mix, or at least neglected, has been design and decorative art from Norway.

I’m not sure why this is so--I think Norway’s population is smaller than her neighbors--but it is not from lack of a suitable attitude or effort in Norway.  Listen to this introduction, from the booklet “Norwegian Arts and Crafts [and] Industrial Design,” published around 1960, which gives us a window into this subject:  

“Although it would be wrong to say that applied arts and industrial design have been developed farther in Norway than in other countries…it would certainly be no exaggeration to say that the average Norwegian believes that his life can be enriched by beautiful and yet practical surroundings, and is therefore very conscious of the importance of design…Thanks to the inherited feeling for form and color and to the first-class training provided by its technical schools, Norway is able to retain its position among the leading countries in the sphere of applied art, both in industrial design and in arts and crafts.”

Granted, this is from a source intended to promote Norwegian design to English speaking countries.  It still points to ongoing traditions of craftsmanship and design consciousness that provided continuity and impetus to the modernisms in other Scandinavian countries.  “Norwegian Arts and Crafts” is filled with examples of contemporary work in furniture, lighting, dinnerware, pottery, glass, metal, textiles, jewelry, and wood. Much of it is appealing, if not iconic, and it presents a representative cross-section of design activity in Norway. Yet there is nary a household name mentioned.

Five images from the catalog are presented here:  the cover, in color, features a sling chair by Frederik Kayser; the wooden toy figures are by Arne Tjomsland; the glass vase and bowls are by Arne Jon Jutrem for Hadeland; the ceramic teapot and vase are by Nils Jorgensen; the hanging lamps are by Arnulf Bjorshol; the flatware by Arne Korsmo.  Also shown is a ceramic vase by Norway’s best-esteemed potter, Eric Ploen, taken from the Freeforms gallery website. You get the point:  nice work, by artisans and designers you’ve never heard about.

If you look for Norwegian design year to year in “The Studio Yearbook,” you will find it, alongside work from the other Scandinavian countries.  Perhaps not as much material as Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, but maybe in a ratio of 1:3 to 1:4.  If you look on 1stdibs now, you will find 1 page of Norwegian design—including a pair of the Frederik Kayser armchairs—compared to 21 pages of Danish design and 12 pages of Swedish design.

So the question is:  whither Norwegian design? Why is it so under-represented in the marketplace? Is it a matter of adjudged quality, or a lack of exposure to the material?

[weinbergmodern]

Design Education: Pratt, 1952

Originally posted October 8, 2010 on interiordesign.net

If all of the objects from the early 1950's shown here look unfamiliar, that is because none of them was ever produced or distributed. All are student projects from the Experimental Design Laboratory at Pratt, taken from an article by Alexander Kostellow, chairman of Pratt's Industrial Design Department, published in Interiors magazine in June, 1952. Founded by Donald Dohner in 1936, Pratt's Industrial Design Department took a broadly humanistic approach to training future designers, one that sought to develop creative potential, but one that ultimately centered around machine techniques, hands-on experience, and constant experimentation.

The Experimental Design Laboratory, headed in the 1950's by Luigi Contini, an engineer, and Victor Canzani, collaborated with companies such as Monsanto Chemicals (Plastics Division), Reynolds Metal, Shell Oil, Elgin Watch, Gorham Silver, and E.A. Electrical Co, so that by the fourth (and final) year of study, students were working on actual, real-world problems.

Some of the solutions proposed by these students are shown here. Of the furniture shown in the group photo, I like the profile of the chair on the middle right, and the low rectangular coffee table in the middle left. The chair with the woven seat in the middle also looks interesting. I've looked many times at the self-contained kitchen unit made of wood, metal, and plastic. Raised off the floor to prevent dirt collection, it included electric hot plates, work and storage space, and a sculptural hood that floats over the top, suspended by a guide wire. Overall, a sort of Milo Baughman meets the Jetsons fantasy that could be plugged into a high-end interior today.

Also intriguing to me is the cylindrical voltmeter with its electronics exposed inside a plastic tube. I could see this object re-cast as a radio I'd want to own. "More charming than functionally serious" is how the Japanese-looking scale is described in the article, but on a visual scale of 1-10, it is at least a 9. Thrown in too, are the second-year experiments in designing with metal strips, which also shows the students' interest in photography. A look at a larger sampling of student work from the 50's and 60's would make a great blog, article, or exhibit. Any lenders out there?

[weinbergmodern]

‘The Jetsons’ on the Drawing Board

Originally posted September 30, 2010 on interiordesign.net

From time to time I look online for still images of "The Jetsons" interiors for a post about cool futuristic design in animated TV sitcoms. Sooner or later, I'll rent the DVD of the first season and photograph selected frames. Yesterday, though, I came across a website devoted to the animation art of Irv Spector, put up in 2008 by his son, Jay.

Irv worked for Paramount and Hana-Barbera, and one of his assignments was to do background and character studies for the first season of "The Jetsons." For anyone growing up in the 1960's, the show was a must-see, a futuristic version of "The Flintstones," which was itself an animated variation of "The Honeymooners."

Premiering in September 1962 on Sunday nights on ABC, "The Jetsons" had an initial run of 24 episodes, ending in March 1963 (it would be resurrected for another 50 episodes in the 80's). Thanks to serialization, "The Jetsons" had a cultural impact beyond its short run-"that's so Jetsons" is still a pejorative way to describe postwar design. Yet, as the renderings shown here demonstrate, the creative vision behind the program had much on the ball in terms of architectural and design savvy.

Among Irv Spector's papers was a drawing of Saarinen's TWA terminal-to Jay Spector a clear indication of the primary source of inspiration. The other source mentioned on discussion boards is the Seattle Space Needle. Both structures are clearly visible in the parabolas, swooping arcs, soaring arches, and freeform shapes of Irv's drawings-the police station is a miniature TWA terminal; the tower on the right, a version of the Space Needle. I especially like the first three renderings, sans George and Jane-these look like architectural or interior design proposals from a leading early 60's firm, more Oscar Niemeyer, even, than Morris Lapidus (sorry, Morris).

Surely, the vision of the future presented in the Jetsons owes much to 50's architectural and design practice-this, after all, was the "googie" decade, the era of Las Vegas and Miami. But it is worth noting that both the TWA Terminal and the Seattle Space Needle opened in 1962, just as "The Jetsons" came on the air. This sort of aesthetic synchronicity is rare in movies or TV; just look at "Men in Black," where the futuristic furniture was designed in the 50's and 60's. Even Morgue's Djinn series came out three years before "2001" aired. So people watching "The Jetsons" in 1962-and given the Sunday-night time slot, this likely included as many adults as children-were absorbing utterly contemporary interior design and architectural references that conveyed futurism in their moment ("The Jetsons" was set in 2062) and still continue to do so.

As for the gadgets and gizmos, that is another story, but have a look at the flat-screen TV/video phone shown here. Thanks, Jay, for sharing your father's work.

[weinbergmodern]

Carney on Design

Originally posted September 2, 2010 on interiordesign.net

Clive Carney was an Australian interior designer who took a hiatus in the late 1950's to assemble materials for a book describing and depicting best-practice modernist interior decoration in a global context. His "self-imposed assignment" took him to places such as Paris, Helsinki, Stockholm, Mexico City, and New York. A considerable amount of time was apparently spent in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Honolulu, and Miami. Evidently, no hardship was spared in the search for décor. Between daquiris and dips, he managed to shoot or cull photos of interiors by a who's who of designers and architects, in a range of styles from austere to opulent, and accessible to elite. Among the luminaries sampled are Robsjohn-Gibbings, Gropius, Breuer, Wormley, Kagan, Dorothy Draper, J. Leleu, Kenzo Tange, Laszlo, Arbus, Knoll, Topiavaara, Gardella, and Fornasetti. Projects range from private residences to offices, restaurants, and hotels. Carney's book, "International Interiors and Design," published in 1959, is organized into ten chapters, with lead essays by the likes of Paul Reilly ("The State of British Design Today"), Edward Wormley ("Modern Design"), Jules Leleu ("Decorative Art in France"), and Carl Malmsten ("To Build and Dwell"). There are several dozen eye-popping interiors, so selecting six to illustrate here is a subjective task. What I've come up with follows:

1. Stairway in the home of Walter Gropius, Lincoln, Massachusetts. Gropius and Breuer, architects. Nice photo by Robert Damora. Note the guy with the martinis. I'm guessing Carney was schmoozing his way around the world. Very Mad Men. I don't know who did the wall sculpture--Arp, Sidney Geist?

2. Living room of a Los Angeles residence. Cannell and Chaffin, designers. A relatively humble project, but it has clean lines and a hospitable, serene feel. I like the window treatment and the arrangement of the furniture in relation to the fireplace.

3. Living room in Milan. Interior design by Piero Fornasetti. Fabulous and fabulist. Could anyone integrate pattern, or relate objects to graphics, better than Fornasetti?

4. Living room in a New York apartment. Interior by Vladimir Kagan. Kagan's work as an interior designer is less-known than his furniture design, but like Wormley, Robsjohn-Gibbings, and Laszlo, Kagan did commission work--and interiors--for clients. The faux wall and the dramatic built-in counter give the space an almost surreal feel.

5. Living room in the architect's house in Milan. Ignazio Gardella, architect. The photo, taken by Carney, shows a vista bounded by a cut-out wall. The black marble floor and white walls, which could read cold, are warmed up by the wood furniture (which includes bookshelves just visible on the inside of the cutout), the gilt candelabra, and the artfully arranged artworks. The sheer drapes provide a soft illumination. Very sophisticated.

6. Interior by Andre Arbus. Speaking of sophisticated--I don't know where this room rates in Arbus' oeuvre, but it looks like a paradigm statement for understated elegance to me. Note the sculptured stone table base vis-à-vis the frieze, the full use of the height of the room, and the reflective surfaces of the mural and cupboard. Note, also, the martini glasses on the table--another soiree for our peripatetic author?

[weinbergmodern]

Trois Decennies of French Design

Originally posted on August 26, 2010 on interiordesign.net

A funny thing happened on my way to Magen XX Century, my friend's chic, and primarily French, design gallery on 11th Street. I stopped at the Strand—just looking, Joan—and found, to my surprise, a 300 page exhibition catalog published by the Pompidou Center in 1988. As a rule of thumb, anything published by the Pompidou Center is worth having, and often hard-to-find. This one, which I had not seen before, was no exception. Even better, it was in the paper bin, priced at $3.50. The catalog, called "Design Francais, 1960-1990, Trois Decennies," tracks French graphic, furniture, interior, and product design both alphabetically and chronologically through this creative and tumultuous period. In addition to a lot of captioned pictures of familiar and unfamiliar French designs, there are a series of essays in the beginning, with English translations. Can't ask for much more for three and a half bucks.

A glimpse through the essays reveals a defensiveness or diffidence on the part of the authors, at least vis a vis Italian design. The lack of French counterparts to Archizoom and Superstudio in the 60's, and Alchimia and Memphis in the 70's, is lamented: "Why does God's furniture always come from Milan and never from Paris? (Olivier Boiessiere)."

Most authors point to a lagging industrial aesthetic consciousness in France, from the public but also pointedly from industrialists. Still, what is lacking in structure is compensated for in eloquence. Paris may not have been a design hothouse like Milan, but it was the city of Derrida, Saussure, Barthes, Foucault, and their protégés, home to deconstructive and structuralist philosophy and criticism. And where Milan had Memphis, Paris had individual creative genius.

Thus, in a way, the catalog itself serves as an apologia-it states a case for French creative brilliance and relevance, in the critical texts and in the images presented. Catherine Millet makes the point that French artists, epitomized by Francois Arnal, who founded Atelier A in 1969, turned their hands to design after the events of 1968 in an effort to reach a broader public. That this failed was not surprising-"an object impregnated with a creator's strong personality can only appeal to a few devotees"-but Millet points out that increasing media attention provided the circulation that the design itself did not. Advertisements and museum catalogs became the vehicles for disseminating avant-garde design ideas. An example in conjunction with the essay is the promotional image for the aluminum and rubber chair by Arman, produced by Atelier A, and shown here.

Of course, the French being the French, there was recognition that they might be protesting too much. So, in discussing the role of plastics in the 1960's, Francois Kneebone noted that France was not far behind Archizoom in exploring this material, citing Marc Bethier, Marc Held, Olivier Mourgue, Pierre Paulin, and Christian Germanaz. Again, eloquence and individual éclat rather than structure. Shown here are two pieces from the acrylic "Kaleidoscope" series by Jacques Famery, produced by Steiner in 1967.

Of the many compelling images in the catalog, I selected four others to show here: Andree Putman's project for the French Minister of the Interior (1985); a Pierre Paulin electric shaver for Calor, from the same year; the witty "looseleaf desk" of 1983, designed by Pierre Sala, who studied semiotics and stagecraft; and an image of paint cans designed in the late 1960's by Jean-Phillipe Lenclose.

[weinbergmodern]

Mexican Modernism: The Next Big Thing

Originally posted August 12, 2010 on interiordesign.net

There is considerable reason to think Mexican modernist design will gain traction in the American market. Simple proximity to the United States, an indigenous tradition of craftsmanship, exotic materials, an expatriate community of designers, Marxist politics, and wealthy local patrons all point to a period of creative combustion ready to be rediscovered by market makers ever-hungry for new material. A 2006 monograph on Clara Porset, a 2007 museum show in Mexico City accompanied by a 566 page catalog entitled "Vida y Diseno en Mexico en Siglo XX," and a recent monograph about Pedro Friedeberg, have raised awareness and piqued curiosity, while providing the basic scholarship that helps fuel sales.

Looking through "Vida y Diseno" it is easy to understand the appeal of Mexican modernism. Much of this well-edited and lavishly produced book is eye candy. The pieces in it appear familiar but with a twist; the sensation is like seeing undiscovered works by Gio Ponti or Charlotte Perriand. Mid-century standouts include a wood and tubular steel chair by Bauhaus-trained Mathias Goeritz, a decorative tiled table by Juan Cruz Reyes, a solid and naturalistic coffee table by Don Shoemaker, an "Equipal" chair by Pedro Ramirez Vasquez, and any number of works by Arturo Pani, Michael Van Buren, Clara Porset, or Pedro Friedeberg. Notable recent works include the sustainable furniture of Emiliano Goyod and Hector Galvan. The book reads like a who's who, and figures to become the standard reference (and buyer's) guide to Mexican modernist furniture.

Not included in "Vida y Diseno" is the work of Charles Allen and Edmund Spence. This is because both are American, and neither lived in Mexico. Spence made a career out of translating international modern styles for the U.S. market--he designed a successful blonde wood line made in Sweden and imported by Walpole Furniture of Massachusetts. Spence's Mexican venture, dubbed the "Continental-American Collection," was launched by Industria Meublera in 1953. A contemporary ad boasts "superb raw materials [and] fine Mexican handcraftsmanship," and shows an Aztec stone deity apparently putting his imprimatur on three chair designs.

Somewhat less commercial, and more elegant and sophisticated, is Charles Allen's line for Regil de Yucatan, imported by Yucatan Crafts--think Robsjohn-Gibbings does Tulum. An interior designer and muralist turned furniture designer, Allen was an aficion of the native woods and natural finishes found in Yucatan. His rakish, saber legged chairs and daybeds were hand crafted of solid mahogany, and woven with local sisal, while his case pieces incorporated machiche, grenadilla, and bajon woods in addition to the brass rods holding together the distinctive saw-horse bases. All finishes were hand-rubbed. In describing the collection in a 1952 article, design writer Gladys Miller enthused that it "fits perfectly when placed in the contemporary, casual but orderly and disciplined home." Maybe Allen really did do his homework--the Mayans were nothing if not orderly.

Arguably, both Allen and Spence are susceptible to charges of cultural imperialism for appropriating stylistic elements and utilizing cheap labor and cheap, even endangered materials. Still, in terms of recognizing the design potential in Mexico's cultural mix, and introducing Mexican-made modern furniture into the American market, Allen and Spence were well in the vanguard of a growing movement. As the market for Mexican modernism develops, look for blue-chip status to be conferred on certain designers, as with Brazilian design in the past decade. Look for the top galleries and auction houses to continue to offer up these names, and to dig deeper into the Mexican modern heritage. And look for Charles Allen's mid-century designs at your local thrift shop, before these too are scooped up.

[weinbergmodern]

The Modernism of Lina Bo Bardi

Originally posted June 10, 2010 on interiordesign.net

"The most important thing [in architecture] is not to construct well but to know how the majority of the folk live." -Lina Bo Bardi, 1975

Lina Bo Bardi (1914-92), the Italian/Brazilian polymath, remains an under-appreciated modernist architect, designer, and thinker. The reasons for this surely include gender-as a woman, she was overshadowed by Niemeyer and Costa, and by Rodriguez and Tenreiro. Also, a lavishly illustrated treatise published in 1993 by the Instituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi is written in Portuguese (thanks to my half-Brazilian summer intern, Anna Levenshus, for her translations), and a perceptive article from 2002 is in the Harvard Design Magazine, neither of which sit on many American coffee tables. Of her architectural projects, The Glass House (1951) and the Sao Paolo Art Museum (1957-68) are perhaps known, as is the Bowl Chair (1951) among her designs. The rest is ripe for rediscovery and reevaluation.

It is tempting to see Bo Bardi as a sort of hybrid flower, transplanted from Italy to Brazil, where she blossomed in the unfettered and lush environment, trading an early Corbusier for a mature Frank Lloyd Wright as an avatar, shucking the encroaching formalism of the International Style for a direct and unencumbered engagement of local needs (both material and psychological), customs, topography, and materials. In short, as a proponent of the sort of dynamic and organic modern architecture advocated by Bruno Zevi, with whom she edited a journal in the mid 1940's. Zevi, an Italian Lewis Mumford, opposed classicism, reductionism, or a priori thinking and embraced, a la FLW, an architecture style oriented toward space and the life taking place within that space. To Bo Bardi, the rain forest/wilderness held a promise of creative liberation: "Brazil is an unimaginable country, where everything is possible." Bo Bardi's thoughts about the Brazilian zeitgeist, quoted above, points in this direction.

The problem with this notion is that Bo Bardi was pretty much full-grown before she left for Brazil. She possessed a degree in architecture, was well-versed in Italian rationalism, influenced by early Corbusier, and by the design agenda of Gio Ponti, for whom she worked and edited. Tossing Zevi into the mix makes for a complex mix. On some level, Bo Bardi absorbed and internalized any number of conflicts within avant-garde modernism. Her career in Brazil probably represents a working through of these conflicts rather than any resolution of them-abandoning a priori thinking is easier said than done.

Five of the six images shown here illustrate this. The Glass House, built as her own residence in 1951, is obviously less William Wurster than Mies or Philip Johnson. The early photo of the house, sans flora, shows a sort of Farnsworth House on pilotes--a glass box plunked down on the edge of a rain forest. That Bo Bardi replanted and intended the rain forest to grow back around the house makes little difference-the photo has its own visual and historical reality. The second image, with the house hidden amidst the flora, casting ever-changing reflections, is closer to the Johnson Glass House of 1949, and more in the direction of the dynamic/explosive/regional, providing that the rainforest was allowed to grow back naturally and chaotically (as opposed to the planted, pruned, mowed, and over-determined landscape at the Johnson House). The overall impression is of an International Style goldfish bowl, a holding tank for acclimating to a new environment.

Similarly, the two furniture designs shown here, while very much of their moment synchronically, are less specific in terms of place. Either one could have been designed and produced in Italy-the chaise of 1948 is reminiscent of Ponti in its shape, the planes of the arms, and two-tone graphic character of the upholstery, while the Bowl chair of 1951-a rationalist hemisphere atop a circle and four lines-could have been done by Roberto Mango. Unless the bowl represents a coconut shell, there is little connection to Brazil. More connection is seen in the Casa Cyrell of 1958, with its thatched roof, local ceramic shard-laced cement walls outside, Santos inside, and profuse vegetation everywhere.

All this only suggests that Bo Bardi, like Corbusier, like Frank Lloyd Wright, was a complicated figure. Any reassessment of her career needs to apprehend this. Her story, as it continues to emerge, will shed light on a number of Big Themes in the history of design and architecture-gender, politics, philosophy, aesthetics, housing and so on.

[weinbergmodern]

Geek Before Chic: Richard Wright and the 1999 Eames Auction

Originally posted May 13, 2010 on interiordesign.net

Before the Italian sale, before the Louis Kahn house, before the $500,000 Noguchi coffee table, and before branded luxury, there was the Treadway/Toomey Eames auction held on May 23, 1999. For Richard Wright, who curated and produced the auction, this represented a point of departure from Treadway, where he had worked for a number of years, and an early collaboration with Julie Thoma Wright, his wife and business partner-to-be. For the market, the auction represented a succession of firsts: first all-Eames sale; first Ray Eames splint sculpture to be offered for sale; and first catalog without a logo on the cover, with the title running across two pages, and with photos bleeding across pages. Soon after the Eames sale, Richard founded Wright, his eponymous auction house, which has since become a force in the modern design and art markets, elevating Richard to first-tier status as a market-maker and connoisseur. In the spring of 1999, however, Richard still worked with Treadway, and his future plans were still on the drawing board.

The Eames auction would give Richard a chance to show what he could do, both for himself and for the design world. Over a period of two years, Richard assembled a collection of Eames material, reflecting his own interest and belief in the work of Charles and Ray. Highlights included the well-edited Breeze-Stewart collection; a trove of Eamesiana from an estate sale of a distant Eames relative that Richard said he was proud to handle; and the fluid Ray Eames splint sculpture, important for both aesthetic and historical reasons—it helped put Ray’s contribution back into the equation. Early designs, production variations, and prototypes were featured. The auction was pitched to collectors, and timed to coincide with a major Eames retrospective opening in Washington, D.C.

At the time, assembling this material for a dedicated sale was a bold step, but no more so than re-thinking what an auction catalog could look like. Working with Julie, hiring a graphic designer out of pocket, and micro-managing practically everything, Richard wound up pushing the boundaries of auction catalog design. The finished product would become a template for his later, more polished efforts, which, in turn, would provoke change in catalog design at the larger auction houses.Wright’s timing, as it would often be, was impeccable. Collector interest in the Eames’ work ran high, supported by renewed attention from shelter magazines. Recent reproductions from Modernica and Design Within Reach added publicity, without yet cluttering the field. The tech-fueled economy was booming.Eames collectors were—and probably still are—an obsessive and determined bunch. In the late 90’s, we (guilty) shared a sense of discovery, not just of the Eames oeuvre but of a body of exuberant and innovative work that was American mid-century design. Still, the greatest enthusiasm was reserved for things Eames. People who otherwise, and later, would champion Line Vautrin, Paul Evans, and Ado Chale, spent inordinate amounts of time rhapsodizing about zinc screws, rope braids, screw-in feet, and early Evans labels, and speaking in shorthand—DCW, ESU, 670 ottoman in rosewood with down fill. Technical and chronological details mattered, a lot.

The sale whipped this crowd into a frenzy. The results surprised even Richard. One hundred percent of the lots sold, with many achieving stunning prices—a child’s chair brought $15,000 (try repeating that now), a lot of letters from Charles to the Saarinens brought $5,000, and a slunk skin plywood chair in pristine condition brought $35,000. Nothing, however, topped the whopping $130,000 commanded by the splint sculpture, on an estimate of $25,000-35,000.

The success of the Eames auction solidified Richard’s position in the design community. More, it gave him the courage and the means to start his own business. Looking back at the catalog and the sale, Richard is amazed—amazed perhaps by his audacity of concept and design, or perhaps by his subsequent run of success. The ripples from the Eames sale would help transform the market for mid-century design, as other auction houses scrambled to gain a share of this increasingly lucrative sector. Last month Richard revisited this idea with his second all-Eames auction. Unfortunately, the centerpiece lot—the Neuhart archive of Eames ephemera—estimated at $150,000-$200,000—was withdrawn due to a contest over title. As Richard noted, it’s hard to go home again.

[weinbergmodern]

Modern Venetian Handicraft

Originally posted April 22, 2010 on interiordesign.net

Last week (2010), Venice hosted a Design Leadership Summit that brought together a few hundred design leaders from the United States to discuss things that design leaders discuss. I was not invited, nor did I get a T-shirt. I did, however, find a book (in Brooklyn) called “Artigianato Veneto,” or Venetian Handicraft. Published in 1971, the book showcased recent work in fields such as glass, metal, ceramics, jewelry, wood, lace, printing, and textiles, while also tracing the traditions and history of these crafts as practiced in Venice.

The timing of the book suggests a civic purpose in terms of celebration and promotion. Being planned at the time was the seminal exhibition of Italian design to be held at MoMA in 1972 under the title “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape.” More to the point, held the year before, in 1970, was an exhibition in Milan called “Milan 70/70” that was both a retrospective of a century of design in Milan and a celebration of a decade that elevated Milan to the center of the design universe. For all its glorious craft traditions and modernist achievements, Venice was probably feeling like a second city, and “Artigianato Veneto” was probably an attempt to redress this imbalance while promoting Venetian crafts to the world (the text was printed in English, French, and German, as well as Italian).

Tradition and history are a source of civic pride, and the region around Venice, which includes Verona, Padua, and Murano, has a rich history of artisanship, manufacture, and trade. These histories are referenced for each of the crafts discussed, but the thrust of the book is forward-looking, toward the mid-20th century and beyond. How else could Venice respond to Milan’s indisputable leadership in conceptual, utopian, and anti-design? How else to compete with Joe Colombo, Vico Magistretti, Gae Aulenti, Achille Castiglioni, Flos, Artemide, and Kartell, but with a handicraft rooted in a glorious past yet creating a sort of beauty organically linked to the present? It is worth noting that plastic—both symbol and medium of 60’s avant garde Italian design—is not even mentioned in “Artigianato Veneto.”

What is mentioned, and what occupies the largest section of the book is, of course, glass from Murano. The catalog here shows masterworks of modernist glass in both technical and artistic capacity. Richly illustrated with works by Venini, Barovier, Seguso, Toso, Vistosi, Salviati, Barbini, and Martinuzzi, the glass section alone commends Venice to the attention of modern design enthusiasts, though the greater works are of mid-century rather than late 60’s origin. Shown here are vessels by Aureliano Toso and colorful turkeys by Venini.

Beyond glass, the book shows children’s furniture in wood by Gigi Sabadin, pottery and ceramics “in modern shapes” by Gastone Primon and Marisa Sartoretto, and a ceramic sculpture by Federico Bonaldi, very much in a late 1960’s idiom. Still, it is the metal work that catches the attention as the region’s second most interesting modernist craft. Padua shares the spotlight here with Venice, as it was home to Paolo de Poli, the enamalist who collaborated with Gio Ponti on a famous series of enameled animals, pictured here. Also shown is a fretwork silver vase by Andreina Rosa, a mirror with a zinc and lead frame from Artigiano Peltro, and a gold necklace by Atelier des Orfevres. Thrown in for good measure is a vignette of scarves by Tiziana Carraro.

Forty years later, the 60’s design from Milan remains conceptually compelling and, not incidentally, marketable. The best work produced in the Venetian region during this period, if less radical, still looks important and fresh, and as for marketability, I see a trip to Venice in my future. Hear that Leadership Committee?

[weinbergmodern]

Goldfinger on British Design

Originally posted April 8, 2010 on interiordesign.net

Sorry, that would be Erno, not Auric. Born in Hungary, the modernist architect and furniture designer Erno Goldfinger (1902-87) moved to Paris in 1921, where he fell under the sway of Perret, Mies, and Le Corbusier. He moved to London in 1934 after marrying Ursula Blackwell, heiress to the Crosse and Blackwell fortune. The modernist scene Goldfinger encountered in Britain was conservative and stodgy compared to America and continental Europe. Sans Gropius, Breuer, and Chermayeff, all laid over in England pending transit to America, it might even have flatlined (apologies to Welles Coates and Betty Joel).

A comparison of "The Studio Yearbook," a British publication, and "Domus," the Gio Ponti-edited Italian publication, bears this generalization out visually. So too does the direction of the modern design market. In furniture and lighting design, at least, technical, stylistic, and conceptual innovation apparently skirted the British Isles. The Festival of Britain, held in 1951—exactly one century after the Crystal Palace Exhibition—was, like its predecessor, both an acknowledgement of cultural deficiency and a concerted effort to improve the situation.

Still, it would be polemical to call early postwar British design moribund. Erno Goldfinger’s "British Furniture Today" was published in 1951, and it shows a pulse to British modernist design prior to the impact of the Festival. Goldfinger reserved the cover for his own table, but whatever his merits as a designer—and I like the table on the cover—he was a perceptive and discriminating editor. His small and slim volume (5 inches by 7.5 inches by .5 inches) includes future icons by Ernest Race (the Antelope chair) and Robin Day (the so-called Festival chair), as well as the Saarinen-inspired shell chair by Dennis Young, Breuer’s plywood lounge for Jack Pritchard’s Isokon, the popular Stack-A-Bye chair of tubular steel and sheet metal, and the unit case series by Robin Day and Clive Latimer that won first prize in a 1950 MoMA low-cost furniture competition.

The value of Goldfinger’s book lies beyond these touchstones, however. A high percentage of the examples in the admittedly short book show what I would regard as dynamic and even edgy modern design. Goldfinger’s text, oriented toward rational, ergonomic, low-cost, mass-produced precepts (note that Goldfinger was commissioned to design offices for the Daily Worker newspaper and the British Communist Party headquarters) belies the expressive, joyously sculptural character of many of his selections.

Among the little-known pieces of avant-garde modernism identified by Goldfinger are the following, illustrated here: a radically curvilinear lounge chair with cutaway arms that channels Finn Juhl or Carlo Mollino by Neville Ward and Frank Austin; a slightly less radical wing chair in tune with the just-published work of Vladimir Kagan; an elegant and progressive-looking adjustable reclining chair, maybe Royere meets Kagan, by Clive Entwhistle for Design Research Unit; a demountable wooden chair along organic design principles by the design group Arcon; a garden seat in wood by the design historian and theorist David Pye (subject of a future post) that resembles the tradition-inspired modernist work of Charlotte Perriand or Clara Porset; a graphically interesting, Knoll-looking sideboard on hairpin metal legs by Ian Bradbury; and a stabile-like adjustable floor lamp by B.M. Schottlander.

Unfortunately, the pieces illustrated here, as well as most of the other interesting pieces shown by Goldfinger, failed to reach a large audience. I can’t think of many examples on the market today or even in the past decade. Perhaps more exposure to these pieces would lead to a renewed appreciation for early postwar British design. As it is, Goldfinger’s book points to the presence of young design talent in England, and provides a snapshot of a nascent cultural flowering, even if that flowering wasn’t realized until the mid-1960’s.

For the record: after a conversation on a golf course with a cousin of Ursula Goldinger’s, Ian Fleming named his Bond nemesis. Erno was not amused.

[weinbergmodern]

Dona Meilach on Modern Wood Furniture

Originally posted January 28, 2010 on interiordesign.net

Dona Meilach (1926-2008) was a seemingly indefatigable connoisseur, champion, and chronicler of craftsmanship. All told, she wrote over 40 books and several hundred articles on a broad range of craft topics and techniques. A glimpse at some of the titles—“Creating Art from Fibers and Fabrics,” “Creating With Plaster,” “Papercraft,” “Collage and Assemblage,”—speaks to the encyclopedic breadth of her interests, as well as the depth of her knowledge: she not only studied but also performed the crafts she wrote about.

Her tactile, scholarly, and catholic approach enabled her to deeply understand the craft movements of her era (1960-80’s), and to grasp the tendencies and elements that were significant and innovative. In my library, I have three of Meilach’s books: “Contemporary Art With Wood” (1968); “Creating Modern Furniture” (1975); and “Woodworking, the New Wave”(1981). Along with “Creating Small Wood Objects as Functional Sculpture” (1976), these works form as good an introduction to postwar craft woodworking as exists. Part how-to guides, part visual encyclopedia, these books provide both detailed technical information and lavishly illustrated curatorial information. “Creating Modern Furniture” is the focus of the present post. Subtitled “Trends, Techniques, Appreciation,” it provides an overview of the craft woodworking movement of the mid-70’s, featuring 580 photographs, mostly of works by a multitude of American artisans. The first part of the book describes woodworking techniques and praxis, including sawing, sanding, grinding, joining, gluing, finishing, and veneering. Trees, wood, lumber, tools, and even work area and safety are discussed.

As interesting as this is, the book’s value lies in the examples that are shown—Meilach had a truly great eye for innovation and beauty. With hindsight, the book contains work by the usual suspects, who may or may not have been usual suspects at the time.

This list includes Michael Coffey, Gary Knox Bennett, Jack Rogers Hopkins, J.B. Blunk, Wendell Castle, Mabel Hutchinson, Jere Osgood, George Nakashima, Wharton Esherick, and John Makepeace. The standout here for me is Jack Rogers Hopkins, a California artisan who worked in laminated, steam-bent woods. I’ve included an image of an installation with a grandfather’s clock and a dining table, and a close-up of the dining table, which to me is the most stunning object in the book. Meilach cites Hopkins for virtuosity, and notes that the interaction of the various wood colors in the table (teak, maple, and birch are used) adds to the total sculptural concept.

Beyond the dozen or so artisans who have become household names in the design market, there are a few dozen more with similar talent, and here the book becomes a guide to future collectability. A few of the more eye-popping works, shown here, include a low table of African Padouk wood by Joe Barano (“a marvelous interplay of sculptural forms”); a coat tree and lounge chair by Edward Livingston; a double love seat of fir by Robert Dice; a “Clam” chair of walnut with fur and leather interior by Edward Jajosky that closes on itself; and a door by sculptor and jewelry designer Svetovar Radakovitch that includes surprises such as inset chunks of colored glass and cast bronze hinges. As striking as these pieces are, they do not even figure in the chapter “Fantasy Furniture,” which includes a surreal-looking chest of drawers in a mélange of woods by Denis Morinaka and a cabinet with doors-within-doors by Ann Maimlund, both pictured here.