Archives for Design & Architecture
Via Gruber: Get Helvetica Off Our Money.
Donald Norman spends a day with John Tierney and fixes the NYT’s bathroom sink. His new book is The Design of Future Things.
Where an iPod is better than an iPhone
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Jules Winnfield in type
The Atlantic’s new design
I finally got a chance to break open the Jan/Feb issue of The Atlantic–the only magazine I read from cover to cover–and discovered an editor’s note entitled “Some Words About the Design.” The magazine’s design has been excellent as long as I’ve read it, always tasteful and always blending into the background as good design should. New designs usually mean radical changes, but because they get it, the changes to The Atlantic have been subtle and utilitarian. They’re the sort of changes you won’t notice unless you’re looking for them–the introduction of the Miller Text typeface for the articles–and you’ll be surprised to know they haven’t always been there. As the article notes, “Readers will also note, we hope, what hasn’t changed: that the design remains in the service of the writing[.]”
Design award winners boycott White House event
Via Design Observer: “If design has an Oscar, the National Design Award is it. … Because the Awards program was originally conceived as an official project of the White House Millennium Council, the First Lady serves as the honorary chair of the gala at which the winners are celebrated. She also traditionally hosts a breakfast at the White House to which all the nominees and winners are invited. That breakfast was today. This year, however, five Communication Design honorees decided to decline the invitation. They wrote a letter to Laura Bush explaining why.” Follow the link to read the letter, but it boils down to finding objectionable the Bush Administration’s use of design and language, especially in support of the war (think of the “Mission Accomplished” sign). These folks may be good designers, but they are ignorant. In the U.S. the functions of head of government and head of state are combined in one office. Perhaps it would be better if it were another way, but as long as it is a fact it makes sense to understand the distinction.~New Yorker Cartton
Published in The New Yorker today. Hat tip Core77.
D.C. mid-century modern
“The DC Preservation League, in partnership with the DC Historic Preservation Office, is proud to sponsor DC Modern: Washington INSIDE, a three-day program of events designed to identify and highlight Washington’s significant mid-20th-century interiors.” The $175 program includes lectures, receptions, and tours including the Brazilian Embassy and the German chancery and takes place May 19 - 21. BTW: Also found at the Preservation League’s website, this great history of the Logan Circle neighborhood.DIY, or How To Kill Yourself Anywhere in the World for Under $399
This book by artist Joe Scanlan “presents — in extremely dry and methodical detail — a plan for how to go into any IKEA store in the world and buy materials with which to build your own coffin.”Greetings from Airworld!
Travel writer Wayne Curtis has a wonderful article in the current Atlantic in which he recounts his vacation visiting five U.S. airports in six days and never setting foot outside of any of them. He’s obviously a fan of the unique architectural possibilities that airports permit and how that architecture has had to change as security precautions have increased. The story begins with him amazed that a guard won’t let him photograph Eero Saarinen’s TWA terminal at JFK.
Yesterday’s Terminal of Tomorrow (Terminal 3, originally the Pan Am Worldport, also from 1960) is a good example of what happens when the optimistic, outward- looking World’s Fair attitude collides with the post-9/11, hunkering-down worldview. It still has its great, gravity-defying umbrella of concrete, but has been recast as a House of Security Horrors, with clunky partitions, nonexistent directional signs, and, during my visit, the edifying sight of a family late for a flight running up an automobile ramp while dodging oncoming cars.
One neat nugget of travel know-how Curtis imparts is a pointer to sleepingairports.net, “a user-compiled directory of where to find quiet corners, and benches without armrests, at airports worldwide.”
~Picnic Wine Table
Nothing but brilliant. A picnic wine table. Available from Crate & Barrel. This is why I love design.
An open letter to Frank Gehry
Jonathan Lethem tries to shame Frank Gehry into walking away from the 16 towers that have been proposed for Brooklyn along with the New Jersey Nets’ new arena. He writes, “Your presence is intended to appease cultural tastemakers who might otherwise, correctly, recognize this atrocious plan for what it is, just as the notion of a basketball arena itself is a Trojan horse for the real plan: building a skyline suitable to some Sunbelt boomtown.” Lethem goes on to outline several seven problems with the project, including: “The principle of eminent domain. … in the present scheme, publicly owned resources–i.e., the demapped streets and an active rail yard–are here being converted into private property: commonwealth in reverse.” This is especially troubling given concern number one: “The primary objection to your project always was, and always will be, its outlandish disproportion to the neighborhoods around it.”I recently saw the Sydney-Pollack-directed Gehry documentary, Sketches of Frank Gehry, and thought it was little more than an homage to one self-absorbed pseudo-artist by another — and commissioned by the first, as we learn in the first minutes of the movie. Given the glimpse into Gehry’s ego the documentary allowed me, I’m not surprised by Lethem’s concerns. Maybe more than ever we need to defend Brooklyn.
Penguin donkey
twentytwentyone: “First designed in 1939 to hold penguin books, the penguin donkey has become a classic piece of design. The central section is great for holding books and magazines, and it also holds up to 80 paperback books. This model is made from natural birch.” Only £451. I like how they’re not trying to fool you by saying it’s £449.
Functionalfate.org
This is the site of Jen Thiel, who is working on the “first extensive monograph and a museum exhibition about the monobloc plastic chair, the most successful and most unloved piece of furniture of our culture.” The pictures on the site are great, showing the monoblock in every situation imaginable in every part of the world. It’s amazing how ubiquitous these things are, and it’s even more amazing that if you really look at them, they’re not that ugly.
Mid-Modern on Fox’s “24″: Interview with set decorator Cloudia Rebar
One more reason why I love this show. This season several of the sets have great modern designs. President Charles Logan’s home is totally mid-century, and the apartment of short-lived baddy Jacob Rossler had a very minimalist 60s decor.
~3D Rooms
“Without explanation or reference to the artist, this is an awesome collection of rooms meticulously painted to create an optical illusion from the right angle.” Hat tip to Core77.
~Eames rosewood lounge chair
My birthday is coming up next month, so I would just like to point out that the Eames Foundation is offering hand-numbered (whatever that means) 50th anniversary edition rosewood lounge chairs and ottomans in exchange for a contribution. So let’s be charitable. This is for a good cause.
~Mid-century modern Flickr pool
I just discovered this mid-century modern furnishings, design and architecture pool on Flickr. It is amazing, especially because all the photos are by amateurs. Not only is everything beautiful, it’s a wonderful resource for practical ideas because these are mostly shots of people’s real everyday living spaces. Of special note are the photos by Veronika Lake who has great taste.
Eames Tattoos
This is terrific. And I thought the Mac tattoo people were nuts.
What is the point of design?
Good article in the FT today provoked by the recent row at the Design Museum in London. Vacuum guru James Dyson resigned from the board “in protest at what he saw as the fluffiness of [museum director Alice] Rawsthorn’s exhibition programme.” Rawsthorn eventually stepped down herself. Visiting the Design Museum was one of the things I was most looking forward to in my first trip to London in 2003, but I was very disappointed with it. Maybe now things will get shaken up a bit.-
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This is the personal site of Jerry Brito, a lawyer and writer in Washington, D.C. He’s an academic researcher and the creator of Unclutterer and several other blogs. More »
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