https://joyofdesign.cargo.site Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site Mon, 29 May 2017 19:35:34 +0000 https://joyofdesign.cargo.site en https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/I-Gae-Aulenti Mon, 29 May 2017 19:25:22 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/I-Gae-Aulenti I. Gae Aulenti<img width="1760" height="1218" width_o="1760" height_o="1218" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/18b7182cb316d22882ae454fd971c1fe223987f4f65162135b99b3021f175dcb/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-1.jpg" data-mid="461904" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/18b7182cb316d22882ae454fd971c1fe223987f4f65162135b99b3021f175dcb/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-1.jpg" />Aulenti’s 1993 Tour table for Fontana Arte Gae Aulenti —&nbsp;Born in Palazzolo dello Stella, Italy, 1927. Died in Milan, 2012. “[A]rt exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important.” —Viktor Shklovsky from Art as Technique, 1917 The subject of the above quote by Viktor Shklovsky is poetic language, and the subject of our brief essay is the architect and designer Gae Aulenti. Admittedly, “poetry” and “poet” have almost become useless terms. In our age, to call someone a poet seems either anachronistic (like, “Oh, they’re still doing poetry?”) or vague, like one is weakly praising some indistinct whiff of beauty. “Poet” and “poetry” clearly need some scrubbing and recalibration. Obviously, the word’s main connotation is a practitioner of the literary sort, but it would be valuable to expand it, and stabilize it, to mean something like: those who make objects of communication, and whose main material for these communicative creations is poetic language — whether imagistic, textual, sculptural, or what have you. In light of this attempted definition, Gae Aulenti was a great poet. Aulenti studied architecture at the Milan Polytechnic. After graduating she worked at Casabella magazine from 1955–65 under Ernesto Nathan Rogers. Although she was a graphic designer at the magazine, she completely absorbed Rogers’s architectural tutelage — saying later that Rogers was the most significant influence of her life. The influence is clear, and his Torre Velasca is a great example; the building (designed with his Milanese firm, BBPR) is highly idiosyncratic and elegant, and almost all of Aulenti’s work has this particular, uncommon charm. Throughout her career she was a very successful industrial designer, originating many pieces for Knoll, Zanotta, Kartell, Artemide and other companies. Most of Aulenti’s architectural commissions were for museums (the Musée d’Orsay, the Pompidou Center, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum), and Aulenti was one of only a few major female architects in Italy in that era. When asked if being a woman affected her practice, she simply replied “yes.” <img width="1760" height="1180" width_o="1760" height_o="1180" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7763cf64ac1851fc195d5985d6cde51c1307ce20c8ae8a5ed68dbd3d14a5639d/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-2.jpg" data-mid="461905" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7763cf64ac1851fc195d5985d6cde51c1307ce20c8ae8a5ed68dbd3d14a5639d/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-2.jpg" /> Left: the Pipistrello lamp for Martinelli Luce (1965). Right: Rimorchiatore, a combined candleholder, vase, light and ashtray (1967. <img width="1700" height="956" width_o="1700" height_o="956" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ed21c695e3c114130766a19c0a2b9666a1c6601d70b47193fc694ba90b4fb7fb/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-8.jpg" data-mid="461911" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ed21c695e3c114130766a19c0a2b9666a1c6601d70b47193fc694ba90b4fb7fb/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-8.jpg" /> The Jumbo coffee table for Knoll International (circa 1965) In the 1960s and early ’70s, Aulenti was part of a loose international network of radical designers and architects, including the likes of Superstudio, Ettore Sottsass, Gruppo Strum, Hans Hollein, Archizoom, Ant Farm and many others. This web of progressives was perhaps best represented by MoMA’s seminal 1972 show Italy: The New Domestic Landscape. The tone of the exhibit clearly and distinctly promoted the theoretical, neo-science-fictive atmosphere of the time. Although Aulenti contributed much to this speculative era, the core of her work had zero utopian conceits; she made consciously provisional objects and environments, and she was aware of the untenable nature of any future predictions. “If I now look at the lamps I made, I never see them as machines for producing light,” she said. “They are forms suggested by the work that I was doing in that moment for a particular space, so they went there first and then they went into production; they went to an entirely new destiny.” Victor Shklovsky wrote that “The technique of art is to make objects unfamiliar...” The overlap between this notion and Aulenti’s work is quite incredible; what better could be said when looking at Aulenti’s Pipistrello lamp or her Jumbo coffee table? Neither are not a coffee table or not a lamp but strange versions of these objects. As with much of her work, there seems to be a “roughening” of design language — not an abstracting, not a proposition, but an attempt to “impede” or “slow” the actual perception of the designed object. (These last quoted verbs are taken from a further section of Shklovsky’s essay; he writes, “The language of, poetry is, then, a difficult, roughened, impeded language.”) <img width="1760" height="1098" width_o="1760" height_o="1098" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/64a01f710e6f74fc88b675df10878d90d2bfe718c11b470cdba15bf6fb782064/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-3.jpg" data-mid="461906" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/64a01f710e6f74fc88b675df10878d90d2bfe718c11b470cdba15bf6fb782064/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-3.jpg" /> Above and below: La Grotta Rosa on the Amalfi Coast (1969–72) <img width="1760" height="1318" width_o="1760" height_o="1318" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/80fa32cc08f2a195d47c2dbf153c8cb379a4adf033cf7cdf790dbb8e2c5e3485/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-4.jpg" data-mid="461907" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/80fa32cc08f2a195d47c2dbf153c8cb379a4adf033cf7cdf790dbb8e2c5e3485/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-4.jpg" /> <img width="1760" height="928" width_o="1760" height_o="928" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ef8712f5846c7b2ecf85a2d4b77b0bf7cc58c3d8cd0d634d75bd09b25a21ab31/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-5.jpg" data-mid="461908" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ef8712f5846c7b2ecf85a2d4b77b0bf7cc58c3d8cd0d634d75bd09b25a21ab31/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-5.jpg" /> The Mini Box Stilnovo table lamp (1981), by Aulenti and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni In 1979, Aulenti gave an interview to Franco Raggi that provides further insights into the depths of her understanding. In particular, she expressed concern about how some architects, through a kind of “solipsistic” theorization, misinterpret the nature of a built structure (or design): “Sometimes people speak about reality as if a field effectively existed where it is expressed. Instead realities are infinite...” Here and elsewhere in the interview, Aulenti seemed to be saying that when one introduces a piece of design or a piece of architecture, not only is the “reality” of the designer or architect not of utmost importance, but the creation will be received by endless sensibilities. Poetic language is a type of language among others: the language of the tyrant (whether domestic or political), the language of masculine and feminine, the language of architecture, the language of capitalism, and on and on (and of courselanguage, like “realities,” is infinite). But it is the language of the poet that has the most importance, perhaps because it is language itself, in all its glorious inscrutability, and not something pointing elsewhere. <img width="1760" height="1144" width_o="1760" height_o="1144" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/25d3d8c357d33356e1cc36fe2da8b81624494e1e19c4a378f5ab92b4e982b908/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-7.jpg" data-mid="461910" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/25d3d8c357d33356e1cc36fe2da8b81624494e1e19c4a378f5ab92b4e982b908/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-7.jpg" /> An Aulenti interior in Paris and the Locus Solus chair for Poltronova, both from 1965 <img width="1760" height="1024" width_o="1760" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7b7f9cd3c17a2f500384f983df2ab75187b1ec4677d693cb6c3d462b931f7512/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-9.jpg" data-mid="461912" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7b7f9cd3c17a2f500384f983df2ab75187b1ec4677d693cb6c3d462b931f7512/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-9.jpg" /> A 1969 Aulenti interior <img width="1760" height="790" width_o="1760" height_o="790" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/be2407665203e2246822dca071909800f48bea3002842f47548b50c4bf458864/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-11.jpg" data-mid="461914" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/be2407665203e2246822dca071909800f48bea3002842f47548b50c4bf458864/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-11.jpg" /> The Ruspa desk lamp for Martinelli Luce (1968) <img width="1760" height="774" width_o="1760" height_o="774" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/030abfdfabe386f7da31f462b6b37f82a21906ad7d3a3c5e8da3c1ca5d3ab5fb/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-6.jpg" data-mid="461909" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/030abfdfabe386f7da31f462b6b37f82a21906ad7d3a3c5e8da3c1ca5d3ab5fb/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-6.jpg" /> The Locus Solus chaise for Zanotta (1964) <img width="1760" height="1004" width_o="1760" height_o="1004" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b05d422509c8d4175080bce620b931cf4ba8744a45873493a95df25120931e97/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-10.jpg" data-mid="461913" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b05d422509c8d4175080bce620b931cf4ba8744a45873493a95df25120931e97/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-10.jpg" /> Aulenti interiors for the Paris Olivetti showroom, 1966-67 <img width="1760" height="776" width_o="1760" height_o="776" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/08e353c88453a1b6de1f2404d729c6f0cfcbd5258e59f9e652c320770dd9c91c/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-12.jpg" data-mid="461915" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/08e353c88453a1b6de1f2404d729c6f0cfcbd5258e59f9e652c320770dd9c91c/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-12.jpg" /> Drawings for the 1972 exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape at the Museum of Modern Art in New York <img width="1760" height="1004" width_o="1760" height_o="1004" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c9e75633c1de349adf24bc4ddc55ea0f21877d8b32f3e6c424ff0c77f5f7ccb0/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-15.jpg" data-mid="461918" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c9e75633c1de349adf24bc4ddc55ea0f21877d8b32f3e6c424ff0c77f5f7ccb0/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-15.jpg" /> Left: the Giova lamp for Fontana Arte (1964). Right: the Patroclo lamp for Artemide (1975) <img width="1760" height="1178" width_o="1760" height_o="1178" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9418e1a37c0f879d59735a364cb24f824d2cea7e5f3ea24ffe41a7fbd93f4bdf/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-16.jpg" data-mid="461919" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9418e1a37c0f879d59735a364cb24f824d2cea7e5f3ea24ffe41a7fbd93f4bdf/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-16.jpg" /> More Aulenti lamps for Artemide. Left: Pileo, Mezzopileo and Pileino (1972). Right: Oracolo and Mezzoracolo (1968) <img width="1760" height="1768" width_o="1760" height_o="1768" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/633cc9a4bfeb11a7d6d6c607d186e0a7a87b9dd2752d6634e4b577c642de654c/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-17.jpg" data-mid="461920" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/633cc9a4bfeb11a7d6d6c607d186e0a7a87b9dd2752d6634e4b577c642de654c/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-17.jpg" /> A Poltronova advertisement from 1970 featuring Aulenti's Locus Solus chairs <img width="1760" height="1004" width_o="1760" height_o="1004" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b05d422509c8d4175080bce620b931cf4ba8744a45873493a95df25120931e97/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-10.jpg" data-mid="461913" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b05d422509c8d4175080bce620b931cf4ba8744a45873493a95df25120931e97/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-10.jpg" /> The Crystal table for Fontana Arte (1982) <img width="1760" height="1010" width_o="1760" height_o="1010" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0f2bf2be883f47f92d243301b95f4ef5736ea6805cc3e7dc474a0cdcbbf86aa4/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-14.jpg" data-mid="461917" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0f2bf2be883f47f92d243301b95f4ef5736ea6805cc3e7dc474a0cdcbbf86aa4/DesignFile-GaeAulenti-14.jpg" /> Aulenti’s Tavolo Con Ruote table for Fontana Arte (1980) — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/II-Donald-Judd Mon, 29 May 2017 18:46:15 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/II-Donald-Judd II. Donald Judd <img width="1760" height="1212" width_o="1760" height_o="1212" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/99c75825e9352c4ad9e12c69c757957e75684f0f90cbcea76d0ff0884e52b13f/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-1.jpg" data-mid="461856" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/99c75825e9352c4ad9e12c69c757957e75684f0f90cbcea76d0ff0884e52b13f/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-1.jpg" /> Judd’s high-walled bed Donald Judd — Born in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, 1928. Died in New York City, 1994.Donald Judd had three main yields: sculpture, writing and furniture. Of course, it is well known that he delved a bit into architecture and was a formidable collector of all manner of things (books, real estate, tartan plaids, etc.), but it is his own texts, designs and dimensional forms that received the full brunt of his passion. It is very hard to simultaneously describe these three aspects, for though each sprang from the same ideological fount, each combination (particular medium with fundamental idea) created quite different results. If we were talking about the sculpture only or the writing&nbsp;only, I don’t think it would be imperative to say much about the remaining two, but the understanding of Judd’s furniture is a more contingent affair; it occupies an almost uncomfortable position between the dogmatic, untenable propositions of his writing and the absolutely transcendent, mind-bending power of his sculpture. Between the three, the sculptures are most able to bear the load of Judd’s heavy inquiries. They work incredibly well at displaying his fascination with the nature of perception. They’re almost autonomous tools&nbsp;— sculptures independent of the artist, where Judd has set the stage for a deep viewing but left the circuit open, so that it is the viewer and the cosmos that complete it. His writing is a wholly different situation — a primarily closed circuit. The essays are fanatically assertive, all maxim and no poetry; one either gets on board or is quickly ejected. In a very real sense, the furniture is the sculpture with the art removed; it is made of the same materials and employs the same techniques of fabrication, but instead of being finely tuned to challenge the confidence of our senses, a&nbsp;Judd chair is engaged in the physical activity of seated positions. Even though the furniture is actively involved in these physical and practical activities, it has an assertive allegiance to the “right angle” that pushes it a touch closer to the bold tenets of the essays, as both seem to fetishize extremely defined silhouettes — something that the sculptures play with but simultaneously destroy. <img width="1760" height="1160" width_o="1760" height_o="1160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/794c3ca5f38015b88f374b078260b80cf82e316fdfe6baedc57750eac88893d0/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-4.jpg" data-mid="461859" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/794c3ca5f38015b88f374b078260b80cf82e316fdfe6baedc57750eac88893d0/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-4.jpg" /> Inside Judd’s loft on Spring Street in New York City <img width="1760" height="940" width_o="1760" height_o="940" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9ba73e179f12017a6124763ab45272c5dce62c6f21a71c04ab650d241dd30e59/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-3.jpg" data-mid="461858" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9ba73e179f12017a6124763ab45272c5dce62c6f21a71c04ab650d241dd30e59/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-3.jpg" /> An anodized-aluminum desk and chair (left) and bookshelf So, the furniture is not at all just a weak, watered-down cousin of the sculpture but a unique contribution to the field of furniture design, created by a moiré effect between Judd’s writing and sculpture. To go further, the value or perhaps&nbsp;tone of this furniture, in my opinion, should be termed as something like “speculative design” (possibly an uncomfortable tag for many of the furniture’s admirers). People often confuse what is formally simple with ease-of-use. Judd was adamant about making the distinction that formal simplicity does not equal a lack of complexity, and that simplicity should not be confused with purity. Having majored in philosophy at Columbia University, Judd was not remotely presumptuous and certainly had a manifold outlook. I think the issue of comfort vs. discomfort, which has a blurry existence with that of utility and “good design,” is the central condition in which to consider the furniture. I can speak from experience (an important stance when talking about Judd), having owned two of his chairs, one aluminum and one laminate plywood, that his designs are not primarily comfortable; they work well, but not for lounge-y indeterminate positions. Comfort in furniture is only primary for the dull; this is not to say that furniture should be uncomfortable, just that furniture being the locale of almost all our business (eating, sleeping, fucking, internet exploring, check-writing, etc., etc.), the prime directive should be that it inspire (the journey is the destination or whatever). I would say then that Judd’s furniture seems to be aimed at inspiring a resolute peace of mind before settling in to a particular activity, like, “I will be present for this dinner conversation, or this act of reading, or my forthcoming sleep...” His pine pieces are perhaps the most rich in aspect of all his furniture, as they seem to meld two separate lineages: the European Arts and Crafts tradition and what might be termed American Pastoral design. Besides being obviously evident in the furniture itself, both influences are easily corroborated by the pieces Judd himself collected. In the many photographs of the interiors of his Marfa, Texas, compound and his NYC home, there are, scattered about: Biedermeier furnishings, pieces by Gerrit Rietveld, Shaker-style desks, works of Rudolf Schindler, Bauhausian tapestries and all manner of handmade objects from both sides of the Atlantic. His high-walled pine bed is an excellent representation of the Judd ideal, as its aim seems to be to block out the noise of the world (literally and figuratively) so that the rich, important activities can be performed with more acuity and calmness of mind. <img width="1760" height="836" width_o="1760" height_o="836" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/73b351aa577819c740f2c7783b871c04d0c1fb74dd8720f68dea02bde58c30b1/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-6.jpg" data-mid="461861" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/73b351aa577819c740f2c7783b871c04d0c1fb74dd8720f68dea02bde58c30b1/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-6.jpg" /> Judd’s architecture office (left) and studio in Marfa, Texas<img width="1760" height="1238" width_o="1760" height_o="1238" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b7960d7c9eb570540a48579a1eb2a79d847405eb41700527c52286690c2af2b8/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-2.jpg" data-mid="461857" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b7960d7c9eb570540a48579a1eb2a79d847405eb41700527c52286690c2af2b8/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-2.jpg" /> A Judd desk and chairs <img width="1760" height="1198" width_o="1760" height_o="1198" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/90fe6ce90a6ab1993622c4fc2cd6bef094bd7b4effb01d26b0a4cd8a78a219d4/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-5.jpg" data-mid="461860" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/90fe6ce90a6ab1993622c4fc2cd6bef094bd7b4effb01d26b0a4cd8a78a219d4/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-5.jpg" /> Judd’s standing writing desk <img width="1760" height="1202" width_o="1760" height_o="1202" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1b8b3ca24408bcf6408e25cc9b8e7ad4811b3a9ca46cb883d19218547328fde0/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-8.jpg" data-mid="461862" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1b8b3ca24408bcf6408e25cc9b8e7ad4811b3a9ca46cb883d19218547328fde0/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-8.jpg" /> A Judd chair and an interior of the Chinati Foundation in Marfa <img width="1760" height="1340" width_o="1760" height_o="1340" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d721f57843a9b7c49d1958c87a55994e5bbff8eccd6b4835b33763ff82962dd3/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-9.jpg" data-mid="461863" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d721f57843a9b7c49d1958c87a55994e5bbff8eccd6b4835b33763ff82962dd3/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-9.jpg" /> A Marfa courtyard with Judd furniture <img width="1760" height="1346" width_o="1760" height_o="1346" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8f89bcb0ac6e043fc581fe2bdcac6eb3b921807b8f349803c3812d1c0c206b4e/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-10.jpg" data-mid="461864" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8f89bcb0ac6e043fc581fe2bdcac6eb3b921807b8f349803c3812d1c0c206b4e/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-10.jpg" /> A Judd desk<img width="1760" height="1008" width_o="1760" height_o="1008" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/034206ceeb1ffba23ce2a191683b398c7a390b46703ab136706adeb11421bf75/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-11.jpg" data-mid="461865" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/034206ceeb1ffba23ce2a191683b398c7a390b46703ab136706adeb11421bf75/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-11.jpg" /> Judd’s copper armchair (left) and a stool <img width="1760" height="1128" width_o="1760" height_o="1128" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e8533d6f9b4fcd951e05097304c9ff8e9957ee518e9575eced5f40f2943a92a2/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-12.jpg" data-mid="461866" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e8533d6f9b4fcd951e05097304c9ff8e9957ee518e9575eced5f40f2943a92a2/DesignFiles-DonaldJudd-12.jpg" /> Marfa — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/III-Dan-Friedman Mon, 29 May 2017 18:29:16 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/III-Dan-Friedman III. Dan Friedman <img width="1760" height="1196" width_o="1760" height_o="1196" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/414f28cb040f0b5ef11ca3329555713bf5bc0c34d204f52f9e0550cba27340bd/DesignFile-DanFriedman-1.jpg" data-mid="461833" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/414f28cb040f0b5ef11ca3329555713bf5bc0c34d204f52f9e0550cba27340bd/DesignFile-DanFriedman-1.jpg" /> Astral shelving and wall elements (left) and Friedman’s apartment circa 1982 Dan Friedman — Born in Cleveland, Ohio, 1945. Died in New York City, 1995. The best a designer can do is consistently offer forthright attempts at communication, by way of an open and multifaceted mind. The offerings of most designers are meant to be metabolized instantly, as minor tweaks to existing models; this is commerce without content. It is a rare designer who resists what is a very seductive and embedded process. Rarer still is a design practice that weds a loving knowledge of her/his craft with reflections of the self, the client, the globe and the cosmos. The latter description was&nbsp;Dan Friedman. Friedman was central to the 1980s New York scene. The decade and place was ridiculously fertile, breeding genius in every corner of culture — home to the likes of Sherrie Levine, Alan Buchsbaum, Jim Jarmusch, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Haim Steinbach, John Zorn, David Byrne, Paul Auster, Keith Haring and on and on... This multidisciplinary, multicultural, gender-role-fighting, polysexual vanguard is often placed under the banner of postmodernsim, though many involved bristled at this ism (Friedman referred to himself as a radical modernist). Friedman came to this place of hardcore and restless bounty by way of a fairly rational progression, almost pedigreed. From the Midwest he went to college at Carnegie Mellon, from which he traveled to Basel to study orthodox modernist graphic design under Armin Hoffman (and others) at the Schule für Gestaltung. In the ’70s he was the epitome of success in his field, with teaching posts at Yale and positions at Anspach Grossman Portugal and Pentagram. But in 1982, deeply disenchanted, he restarted his private practice. “What I realized in the 1970s, when I was doing major corporate identity projects, is that design had become a preoccupation with what things look like rather than with what they mean.” <img width="1760" height="1144" width_o="1760" height_o="1144" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5fabde74e8af454020203f237ef4fee8eb38322728a6e8f159c09638673c34bd/DesignFile-DanFriedman-2.jpg" data-mid="461834" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5fabde74e8af454020203f237ef4fee8eb38322728a6e8f159c09638673c34bd/DesignFile-DanFriedman-2.jpg" /> Left: Friedman’s 1988 Fountain table for the Formica Corporation. Right: Friedman in front of his 1985 assemblage The Wall. Top image: Astral shelving and wall elements (left) and Friedman’s apartment circa 1982 <img width="1760" height="1044" width_o="1760" height_o="1044" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8f8a89b265c3db4718a2daffbf2a08bda4eb942c0f7a22e214f3615d6900c982/DesignFile-DanFriedman-3.jpg" data-mid="461835" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8f8a89b265c3db4718a2daffbf2a08bda4eb942c0f7a22e214f3615d6900c982/DesignFile-DanFriedman-3.jpg" /> Left: the Corona chair for Neotu (1991). Right: a Friedman collage for the Cultural Geometry show at Deitch Projects in 1988 There is little in Friedman’s oeuvre that isn’t simultaneously incisive, formally beautiful, groundbreaking and meditative; this was true for the interior his own apartment, his various logo graphics (his work for Paul Ludick and Mobiflex are personal favorites), his obsessive array of folding screens (see Primal Screen, 1984), his publication and book designs (particularly the three books he designed in conjunction with Jeffrey Deitch in the 1990s) and his furniture for the now defunct Parisian gallery Neotu (see the Corona chair from 1991). Although Friedman didn’t necessarily endorse the label postmodern, it’s not incorrect to associate his work with that movement’s preoccupations. Friedman himself said, “I have always tried to move away from being associated with style” — and that notion itself is a large part of the postodernist proposition. “Style” is a sort of standard, something repeated enough that a label can be applied. As we all know, labels, standards and styles are a tricky business: Who is making the standard? Who is responsible for exclusion and inclusion? Roland Barthes probably said it best: “Who is speaking thus?” Friedman’s work, even very early on (particularly his graphic work for the Neuberger Museum and Yale University), had this sensibility — it was inclined towards mutation, not necessarily loose or improvisational, but resistant and searching. Maybe it could be said that his work, being so close to modernist tenets (Platonic forms, universality, reduction, purity, modular structures, etc.), eschewed the modernist reverence of logos for the postmodern inclusion of genealogies. One thing is clear when thinking about Dan Friedman, and this should be taken as a model of sorts: He had scope — he had a really wide scope that he effectively welded to an ethical fortitude and an educated talent. His work always strived, taught and was, ultimately, deeply communicative. His work in the 1990s was a continuation of what he had always done, but building in momentum and speed. Unfortunately, his output was truncated by his death from AIDS at the age of 50 (fuck Reagan). <img width="1760" height="1130" width_o="1760" height_o="1130" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f7729dcf1087bef29e62e16e92214fab0c3437a8619320d9646b4c383e16bada/DesignFile-DanFriedman-4.jpg" data-mid="461836" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f7729dcf1087bef29e62e16e92214fab0c3437a8619320d9646b4c383e16bada/DesignFile-DanFriedman-4.jpg" /> Left: the Wave Hill fruit basket for Neotu (1991). Right: the Mida cabinet for Arredaesse (1992) <img width="1760" height="1088" width_o="1760" height_o="1088" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ebd638bce15446e144b4e345d505268cf32f3ed0a8a9a4b6566d3bb4154543f6/DesignFile-DanFriedman-5.jpg" data-mid="461837" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ebd638bce15446e144b4e345d505268cf32f3ed0a8a9a4b6566d3bb4154543f6/DesignFile-DanFriedman-5.jpg" /> Left: Primal Screen (1984). Right: a Friedman vase <img width="1760" height="708" width_o="1760" height_o="708" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5e1692810f5aa977e5df9a50c516f4e07d27f8ac09d7c3084abb0d8edad610de/DesignFile-DanFriedman-6.jpg" data-mid="461838" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5e1692810f5aa977e5df9a50c516f4e07d27f8ac09d7c3084abb0d8edad610de/DesignFile-DanFriedman-6.jpg" /> Friedman’s book covers for Cultural Geometry (1988),&nbsp;Artificial Nature&nbsp;(1990) and&nbsp;Post Human&nbsp;(1992) <img width="1760" height="944" width_o="1760" height_o="944" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5c89c24792f19b37fa8749a9dbf6425a2d6bd674a080531edb803cd04bbd0f60/DesignFile-DanFriedman-7.jpg" data-mid="461839" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5c89c24792f19b37fa8749a9dbf6425a2d6bd674a080531edb803cd04bbd0f60/DesignFile-DanFriedman-7.jpg" /> Logos for Mobiflex (1982) and Paul Ludick (1990) <img width="1760" height="1256" width_o="1760" height_o="1256" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c294f59ed8f36a8399625c6ad482893682fe8cb5b17319de753c6a87eb850496/DesignFile-DanFriedman-9.jpg" data-mid="461840" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c294f59ed8f36a8399625c6ad482893682fe8cb5b17319de753c6a87eb850496/DesignFile-DanFriedman-9.jpg" /> A 1981 announcement card for the Japanese fashion label Pinky &amp; Dianne <img width="1760" height="1310" width_o="1760" height_o="1310" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/48744ca413df7c9a73190aa426028857c1f014e6a05203ecd2f5b89053c03747/DesignFile-DanFriedman-10.jpg" data-mid="461841" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/48744ca413df7c9a73190aa426028857c1f014e6a05203ecd2f5b89053c03747/DesignFile-DanFriedman-10.jpg" /> The Primordial table for Alchimia (1986) — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/IV-T-H-Robsjohn-Gibbings Mon, 29 May 2017 19:11:28 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/IV-T-H-Robsjohn-Gibbings IV. T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings <img width="1760" height="968" width_o="1760" height_o="968" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5eaf1d488ad7f899f36819456e1d916a8578cb724f3d743b4e15a4cb9b164788/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-1.jpg" data-mid="461882" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5eaf1d488ad7f899f36819456e1d916a8578cb724f3d743b4e15a4cb9b164788/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-1.jpg" /> Robsjohn-Gibbings furniture installed at the House of Dolphins on the Island of Delos (left) and his Diphros stool, circa 1961 T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings — Born in London, 1905. Died in Athens, 1976. Neoclassicism is a fairly dubious tradition. It wouldn’t be wrong to associate it with all that is bad about the nature of Western Empire—powerful men looking to underscore their power by lazily and arrogantly appropriating the aesthetics of perceived Greek supremacy. Just look to the Federal and Fascist exploits of our last century. This vilification, of course, does not extend to the bizarre and awesome exploits of a few mid-18th-century architects and artists (Claude Nicholas Ledoux, Govanni Piranesi, etc.), and it excludes the entirety of ancient interests during the Italian Renaissance. But for the most part neoclassicism is almost an architectural plague, an endless cycle of “knocking off the knock-offs” (to quote John Chase). But there is a disconnect here: what of the Greeks themselves? When one turns to the actual texts and art, whether Apollonian or Dionysian, one is struck less by their military heft than by the simple beauty of the metaphysical question. Our subject, Terence Harold (T.H.) Robsjohn-Gibbings, was supremely aware of this anomaly and set out to skip the entirety of two millennia of Greek revival. Instead, he went to the source itself in an attempt to materialize, as he put it, “the first recreation of a fifth-century setting in some twenty-five hundred years.” The work turned out to be extraordinarily and profoundly poetic. <img width="1760" height="1236" width_o="1760" height_o="1236" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/be59b796c35808e8e69f14e047c33aa4f485252a7e659989742ebb5fcf4e4276/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-2.jpg" data-mid="461883" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/be59b796c35808e8e69f14e047c33aa4f485252a7e659989742ebb5fcf4e4276/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-2.jpg" /> The Klismos Chair, circa 1961 <img width="1760" height="1258" width_o="1760" height_o="1258" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9bf73040e4396bd133a1489c75128a418d5dbbfd18c75ac45c2c24911f2f536b/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-3.jpg" data-mid="461884" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9bf73040e4396bd133a1489c75128a418d5dbbfd18c75ac45c2c24911f2f536b/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-3.jpg" /> Left: an alternate version of the Klismos chair. Right: Robsjohn-Gibbings's first offices, circa 1937 It must be said that this revival was not the only exploit of Robsjohn-Gibbings, not hardly. He was initially trained as an architect in England before moving to New York in 1929, to spearhead a branch of the super-pedigreed UK antiques house Charles of London. He opened up his own decorating practice in 1936, of which his first undertaking was the renovation of his office, done in a Grecian manner foreshadowing his work three decades later. For the subsequent two decades he was perhaps the most elite interior decorator and furniture maker in America. The furniture of his middle years is, however, mostly banal, though his intentions were noble. For all his scholarship, ability and artfulness, he involved himself in the quixotic task of yoking the burgeoning postwar tastes into some semblance of reasonable beauty. I cannot help but call out here that this attempt is a pat case of a talented and nuanced designer opening up his vision to encompass “the general tastes” (which, of course, is a false perception), only to have his work demonstrably suffer. There were surely some amazing pieces, but on the whole they had none of the grace of his early and late work. Most of his designs were manufactured for Widdicomb, a post-war, Grand Rapids–based furniture juggernaut. Of the middling middle years, his Mesa table stands out brightly. <img width="1760" height="1140" width_o="1760" height_o="1140" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c5600722c1cd37b8a28e4404ce16af25ac5b7b18ae6281d69599f0f799c15141/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-6.jpg" data-mid="461887" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c5600722c1cd37b8a28e4404ce16af25ac5b7b18ae6281d69599f0f799c15141/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-6.jpg" /> Above and below: the Mesa table for Widdicomb, 1947 <img width="1760" height="1172" width_o="1760" height_o="1172" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c7cf36c231c85ea8833adeb3986b1bf29ab6dfc8acac655d506c909f1da8d3e8/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-7.jpg" data-mid="461888" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c7cf36c231c85ea8833adeb3986b1bf29ab6dfc8acac655d506c909f1da8d3e8/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-7.jpg" /> In 1960, Robsjohn-Gibbings left the “greedy assembly lines and hungry home furnishings floors” of New York City and Grand Rapids for Athens, to return to “private clientele and custom-made furniture.” Here he hooked up with Susan and Eleftherios Saridis, “who were deeply interested in Greek archaeology and were the owners of one of the finest cabinet-making plants in Europe.” With the Saridises, his own research and the help of a few similarly minded scholars, he designed furniture ripped straight from ancient Greek craters, mosaics and frescoes. The experiment turned out to exceed everyone’s expectations — seeming to bypass false memories and thoroughly destroy the common sense of history. More than just a classical folly — the pieces are a wormhole to the past. Of course, by now, his Klismos chair has been reabsorbed as a fancy trope of many contemporary decorators; apparently, the specious and sophomoric misuse of the Greeks is ever-present. However, this enterprise of Robsjohn-Gibbings can still be enjoyed and felt through the photographs of the pieces themselves (in situ on various archeological sites in Greece) and in his own eloquent writing on the arrival of this collection: The path, a narrow line of orange dust, wound between gray rocks coated with olive green lichen. Like a millefleurs tapestry, fields of wild flowers were laced with bright scarlet poppies as far as the eye could see. The cool wind blowing across the island had the faint aromatic perfume of thyme... Below us the ruined town was a jumble of whiteness framed by a gray-green coastline and an unearthly blue sea. The guards were unlocking an iron gate between two massive pylons. We had arrived at the House of Dolphins... Intruders from another world, we walked across the white mosaic floor of an entrance hall... White monolithic columns, with delicate flutes carved on the upper half, stood proudly like sentinels... in the corners cupids held onto leaping dolphins with harnesses of gold... We brought in the furniture... I had no sense that the chairs and tables in front of me had been designed over two thousand years ago. Time was powerless, nonexistent. As a side note, below are some suggestions for further investigation. Each is a loving dialogue with the ancient past: The artwork of Ian Hamilton Finlay (a start can be had here) The essay “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis” by Sigmund Freud (PDF can be viewed here) The prints and architecture of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (some good imagery here) An excellent essay by William JR Curtis on Le Corbusier and Greek Architecture (article can be viewed here) An amazing film, Pink Floyd — Live at Pompeii (full movie can be viewed here) <img width="1760" height="818" width_o="1760" height_o="818" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1ab13bd8f42d00848798f345b8512971cd646c88c120b21cfc451e4fa380175d/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-5.jpg" data-mid="461886" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1ab13bd8f42d00848798f345b8512971cd646c88c120b21cfc451e4fa380175d/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-5.jpg" /> Left: a drawing from the 5th century B.C. Right: Robsjohn-Gibbings's Diphros stool, circa 1961 <img width="1760" height="906" width_o="1760" height_o="906" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3885b66582e64f690892898f3d86c8c96b5bb1d1bf8df1782bf8d90028406b0a/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-8.jpg" data-mid="461889" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3885b66582e64f690892898f3d86c8c96b5bb1d1bf8df1782bf8d90028406b0a/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-8.jpg" /> The 1759 cocktail table, circa 1954 <img width="1760" height="814" width_o="1760" height_o="814" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/55d5d8c6feef7c19607a7afc010c9f1af886bb56470281c001bcdda11dc16d1a/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-9.jpg" data-mid="461890" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/55d5d8c6feef7c19607a7afc010c9f1af886bb56470281c001bcdda11dc16d1a/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-9.jpg" /> Left: a 1950s webbed bench. Right: a table for Widdicomb, 1955 <img width="1760" height="1032" width_o="1760" height_o="1032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3889281b0bccd073d709f7402bf675957de4b556575679442b27dadbbe0e45c7/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-4.jpg" data-mid="461885" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3889281b0bccd073d709f7402bf675957de4b556575679442b27dadbbe0e45c7/DesignFile-RobsjohnGivings-4.jpg" /> A 5th-century B.C. drawing transferred from a drinking cup — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/V-Francois-Xavier-and-Claude-Lalanne Mon, 29 May 2017 18:38:08 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/V-Francois-Xavier-and-Claude-Lalanne V. François-Xavier &amp; Claude Lalanne <img width="1760" height="1338" width_o="1760" height_o="1338" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/31180d22deec1afe0f656fd6a1bef62bc3ae1f33a4a92c0541fbe65263f9fc02/DesignFile-Lalannes-1.jpg" data-mid="461843" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/31180d22deec1afe0f656fd6a1bef62bc3ae1f33a4a92c0541fbe65263f9fc02/DesignFile-Lalannes-1.jpg" /> Sheep stools from 1974 François-Xavier Lalanne — Born in Agen, France, 1927. Died in Ury, France, 2008. &nbsp;Claude Lalanne — Born in Paris, France, 1924. Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne are part of a long, brilliant tradition of Western dilettantes. That is, they are part of a stream of the thoroughly interested sort, who, having deeply submerged themselves in literature, the fine arts and various histories — ancient, lateral and celestial — surfaced with delight and an impish sense of how things aren’t. For the Lalannes, in the company of other folly-makers like Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Prince Pier Francesco Orsini, Piero Fornasetti and Jean Cocteau, were not concerned with bolstering existing conventions of how we eat or&nbsp;how we sit or ultimately&nbsp;how we see and think, but playfully inverting norms and exaggerating ordinary aspects to fantastic effect. Claude and François-Xavier met in Paris in the early 1950s, at an exhibition of François-Xavier’s paintings. They were together until his death in 2008. Their working practice was fairly unique, as they always kept separate studios — Claude preferring to express flora in hers and François-Xavier giving form to strange fauna in his. But quite early on they eschewed first names, and all subsequent work (no matter the creator) was to bear the mark of only “Lelanne.” They were close friends, personally and idealistically, with many of the leading artists of midcentury Paris (Yves Tinguely, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Salvador Dali). François-Xavier’s first studio was even adjacent to Constantin Brâncusi’s — interestingly enough, he took the studio as a painter and left a sculptor. <img width="1760" height="672" width_o="1760" height_o="672" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9bf50dbd26bedc8f3719124cdc479bc601f721283c3bb47bd11be42ec9c2c1b6/DesignFile-Lalannes-2.jpg" data-mid="461844" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9bf50dbd26bedc8f3719124cdc479bc601f721283c3bb47bd11be42ec9c2c1b6/DesignFile-Lalannes-2.jpg" /> François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne <img width="1760" height="800" width_o="1760" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d0a879afaa2188948d2617964336c477eb90518f0aed6ffb7f8f5ba0d7c00c77/DesignFile-Lalannes-3.jpg" data-mid="461845" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d0a879afaa2188948d2617964336c477eb90518f0aed6ffb7f8f5ba0d7c00c77/DesignFile-Lalannes-3.jpg" /> More sheep stools in the Lalannes’ Gae Aulenti–designed apartment, seen in 1966 (left) and 1969 If an associative context is needed to orient their work, it is certainly surrealism, though the Lalannes’ work embodies a specific strain. There are two main thrusts of the surrealist movement, the fantastic and the&nbsp;literal. The&nbsp;fantastic would be something like swirling dense visions of a character far from daily life (Salvador Dali would be an exemplar here), whereas the&nbsp;literal would be like something seen in daily life taken as-is, but changed in scale or context to bizarre effect. (For example, see the attached Lalanne images of the bathing hippopotamus that one can&nbsp;bathe in, the toilet in the image of a fly, and the large cat with the suckling teats that acts as a bar...) The poet John Ashbery, writing a review of a Lalanne exhibition in 1964, noted that unlike the avant-garde rhinoceroses of Eugene Ionesco and Salvador Dali, the Lalannes’ rhino was not symbolic but emblematically unvarnished — it was just the beast itself. In a way, the Lalannes restored the rhinoceros to its more realistic and weird countenance, so that we can view it in much the same way as the masked spectators in Pietro Longhi’s The Rhinoceros. <img width="1760" height="564" width_o="1760" height_o="564" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dd6f7d06a9026fcc0e7c7f5b1c9be914cf602bd0f598acf1e9051b29990ab0a2/DesignFile-Lalannes-5.jpg" data-mid="461847" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/dd6f7d06a9026fcc0e7c7f5b1c9be914cf602bd0f598acf1e9051b29990ab0a2/DesignFile-Lalannes-5.jpg" /> The Lalannes’ Rhinoceros <img width="1760" height="624" width_o="1760" height_o="624" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/15ea095b9fe5ad6e94bd2e374b84f1e27e41e4f80df810553920ac6838f51bf9/DesignFile-Lalannes-4.jpg" data-mid="461846" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/15ea095b9fe5ad6e94bd2e374b84f1e27e41e4f80df810553920ac6838f51bf9/DesignFile-Lalannes-4.jpg" /> Hippoptame I (1968–69) was made in blue polyester resin for Teeny and Marcel Duchamp. The Lelannes are perhaps best known for their sheep stools—and quite rightly, as the stools thoroughly embody the Lalanne sensibility: the simple gesture that is completely transformative. The stools are basically life-size sheep, with not much alteration in volume or visage (just a bit flattened on top). But seeing a “flock” of these chairs in a domestic context is a complete upending of what is expected, and joyfully so. In addition, their hippopotamus bath, commissioned by Teeny and Marcel Duchamp in 1968, is worth singling out, as it really has no precedent, outside of perhaps a story by Raymond Roussel or Roald Dahl... The large blue resin hippo has a sink in its mouth and a tub in its abdomen. The work of Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne epitomizes what might be termed engrossed pleasure; there’s no Romantic pulling your hair out for posterity here, just, in the words of the Lalannes themselves, an “invitation to wander aimlessly at a snail’s pace” — probably the only speed at which one can view a fairyland bestiary. <img width="1760" height="1394" width_o="1760" height_o="1394" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7dc814eb730d18e28cc563bbfa7bda59672df7425e7c6773ab98698e330e1747/DesignFile-Lalannes-6.jpg" data-mid="461848" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7dc814eb730d18e28cc563bbfa7bda59672df7425e7c6773ab98698e330e1747/DesignFile-Lalannes-6.jpg" /> La Mouche (1966) <img width="1760" height="1294" width_o="1760" height_o="1294" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5558e62a93116fbfbd0c60b65562b251e89b7abc68c7eab6a64bcb7df1b7f008/DesignFile-Lalannes-7.jpg" data-mid="461849" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5558e62a93116fbfbd0c60b65562b251e89b7abc68c7eab6a64bcb7df1b7f008/DesignFile-Lalannes-7.jpg" /> Babouin (Baviaan), from 1973 <img width="1760" height="1144" width_o="1760" height_o="1144" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2ec63e2066d0e054849c26bd575947268df9d5edda07102a570c77a6cccfff4b/DesignFile-Lalannes-8.jpg" data-mid="461850" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2ec63e2066d0e054849c26bd575947268df9d5edda07102a570c77a6cccfff4b/DesignFile-Lalannes-8.jpg" /> Oiseau de Mabre chair and low table (1974) <img width="1760" height="654" width_o="1760" height_o="654" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/63562e6e84300a2bc6b57926552e7f9d0bb65170c093e34c00112ac346a7e344/DesignFile-Lalannes-11.jpg" data-mid="461853" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/63562e6e84300a2bc6b57926552e7f9d0bb65170c093e34c00112ac346a7e344/DesignFile-Lalannes-11.jpg" /> Le Grand Chat Polymorphe (1968) <img width="1760" height="1758" width_o="1760" height_o="1758" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/54988cb6fe441d042dd2aeefa0caf7e18db5705a8b8065ed9c272ef0fef99dd5/DesignFile-Lalannes-12.jpg" data-mid="461854" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/54988cb6fe441d042dd2aeefa0caf7e18db5705a8b8065ed9c272ef0fef99dd5/DesignFile-Lalannes-12.jpg" /> Toad armchair (1969) <img width="1760" height="1282" width_o="1760" height_o="1282" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ac98b557e73255f33d45d91f92b4532bef494654ea6753c92b7604edb134512e/DesignFile-Lalannes-9.jpg" data-mid="461851" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ac98b557e73255f33d45d91f92b4532bef494654ea6753c92b7604edb134512e/DesignFile-Lalannes-9.jpg" /> Left: Torse d’Homme (1970). Right: silverware for Artcurial (1991) <img width="1760" height="1150" width_o="1760" height_o="1150" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a21f5ff140f9296cb026b5a7a8c0e68e73fc44c535bcc76223de6e2e5cd9c5db/DesignFile-Lalannes-10.jpg" data-mid="461852" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a21f5ff140f9296cb026b5a7a8c0e68e73fc44c535bcc76223de6e2e5cd9c5db/DesignFile-Lalannes-10.jpg" /> Ginkgo Leaf side chair (1996) — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/VI-Martino-Gamper Mon, 29 May 2017 17:45:15 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/VI-Martino-Gamper VI. Martino Gamper <img width="1760" height="732" width_o="1760" height_o="732" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a36c6378c5fcacea06eb247d5357f89d63a3bbc7ec58ec52e46a41177a400e6a/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-1.jpg" data-mid="461796" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a36c6378c5fcacea06eb247d5357f89d63a3bbc7ec58ec52e46a41177a400e6a/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-1.jpg" /> Three chairs from Gamper's 100 Chairs in 100 Days series Martino Gamper — Born in Merano, Italy, 1971 So many design movements have come and gone in recent times, with each new one obfuscating or damning the previous, that we are often left to think that replacement (and probably a relativistic stasis) is all there is. It can seem like there is no genuine, conscientious dialogue; that the child is impervious to the parent. Whether this is an entrenched biological strategy of evolution or simply&nbsp;not seeing the forest for the trees is not for me to know, but ... the feeling is certainly a drag. Countering this tendency and this feeling&nbsp;is possible, but it would require a particular intelligence and temperament, a standalone perspective with buoyancy and perhaps joyousness. This person would need to have a conversational and extemporal technique for problem-solving, not inclined towards specious, ex nihilo design innovations. Martino Gamper is such an empathic and curious personage, and is a fair and welcome exception for our times. <img width="1760" height="1138" width_o="1760" height_o="1138" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6a9d9f680f2da2068b854688042b23c724aebc1a1b8ae7e339319c01a597a8d5/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-2.jpg" data-mid="461797" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6a9d9f680f2da2068b854688042b23c724aebc1a1b8ae7e339319c01a597a8d5/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-2.jpg" /> Gamper’s 2010 Vigna chair for Magis (left) and a chair from the exhibition Tu Casa, Mi Casa, now on view at the Modern Institute in Glasgow, Scotland Gamper was born in 1971, in Merano, a Northern Italian semi-bucolic vineyard and resort region. Let me interrupt what appears to be a banal relaying of biographical info by saying that Gamper’s educational/early-professional sequence is a particularly relevant genealogy. Breaking with the family business (grapes and apples) early on, he apprenticed under a local cabinetmaker and subsequently went to art school, first focusing on sculpture at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, overseen by Michelangelo Pistoletto (a fountainhead of the Arte Povera movement in the 1960s), then completing his studies at the Royal College of Art, London, under Ron Arad. He also had an early job working with Matteo Thun (one of the Memphis group’s founders). Clearly, the ingredients for a life's work in furniture design were set. Gamper’s pieces are ad-hocced, near-sculptures of a sort-of Availablism (to borrow a term smartly coined by Kembra Pfahler). We’ve all seen this type of vernacular construction in gas stations, hobo camps, scrapper trucks and the booths of parking garages: a milk crate with a makeshift upholstered top, or some sort of Eames shell grafted to a discordant Victorian base. But Gamper isn’t merging forms based on convenience alone; he’s more of a design re-animator (referring advisedly here to the Stuart Gordon film of 1985). It’s as if his improvisational capacity draws on the detritus of the entire industrial time period. His pieces are ornamental non-sequiturs, an unbelievable binary of the mundane and the uncanny, like a suite of poetic post-apocalyptic bunker furnishings. <img width="1760" height="1256" width_o="1760" height_o="1256" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a0fe7ce6d2c0ac2285c4fe3888a580b349edd6572a6c88ca423d01ea710d6477/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-3.jpg" data-mid="461798" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a0fe7ce6d2c0ac2285c4fe3888a580b349edd6572a6c88ca423d01ea710d6477/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-3.jpg" /> Left: Gamper’s 100 Chairs in 100 Days series on display in a gallery in Milan. Right: a clothes rack from 2010. For example, look at Gamper’s rack for hanging shirts, from 2010. The piece is basically a reconfigured chair affixed to a wall with a few parts removed to allow for the hanging of garments. There are ingredients here of Arte Povera, Dada, De Stijl and Mendini’s Alchimia. It's like his pieces are transcending a feeling of “why not?” and opening up the design field for all sorts of as-yet-restricted, or perhaps unthought-of, avenues. It is important to say that his pieces are not just DIY novelties but act as a glue that binds so many preceding outlooks with bonhomie and zero pedantry. Looking through the filter of Gamper’s creations, it is evident that furniture design needn’t only obsess about consumerist cycles. You can do whatever you want, as long as it’s good. <img width="1760" height="1204" width_o="1760" height_o="1204" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f9514170a67aed090309470c10820258995791c2e32d560d946ae94d7f6520a4/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-4.jpg" data-mid="461799" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f9514170a67aed090309470c10820258995791c2e32d560d946ae94d7f6520a4/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-4.jpg" /> Left: a desk, lamp and chair by Gamper. Right: the design re-animator? <img width="1760" height="1252" width_o="1760" height_o="1252" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3d6c8f86183284250f61c6da230fb6afe27ebd0844c4436148e49ae86f6d418a/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-5.jpg" data-mid="461800" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3d6c8f86183284250f61c6da230fb6afe27ebd0844c4436148e49ae86f6d418a/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-5.jpg" /> Left: a Gamper exhibition at the American Academy in Rome last spring. Right: the 2011 Condominium&nbsp;project for a gallery in Turin, Italy <img width="1760" height="1198" width_o="1760" height_o="1198" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c9f629ba32bf305e4918ff77c7ba3837f54c54fcf8214bc42069f766d7a691e5/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-6.jpg" data-mid="461801" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c9f629ba32bf305e4918ff77c7ba3837f54c54fcf8214bc42069f766d7a691e5/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-6.jpg" /> Left: a chair for the Conran Inspirations collection. Right: the Arnold Circus Stool <img width="1760" height="1496" width_o="1760" height_o="1496" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/84dc54e8a4fdffe9fbe1b44d06e60427218349642eaea47d9e63a161f12fbf77/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-7.jpg" data-mid="461802" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/84dc54e8a4fdffe9fbe1b44d06e60427218349642eaea47d9e63a161f12fbf77/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-7.jpg" /> The Fragmental Dining Table, also on display at the Tu Casa, Mi Casa exhibition in Glasgow <img width="1760" height="1310" width_o="1760" height_o="1310" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d9e367fcd0cb7202d2d25f5b97a36690b78ab14d7aaf0bc4676c006a0de36d56/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-8.jpg" data-mid="461803" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d9e367fcd0cb7202d2d25f5b97a36690b78ab14d7aaf0bc4676c006a0de36d56/DesignFiles-MartinoGamper-8.jpg" /> A Gamper lounge chair — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/VII-Luigi-Caccia-Dominioni Mon, 29 May 2017 18:13:01 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/VII-Luigi-Caccia-Dominioni VII. Luigi Caccia Dominioni <img width="1760" height="864" width_o="1760" height_o="864" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/81e1c69871e6ca1f777ccc5987e2c4af36b499693ed9c696e2da6bd7bb1c7497/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-1.jpg" data-mid="461818" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/81e1c69871e6ca1f777ccc5987e2c4af36b499693ed9c696e2da6bd7bb1c7497/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-1.jpg" /> The Ambrosianeum Chair from 1955 (left) and the Luis Chair from 2003 Luigi Caccia Dominioni — Born in Milan, Italy, 1913 The beauty of form is either a digression or a clarification. In the latter case —&nbsp;clarification&nbsp;— time or collective use is the shaper of form, as in the way a spoon or any quotidian object is morphed by broad utility through generations. The former case, the&nbsp;digressive, is when an individual journeys into an exclusive focus on the shape of a particular thing; this is the singular task of designers, generally speaking. This is true for the deceptive simplicity of Dieter Rams as well as the material arabesques of Ettore Sottsass. To be clear, contrary to popular opinion, a designer doesn’t clarify, she/he explores. An individual can’t possibly control the unforeseen and logistical, like the cosmic economy of collectivity, so it is giving shape to the mystery of memory and preference that really informs a designer’s quarry. In light of the above lines, the work of Luigi Caccia Dominioni is an impeccable example of what a single designer can&nbsp;achieve. His 70-plus years of work have yielded buildings and objects of a deep sensitivity. <img width="1760" height="1108" width_o="1760" height_o="1108" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/aa07b02af71bf058cc9d0872a370fbcb2563db79597b91eaf3ab09b6aab316ec/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-2.jpg" data-mid="461819" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/aa07b02af71bf058cc9d0872a370fbcb2563db79597b91eaf3ab09b6aab316ec/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-2.jpg" /> Dominioni’s 1953 Monachella floor lamp for Azucena. Dominioni is an architect and a designer. At university he studied under Luigi Moretti (a first-wave Italian modernist), which seems to have been a fairly influential tutelage, as Dominioni’s architectural work has consistently been in close dialogue with this first phase of modernism. His professional life started successfully, designing objects and interiors with the Castiglioni brothers (Achille, Livio and Pier Giacomo). He is often quoted as saying that a good building is designed from the inside out, and this idea was surely the catalyst for Dominioni’s 1947 opening of Azucena, a design firm focusing on furniture and objects. From then on, Dominioni was a cornerstone of the post-war generation of Italian architects, alongside Franco Albini, Ico Parisi, Ignacio Gardella, Osvaldo Borsani, Angelo Mangiarotti and Carlo Mollino. When looking at Dominioni’s designs, it is important to keep in mind that European homes, unlike those in the U.S., are often older, having ornamental notes in the keys of different eras (at times classical, sometimes even ancient). And, even if a particular building is totally new, the street on which it rests typically presents an array of historical perspectives. American designers working in parallel with Dominioni (George Nelson, Charles Eames, etc.) were less confined and were often designing toward unbuilt, forward-looking vistas. The shapes of much midcentury modernist Italian furniture, due to said architectural constraints, have a modern feel, but with accents more inclusive of a multitude of situations; whereas much American furniture can feel of the time. Dominioni's Monachella floor lamp (1953), Ambrosianeum chair (1955), Boccia sconce (1967) and Pipistrello desk (1998) speak to this versatility amazingly well. <img width="1760" height="1282" width_o="1760" height_o="1282" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fe15c39bab418009164e86a8a233961333cf7b29e28b0874c678866ddb7d9ae1/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-3.jpg" data-mid="461820" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fe15c39bab418009164e86a8a233961333cf7b29e28b0874c678866ddb7d9ae1/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-3.jpg" /> The Pipistrello desk for Azucena (1998) <img width="1760" height="1076" width_o="1760" height_o="1076" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4ba230972b60923d12de7f5bc18de742ae9b88f0fdef9add2b6a89765a531962/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-13.jpg" data-mid="461830" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4ba230972b60923d12de7f5bc18de742ae9b88f0fdef9add2b6a89765a531962/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-13.jpg" /> The Boccia sconce (1967) and the Porta Dipinta table lamp (2002), both for Azucena There is an element of Dominioni’s work which separates him from all his peers, and which brings us back to the first inquiry of this essay: design and the expression of beauty. In an interview, Dominioni pointed to himself as “urban,” a word he explained as connecting his architecture and design to function, thinking of the city as a place of pure utility. Initially, this statement may seem to undermine what I originally said about him being digressive more than functionally inclined — but invoking functionality is a conceit of most architects and designers; it is expected and understandable. But the practical pursuit in good design is not the same as that of, say, an engineer of fluid dynamics; as ventured earlier, it is more mysterious, almost like the quality of being compelling. To put it another way: a good designer is not expressly working to design a chair around the problem of back fatigue, so that an employer can maximize working hours, but to design a chair as to confront our sense of Appearances. Looking at Dominioni’s work I don’t feel that it is correct, or tasteful, or intelligent, or even expressive. I see something like soft vortexes of examination — zones or dimensions of matter where potent focus has been applied. All of Dominioni’s work functions well as furniture, as interiors, or what have you—but it is his clear commitment to mastering gracefulness that sets his work apart. <img width="1760" height="1110" width_o="1760" height_o="1110" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5b2f51d44c06ec22074778d56d5ebc34c4a5ee738551d489e63831401959c485/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-4.jpg" data-mid="461821" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5b2f51d44c06ec22074778d56d5ebc34c4a5ee738551d489e63831401959c485/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-4.jpg" /> Dominioni interiors from 1953, with his Imbuto floor lamp pictured at right <img width="1760" height="1254" width_o="1760" height_o="1254" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cb205d06934166748ab77a58e7f40008f3e2f3401ed7b1e9e306875f4da13a16/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-5.jpg" data-mid="461822" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cb205d06934166748ab77a58e7f40008f3e2f3401ed7b1e9e306875f4da13a16/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-5.jpg" /> The Bicolore bed for Azucena (1989) <img width="1760" height="980" width_o="1760" height_o="980" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/039226322bd0cdcdd555c95fbb6f715063800e08d981055a1268394d48baebf5/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-12.jpg" data-mid="461829" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/039226322bd0cdcdd555c95fbb6f715063800e08d981055a1268394d48baebf5/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-12.jpg" /> Dominioni’s 1958 Catalina chair and his 1962 Mikado table lamp, both for Azucena <img width="1760" height="1156" width_o="1760" height_o="1156" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8b06dc7d06c066a13a81fc2bd905e8cd24297075b91db266311f38b912c8790d/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-6.jpg" data-mid="461823" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8b06dc7d06c066a13a81fc2bd905e8cd24297075b91db266311f38b912c8790d/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-6.jpg" /> The Sant’ambrogio sofa for Azucena (1981) <img width="1760" height="1204" width_o="1760" height_o="1204" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c910ab8f7f12183dc3e0ff0cfc965fa8cf60542d62eea980ac4d2ec066dac92c/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-10.jpg" data-mid="461827" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c910ab8f7f12183dc3e0ff0cfc965fa8cf60542d62eea980ac4d2ec066dac92c/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-10.jpg" /> Left: the Nonaro Chair for Azucena (1962). Right: the CDO chair for L’Abbate <img width="1760" height="1104" width_o="1760" height_o="1104" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0724fcda9ae560ba91376aeaff7feef29d2e0716b39969928c1c9c610ff0309e/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-7.jpg" data-mid="461824" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0724fcda9ae560ba91376aeaff7feef29d2e0716b39969928c1c9c610ff0309e/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-7.jpg" /> The Bordighera table for Azucena (1980) <img width="1760" height="986" width_o="1760" height_o="986" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cc783a7ed9848757acd30aa6abcc789e6067334d758ca49ab7748a90f2a323fc/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-11.jpg" data-mid="461828" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cc783a7ed9848757acd30aa6abcc789e6067334d758ca49ab7748a90f2a323fc/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-11.jpg" /> The Fasce Cromate sofa (1963) and the Sciabola desk (1979), both for Azucena <img width="1756" height="1120" width_o="1756" height_o="1120" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d9cef5a8b5e12f38655054cba0bdb9a7c613265fd4990ed05fe3c8c30e890735/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-8.jpg" data-mid="461825" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d9cef5a8b5e12f38655054cba0bdb9a7c613265fd4990ed05fe3c8c30e890735/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-8.jpg" /> The Panchina bed for Azucena (1960) <img width="1760" height="952" width_o="1760" height_o="952" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e97ef03bf4257b0bf5ff28b136fcad0c32c66651bedd06ab2695e8babb3a5b8f/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-9.jpg" data-mid="461826" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e97ef03bf4257b0bf5ff28b136fcad0c32c66651bedd06ab2695e8babb3a5b8f/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-9.jpg" /> Dominioni interiors <img width="1760" height="896" width_o="1760" height_o="896" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e3a8e8a30d6ecd48e550be0a5653574e19b1204c8846c9ee044c33f53b2ce3a1/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-14.jpg" data-mid="461831" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e3a8e8a30d6ecd48e550be0a5653574e19b1204c8846c9ee044c33f53b2ce3a1/DesignFile-LuigiDominioni-14.jpg" /> The Toro sofa for Azucena (1979) — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/VIII-Ugo-La-Pietra Mon, 29 May 2017 18:01:06 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/VIII-Ugo-La-Pietra VIII. Ugo La Pietra <img width="1760" height="1002" width_o="1760" height_o="1002" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0ce3557271a9207c86b7be74b760d3ef9646bf1a146ac745fe6f50a253c2f89e/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-1.jpg" data-mid="461805" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0ce3557271a9207c86b7be74b760d3ef9646bf1a146ac745fe6f50a253c2f89e/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-1.jpg" /> The Libreria shelving unit (left) and La Pietra with his Globo Tissurato Ugo La Pietra — Born in Bussi sul Tirino, Italy, 1938 “Art furniture” is a fairly detestable moniker. It carries with it a sense that said pieces are not quite art and not really furniture — either art is slumming or furniture is longing. Clearly, and it may seem overly reductive (but I can’t see much actual distortion), for all human endeavors, some creations are simply good and some&nbsp;not so much. All things have value but not all are superlative, whether art or decorative art, sculpture or industrial design, painting or graphics, drawing or illustration, essay writing or whatever. To separate the functional arts from the fine arts is like trying to differentiate between the acceleration rate of a falling pound of goose feathers and a falling pound of duck feathers. Art and design are not dualistic — and our subject, Ugo La Pietra, is really the most instructive on these matters. He considers his life’s output (50-plus years, spanning a wide range of disciplines) to be, plainly, research. La Pietra came of creative age during the ambitious days of radical 1960s culture. Working with and alongside such provocateurs as Hans Hollein, the Haus-Rucker-Co, Ettore Sottsass, the Situationist International, Coop Himmelblau, Archizoom and Superstudio, he developed his own critical method of making. In his own words, he pushed for the “decoding and rereading of what has been forgotten, or ill used, or is somehow, for more or less legitimate historical reasons, petrified” (Ugo La Pietra, “1960-1990: Thirty Years of Experimental Research”). <img width="1760" height="876" width_o="1760" height_o="876" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e72a87b176c008370f94c93e3578269a3138864ec9442e63d28cc15b6243e3bb/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-2.jpg" data-mid="461806" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e72a87b176c008370f94c93e3578269a3138864ec9442e63d28cc15b6243e3bb/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-2.jpg" /> The 1966 Globo Tissurato lamp (left) and a ceramic piece from 1991 La Pietra’s furniture spans a huge range of moods. There are meandering decorative reinterpretations (his mid-to-late 1980s cabinets for Boffi), aggressively undermined domestic objects (a suite of ceramics for Mangani circa 1986) and subtly and beautifully tweaked existing models (toilets and washbasins for Tenax). But his Libreria shelving unit (for Poggi, 1968) and his Globo Tissurato lamp (for Zama Elettronica, 1966) are perhaps his hallmarks. The Libreria is a shelving piece that acts as sculpture, utilitarian furnishing and architectural augmenter all at once. It's an arresting interplay of planes to rival Paul Rudolph, and its two-sided aspect makes it impossible for an interior plan to ignore — it has to find its place, so to speak. The Globo Tissurato, compelling as an object in its own right, was simultaneously an attempt to modulate a light source beyond a simple dimmer switch. La Pietra’s use of methacrylate — relatively novel at the time — allowed for the insertion of bubbles into plastic, so as to modify the outgoing light (a dynamic and pleasing effect). <img width="1760" height="1002" width_o="1760" height_o="1002" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/54ada45c5418eb700edaf209a947a0f9caf4722e710637d493109390b41b170d/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-3.jpg" data-mid="461807" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/54ada45c5418eb700edaf209a947a0f9caf4722e710637d493109390b41b170d/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-3.jpg" /> Left: La Casa Telematica, from 1982. Right: La Pietra's Italian Garden, from 1989. Something to keep in mind when looking at La Pietra’s work is the way we take ordinary objects for granted. Why do we pot plants? Or put cut flowers in a vase? Or have a predilection for varying temperatures of “artificial light?” Are these manifestations of larger import, or simply dalliance? Are the plants “asking” us to put them in pots? One thing is certain, though not commonly thought — vases don’t just hold flowers, they also hold the whole concept of holding flowers. It should be clear that pinning down La Pietra with a particular title (designer, artist, situationist) is impossible; and I would hope that, after seeing his work, the prospect of labeling him is wholly unattractive. I think it helpful here to reproduce an index of La Pietra's own making, also from his essay “Thirty Years of Experimental Research.” It is a lovely, though almost a clinically resolute, methodology of struggles and elective affinities: Research and design of the object in rapport with the environment, the territory, and history (I mean all of history: not only what relates to the history of the mass-produced object!); Definition of useful objects which can be put into production and which nevertheless at the same time posses the virtual qualities proper to the art object; Exploration of the points of conflict between and overlapping of the two disciplines, art and design, in order to determine whether the historico-cultural reasons which lead to their separation in the past rare still valid; Greater attention to the diffusion of the so-called culture of living, with particular attention to local territorial resources; References to tradition (techniques, materials) together with approaches charged with unforeseen, chance elements. <img width="1760" height="1092" width_o="1760" height_o="1092" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1d64266648963d1852f5738b9b6fc294d1bed18f45a4d5ad7fad861fb1b1a798/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-4.jpg" data-mid="461808" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1d64266648963d1852f5738b9b6fc294d1bed18f45a4d5ad7fad861fb1b1a798/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-4.jpg" /> A bench from La Pietra’s Mediterranean Villas series <img width="1760" height="1362" width_o="1760" height_o="1362" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6588852ddece30313a134a42039291e43f866148c61784435729772eb820be2e/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-5.jpg" data-mid="461809" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6588852ddece30313a134a42039291e43f866148c61784435729772eb820be2e/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-5.jpg" /> A bookcase from the Three-Dimensional Memory series <img width="1760" height="924" width_o="1760" height_o="924" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/701db048378d85e4c98111fe3f3047b19f6f1222abebf9a7c392fe61e593828f/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-6b.jpg" data-mid="461810" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/701db048378d85e4c98111fe3f3047b19f6f1222abebf9a7c392fe61e593828f/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-6b.jpg" /> From left: a sideboard from the Three-Dimensional Memory series; La Pietra with his 1979 Arcangeli Metropolitani lamp stand; and a credenza from the late 1980s <img width="1760" height="1820" width_o="1760" height_o="1820" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/36b4b46e78bdfacb1c626c4ae6bc8e1469d746249f1c83bb6e8192f20bd549d6/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-7.jpg" data-mid="461811" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/36b4b46e78bdfacb1c626c4ae6bc8e1469d746249f1c83bb6e8192f20bd549d6/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-7.jpg" /> A La Pietra photomontage circa 1970 <img width="1760" height="1382" width_o="1760" height_o="1382" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b71266fad3e0caf21d5a09ff41837e5baf3586ed855df05198089e9d55bf8e34/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-8.jpg" data-mid="461812" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b71266fad3e0caf21d5a09ff41837e5baf3586ed855df05198089e9d55bf8e34/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-8.jpg" /> A 1984 sofa for Gruppo Industriale Busnelli <img width="1760" height="1232" width_o="1760" height_o="1232" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/567bd3b66e1763c7fde0e7a8ff0ce3ba561474c22662fbf32837ef3e2b59e89f/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-9b.jpg" data-mid="461813" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/567bd3b66e1763c7fde0e7a8ff0ce3ba561474c22662fbf32837ef3e2b59e89f/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-9b.jpg" /> A photo and drawing of a 1984 armchair for Gruppo Industriale Busnelli <img width="1760" height="1294" width_o="1760" height_o="1294" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/56824fd4351b50458a44471b2dff9e81a0d8bd8e7824e3dfeb1913c066cf1b33/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-10.jpg" data-mid="461814" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/56824fd4351b50458a44471b2dff9e81a0d8bd8e7824e3dfeb1913c066cf1b33/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-10.jpg" /> La Pietra’s Medi ceramics collection <img width="1700" height="1248" width_o="1700" height_o="1248" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a3687792f09dee7cd3f0bc491f4a72cc3ae56fcaa8e45103b667c3d6ee481997/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-11.jpg" data-mid="461815" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a3687792f09dee7cd3f0bc491f4a72cc3ae56fcaa8e45103b667c3d6ee481997/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-11.jpg" /> The Mangani plate from 1986 <img width="1760" height="1142" width_o="1760" height_o="1142" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d9473415d8bb96b38747d62da54d48adb8bc075aa217e8704cde6ab9b55d89aa/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-12.jpg" data-mid="461816" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d9473415d8bb96b38747d62da54d48adb8bc075aa217e8704cde6ab9b55d89aa/DesignFile-UgoLaPietra-12.jpg" /> Woman 01, a 2007 limited-edition Plexiglas sculpture for Superego — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/IX-Robert-Mallet-Stevens Mon, 29 May 2017 19:35:34 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/IX-Robert-Mallet-Stevens IX. Robert Mallet-Stevens <img width="1760" height="1052" width_o="1760" height_o="1052" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f039a09466ed5ca312a8e71b74804cbcb7809acbda1ab9b6c45aa466ab7602f2/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-20.jpg" data-mid="461940" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f039a09466ed5ca312a8e71b74804cbcb7809acbda1ab9b6c45aa466ab7602f2/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-20.jpg" /> Robert Mallet-Stevens — Born in Paris, 1886. Died in Paris, 1945. “Architecture is an art which is basically geometrical. The cube is the basis of architecture because the right angle is necessary because the steps of a staircase consist of vertical and horizontal planes and the corners of rooms are nearly always right angles. We need right angles.” —Robert Mallet-Stevens, “Architecture and Geometry,” 1924. Robert Mallet-Stevens was a pioneering modernist who designed architecture, interiors, film sets and furniture. He is considered one of the most influential French architects of the first half of the last century—for many, slightly below Le Corbusier. His relative obscurity is due in part to the poor timing of his death. As a 2005 Domus article pointed out, Mallet-Stevens died “just before major postwar construction began to take place, not in time to leave behind a theoretical work to assure his place in the archives.” In addition, his focus was less universal than Le Corbusier’s. Mallet-Stevens was personally involved in all manner of architectural detail. Because of this multifaceted involvement, he created design and architecture of nuanced chicness. His work did not jettison the richness of the Vienna Succession and the Wiener Werkstätte — but Mallet-Stevens had one foot aimed directly at the super-reductionist future of full-blown modernism. <img width="1760" height="1130" width_o="1760" height_o="1130" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f8dacdd6490c069bdae4249918ab082628e3ff66f3dd70a8e6569e6b2c6dc251/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-21.jpg" data-mid="461941" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f8dacdd6490c069bdae4249918ab082628e3ff66f3dd70a8e6569e6b2c6dc251/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-21.jpg" /> <img width="1760" height="1250" width_o="1760" height_o="1250" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e58578bfc33b44cb6f211e428a0dd7175a01871f95d4b20ee805d5f45398f07c/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-3.jpg" data-mid="461925" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e58578bfc33b44cb6f211e428a0dd7175a01871f95d4b20ee805d5f45398f07c/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-3.jpg" /> Like many great designers, Mallet-Stevens was a shrewd but tolerant synthesizer, bringing together those artists and artisans he felt were superlative. For the home of the Vicomte de Noailles, he yoked the likes of Eileen Gray, Pierre Chareau and Theo van Doesberg (in retrospect, a pretty stunning roster). Before the First World War, he created a magazine whose board included such diverse talents as the composer Claude Debussy and the painter Maurice Denis; and in 1929 he founded the Union des Artistes Modernes, which included such standard-bearers as Sonia Delauney, René Herbst, Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé, Pierre Guariche and Mathieu Matégot. Without question, Mallet-Stevens’s best-known piece of furniture was the enameled tubular-steel chair that he created for the Art Menagers exhibition in 1936 (top image). Of furniture, Mallet-Stevens said it should be “Functional in terms of contemporary living, simple and suitable for mass production” (from Domus, April 2005). The chair is a masterpiece of simplicity — durable, stackable and comfortable with genuinely elegant lines (but not remotely overdone). It has none of the decorative conceits of other chairs created at that time, and its longevity in the rotation of interiors since attests to this. All examples were vintage until 1978, when the chair was revived by the French interior designer Andrée Putman, as part of her furniture company Ecart. About the chair, Putman said, “Encountering this object was one of the decisive moments of my life. Its proportions, its elegance, its appearance, make it timeless.” <img width="1760" height="1128" width_o="1760" height_o="1128" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8d9427ddc94d957ff788bfb0b1eb1e960ebaa9ec736372d3f5305836fffcfc2d/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-4.jpg" data-mid="461926" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8d9427ddc94d957ff788bfb0b1eb1e960ebaa9ec736372d3f5305836fffcfc2d/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-4.jpg" /> Left: a Bakelite chair circa 1935. Right: a table circa 1930 <img width="1760" height="1230" width_o="1760" height_o="1230" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3d60b89a6adee9172f8f7e1a6abe01b1da49c82e51a26a88534604f485e6bf2d/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-5.jpg" data-mid="461927" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3d60b89a6adee9172f8f7e1a6abe01b1da49c82e51a26a88534604f485e6bf2d/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-5.jpg" /> From 1917 <img width="1760" height="828" width_o="1760" height_o="828" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/28d01049bae076fcf0292e1d831790309b8271217734539d263a66bde8eb5cca/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-6.jpg" data-mid="461928" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/28d01049bae076fcf0292e1d831790309b8271217734539d263a66bde8eb5cca/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-6.jpg" /> Interior drawings from 1923 (left) and 1915 (right) Mallet-Stevens shares a particular zone with the Viennese architect Adolf Loos and his French compatriot Pierre Charaeu — that of the dandy modernist. Not quite a fop but an extreme aesthete; a point somewhere between Oscar Wilde and Mies van der Rohe. The pieces and architecture of Mallet-Stevens and Co. should not be considered Art Deco, being too informed and excited by inventions in engineering — not by mere decorative novelties. The work is very particular, a very delicate, optimistic and interesting arrival. Although it informed much of what was to come, the worldwide crisis of the early 1930s and the congealing of the Second World War wiped clean Mallet-Stevens’s particular territory, and for all his and his peers’ talk of “the new man,” they really had no idea of how new and different that new man was to be. Additional Links: Mallet-Stevens’s villa for the Vicomte de Noailles, featured prominently in Man Ray's Les Mystères du Château du Dé. To view, click here. Marcel L’Herbier’s film L’Inhumaine, for which Mallet-Stevens designed the sets (with Fernand Lèger). To view, click here. Adolf Loos’s bizarre Ornament and Crime, of particular influence on Mallet-Stevens. The essay can be read here. <img width="1760" height="1334" width_o="1760" height_o="1334" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fba092e79c4a14f95de19c4902281b9a4347e162a9b683f507546c0628d4d044/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-1.jpg" data-mid="461923" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fba092e79c4a14f95de19c4902281b9a4347e162a9b683f507546c0628d4d044/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-1.jpg" /> A 1925 drawing of an interior with a fountain <img width="1760" height="950" width_o="1760" height_o="950" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6a6142df1c9aa180f7052c548355c82d3d43b4e3ee7d36afb1870d5d7b54e243/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-2.jpg" data-mid="461924" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6a6142df1c9aa180f7052c548355c82d3d43b4e3ee7d36afb1870d5d7b54e243/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-2.jpg" /> A 1939 restaurant chair and a 1930 table <img width="1760" height="954" width_o="1760" height_o="954" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8f2f616ad9e697c6c6b6c8f634111cacbec91c270de549cc4ecab542e6a50153/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-7.jpg" data-mid="461929" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8f2f616ad9e697c6c6b6c8f634111cacbec91c270de549cc4ecab542e6a50153/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-7.jpg" /> From 1929 <img width="1760" height="914" width_o="1760" height_o="914" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/71f5432373fd6301cb748cc55346a07fb3ab20320c3735867b094f6af85a9a70/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-9.jpg" data-mid="461931" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/71f5432373fd6301cb748cc55346a07fb3ab20320c3735867b094f6af85a9a70/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-9.jpg" /> Left: a tubular steel chair from 1927. Right: a table for Villa Cavrois, circa 1930 <img width="1760" height="1110" width_o="1760" height_o="1110" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/304c8bb3bfb96d23bd7f524dcdd8c57f0b115240e3d4a73517f69a5c98f025cd/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-11.jpg" data-mid="461933" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/304c8bb3bfb96d23bd7f524dcdd8c57f0b115240e3d4a73517f69a5c98f025cd/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-11.jpg" /> A 1936 rendering of school furniture <img width="1760" height="1220" width_o="1760" height_o="1220" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/017a1c6769178736197055ccec14a233766a0740e7a8db54094dab69b203a28f/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-12.jpg" data-mid="461934" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/017a1c6769178736197055ccec14a233766a0740e7a8db54094dab69b203a28f/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-12.jpg" /> A photomontage of Mallet-Stevens’s classroom furniture <img width="1760" height="1254" width_o="1760" height_o="1254" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5532657ba9ec162ab2b3630991e7d94071245fe84b82ed52ee0e1176dfad951e/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-13.jpg" data-mid="461935" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5532657ba9ec162ab2b3630991e7d94071245fe84b82ed52ee0e1176dfad951e/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-13.jpg" /> A 1935 rendering for a cruise ship interior <img width="1760" height="892" width_o="1760" height_o="892" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/feebda44c0e740ea61cf7e803b17326b1518e4d210a8363ed794fd0366cb4909/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-10.jpg" data-mid="461932" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/feebda44c0e740ea61cf7e803b17326b1518e4d210a8363ed794fd0366cb4909/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-10.jpg" /> Left: a lounge chair from 1927. Right: a Mallet-Stevens stool <img width="1760" height="1166" width_o="1760" height_o="1166" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e51d07e70dfa04dbe09bb259b3d8ae3b894e8fc831e6b69a467efafa172ac01a/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-14.jpg" data-mid="461936" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e51d07e70dfa04dbe09bb259b3d8ae3b894e8fc831e6b69a467efafa172ac01a/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-14.jpg" /> A Mallet-Stevens binder from 1934 <img width="1760" height="1288" width_o="1760" height_o="1288" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/29554cda1fb6833f20db75d28b0dba0b3d3612ce3ed36a725aa43b13c32907c8/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-15.jpg" data-mid="461937" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/29554cda1fb6833f20db75d28b0dba0b3d3612ce3ed36a725aa43b13c32907c8/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-15.jpg" /> 1923 <img width="1760" height="666" width_o="1760" height_o="666" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ab2b1b47c7f3f56023f253e6698cff1a0b08f38b9a47fda8019abc745aa5d21b/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-18.jpg" data-mid="461939" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ab2b1b47c7f3f56023f253e6698cff1a0b08f38b9a47fda8019abc745aa5d21b/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-18.jpg" /> Chair for the Tubor Company, 1931 <img width="1760" height="1168" width_o="1760" height_o="1168" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/44cb629993c32fe26a769192c97c5273f32666a039964ff4125eb681da7f2ecd/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-8.jpg" data-mid="461930" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/44cb629993c32fe26a769192c97c5273f32666a039964ff4125eb681da7f2ecd/DesignFile-RobertMalletStevens-8.jpg" /> Left: interior of the Villa Cavrois, circa 1930. Right: terrace of a Paris hotel, circa 1927 — AQQ https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/X-Tobia-Afra-Scarpa Thu, 25 May 2017 20:54:10 +0000 Joy of Design — Cargo Example Site https://joyofdesign.cargo.site/X-Tobia-Afra-Scarpa X. Tobia &amp; Afra Scarpa <img width="1760" height="1028" width_o="1760" height_o="1028" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/615fa761bb93ac79604f185e93cb47a4cd19376a2a2fe68f790882ec88887070/DesignFile-Scarpas-1b.jpg" data-mid="459944" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/615fa761bb93ac79604f185e93cb47a4cd19376a2a2fe68f790882ec88887070/DesignFile-Scarpas-1b.jpg" /> The Soriana easy chair for Cassina (1969) Afra Scarpa —&nbsp;Born in Montebelluna, Italy, 1937.&nbsp;Tobia Scarpa — Born in Venice, Italy, 1935 The work of Afra and Tobia Scarpa, now in its seventh decade, has consistently displayed an ingenious particularity. Though their output in each decade spoke relevantly to the main design discourses and roving zeitgeists, the work retained autonomy and what can only be described as a personal poetry. From their first collaborations as husband and wife in the middle 1950s until the present day, no other designers have spoken as completely and as articulately in single furniture offerings. Each piece, whether their Biagio table lamp for Flos, their Bastiano seating range for Knoll or their Centenary vases for L’eclaireur, simultaneously addresses history, industrial production, form, function, materials and contemporary cultures. <img width="1760" height="1086" width_o="1760" height_o="1086" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1aec9b012b06c7ba9480835724ba51ce7ea8f52083eb4386cadf6c19cd932214/DesignFile-Scarpas-2.jpg" data-mid="459945" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1aec9b012b06c7ba9480835724ba51ce7ea8f52083eb4386cadf6c19cd932214/DesignFile-Scarpas-2.jpg" /> The Bastiano sofa for Knoll (1960) It is very uncommon for designer(s) to be concerned with so many parameters; it’s usually function or contemporariness only. An ease and comfort with such a dense address can perhaps be attributed to Tobia’s lineage. He is the son of Carlo Scarpa, a universally admired Venetian architect and designer, renowned for his lyrical modernism and uncanny ability to amiably insert modern structures alongside historic architecture. Tobia and Afra’s furniture pulls from a similar source, conferring with predecessors while seeming utterly original. <img width="1760" height="772" width_o="1760" height_o="772" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f2426baa3fb921724c6c891da11b5f293673572e874499a838a5a8fd1fab501b/DesignFile-Scarpas-3.jpg" data-mid="459946" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f2426baa3fb921724c6c891da11b5f293673572e874499a838a5a8fd1fab501b/DesignFile-Scarpas-3.jpg" /> The Soriana easy chair and ottoman Take their 1969 Soriana range for Cassina as an example. Here is a sofa, an ottoman and an easy chair, in function serving well Cassina’s target client of the time (dilettantish, bohemian, bourgeoisie-hippie) but under scrutiny, quite surprising and strange. Looking down from a standing position (its initial appearance), the range has an almost cartoonish, slightly anthropomorphized feeling. Looking closer, long, thin, eccentric chrome rods are seen along the base, but their use, whether structural or decorative, can’t be determined. Only from the back are the chrome pieces revealed as a bizarre bracing and upholstery system, cunningly interpreting the metal frame and loose-cushion seating system developed by Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand circa 1928. (Should there be doubts that this is an intentional reference, note that Cassina reintroduced the LC pieces in 1965.) The Soriana range is indicative of all of the Scarpas’ output, in that it successfully puts pressure on every aspect of a piece of furniture. They are glorious aggregators. And they continue to work today, still pushing for poetic, incorporative and dexterous design. <img width="1760" height="1114" width_o="1760" height_o="1114" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/891e35b3a075a95283d8dffd0b4deae3ca373b6085d422c30a96ac29c0b217d7/DesignFile-Scarpas-4.jpg" data-mid="459947" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/891e35b3a075a95283d8dffd0b4deae3ca373b6085d422c30a96ac29c0b217d7/DesignFile-Scarpas-4.jpg" /> The Giacomina sofa for Meritalia <img width="1760" height="1002" width_o="1760" height_o="1002" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fb4b88f0c13fec82edbd85890e8c573dd38c0085b10c2cd9e2b3b442070b8c30/DesignFile-Scarpas-5.jpg" data-mid="459948" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fb4b88f0c13fec82edbd85890e8c573dd38c0085b10c2cd9e2b3b442070b8c30/DesignFile-Scarpas-5.jpg" /> Lounge chairs for Cassina (1966) <img width="1760" height="854" width_o="1760" height_o="854" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/325a23be78d53fabe75301033634c2bb8cd18d06085a8ceb37a5a70b27e51199/DesignFile-Scarpas-6.jpg" data-mid="459949" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/325a23be78d53fabe75301033634c2bb8cd18d06085a8ceb37a5a70b27e51199/DesignFile-Scarpas-6.jpg" /> Left: The Artona chair for Maxalto (1975) Right: The Biagio lamp for Flos (1968) <img width="1760" height="904" width_o="1760" height_o="904" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b8cc6896ccedc2ade78c86bd6fba68386f4a0ef2491e90463e88c7ca444d63b7/DesignFile-Scarpas-7.jpg" data-mid="459950" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b8cc6896ccedc2ade78c86bd6fba68386f4a0ef2491e90463e88c7ca444d63b7/DesignFile-Scarpas-7.jpg" /> The Nictea pendant lamp for Flos (1961) <img width="1760" height="910" width_o="1760" height_o="910" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a2e96becb7454bff2a6d2279757f85d1a0cf428b9a9912d110425aa9cd1c5790/DesignFile-Scarpas-8.jpg" data-mid="459951" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a2e96becb7454bff2a6d2279757f85d1a0cf428b9a9912d110425aa9cd1c5790/DesignFile-Scarpas-8.jpg" /> Left: The Vanessa bed for Gavina (1960) Right: A chair for Maxalto (1975) <img width="1760" height="972" width_o="1760" height_o="972" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/25d4cfabe96c3e7876429255cadd98743ba4f46822341ffff03b9545d012d780/DesignFile-Scarpas-9.jpg" data-mid="459952" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/25d4cfabe96c3e7876429255cadd98743ba4f46822341ffff03b9545d012d780/DesignFile-Scarpas-9.jpg" /> The Libertà chair for Meritalia <img width="1760" height="1772" width_o="1760" height_o="1772" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/24328cdb56011c91cbb1b06571475f7e883a26e91aef89963e5c8ec4f4d18bef/DesignFile-Scarpas-10.jpg" data-mid="459953" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/24328cdb56011c91cbb1b06571475f7e883a26e91aef89963e5c8ec4f4d18bef/DesignFile-Scarpas-10.jpg" /> The Bastiano sofa for Knoll, photographed in a Gavina showroom designed by Tobia’s father, Carlo Scarpa —&nbsp;AQQ