Comments on: Modern Furniture Design

Modern Furniture Design

MiguelCardoso — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 09:59:33 -0800

Is This All There Is To Modern Design? Although Design Within Reach is a commercial website, it's well put together, with interesting features that provide biographies and a a potted history of modern furniture design. However, like the plethora of coffee-table books on the subject, the uncomfortable (!) feeling remains that it crystalizes the accepted and the historical - the so-called modern classics - rather than engage with what is truly contemporary. This is, after all, highly traditional modernism and post-modernism. And it's rife. Where is the avant-garde? Is there one on view to ordinary mortals? You end up feeling that the truly new designs - this century's, after all - are being swept under the carpet, awaiting some boring committee process of consensus and approval.

By: jonson

jonson — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:08:03 -0800

Design Within Reach is also a chain of retail outlets - there's one in Santa Monica, right off the 3rd Street promenade. As for the merchandise they sell... well, mid-century modern has never really been my thing. Too hard, to quasi futuristic, not comfy enough.

By: marvin

marvin — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:23:27 -0800

(...reminds me of the state of 'contemporary music'. What contemprary music? What we hear seems as much consensus and approval driven as 'Modern Furniture design. Partucularly in the US...) Last week in London there was the World creative Forum but for biggest the annual furniture dezign fest must go to the Salone del Mobile in Milan

By: matteo

matteo — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:33:19 -0800

Philippe Starck's desk, in his NY apartment, is made by IKEA I'm not kidding

By: profwhat

profwhat — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:36:46 -0800

DWR has some good pieces, but as you say, they are all very famous. Even if you think you haven't seen the Mies pavilion chair, or the Le Corbustier LC2, you're probably wrong. Those pieces have become so commonplace and accepted that they have become a part of the orthodoxy that they once challenged. That's thanks in no small part to their excellent quality; a well-built pavilion chair can make an otherwise excruciating wait in my bank's loan department a relatively pleasant experience. There are, of course, retailers with newer stuff (I love Limn in San Francisco), but because of economies of scale and mass production most of that is well outside the reach of middle class (or even lower-upper-class) families looking to redecorate. Oh, and there's always IKEA. Just don't expect that modernist chest of drawers put together with Elmer's Glue to survive more than one move.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:39:27 -0800

this is a little broader--the cooper-hewitt design triennial (i love SuperHappyBunny)

By: ScottUltra

ScottUltra — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:47:47 -0800

The biggest difference between mid-century modernism and contemporary modernism, in my humble opinion, is that of breakthrough. Who are the Saarinens and Eamses for the 21st century? My initial reaction is that no names of contemporary industrial designers pop into my head whom have made such a large contribution to modern manufacturing techniques. (OK, maybe Karim Rashid comes close, but who else?) Mid-century modernism was truly new, unique, and inspired. I believe that post-modernism (as well as today's "retro" craze) is holding us back from really taking a close look at what can be done with industrial technology. There are lots of interesting prototypes for contemporary modernist objects floating around out there, but what is holding us back from getting them into production? Attitude? Possibly. It certainly isn't technology.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:48:32 -0800

Hey, thanks for the excellent Limn website, profwhat! I like the way pieces link to the manufacturer's website, e.g. cecelia del guerra's caracol cabinet - perfect for cocktails! - to cecotti.

By: Slothrup

Slothrup — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:49:11 -0800

My wife and I drool over the DWR catalog every time it comes. Too bad we can't afford any of it -- despite DWR being one of my company's customers.

By: ScottUltra

ScottUltra — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:59:39 -0800

As a sidenote: the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis just had a fantastic show titled Strangely Familiar: Design in Everyday Life that explored contempory industrial design ideas from a more artist-inspired perspective. The show closed September 7th in Minnesota, but should be opening in Pittsburgh on November 8th at the Carnegie Museum of Art ... and the exhibition catalog should still be available through the Walker. Definitely a worth-while read.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 11:13:09 -0800

ScottUltra: your link led me to find out (and rave) about Thomas Bernstrands' 1997 Do Swing - a robust chandelier you can swing from, ideal for those swooping office exits - and his ingenious three-tiered Wembley bench. Sorry I can't link directly to the photos, but it's a nice website all round. Cheers!

By: ScottUltra

ScottUltra — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 11:17:16 -0800

MiguelCardoso: It took every ounce of restraint I had to resist flinging myself onto the Do Swing in the exhibition. Simply wonderful!

By: ScottUltra

ScottUltra — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 11:28:14 -0800

profwhat: For more affordable contemporary modernist furniture, try BluDot. Fantastic stuff in a great contemporary style using "traditional" modernist materials (laminated birch ply and enameled steel, among other things).

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 11:46:13 -0800

I always thought Marc Newson was one of today's modern masters, though his stuff is very commercially oriented, and not nearly out-there I guess.

By: JollyWanker

JollyWanker — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 11:46:18 -0800

While DWR does stock the essentials of mid-20th-century design, it should be noted that they also carry other, more contemporaneous and lesser household names, like Ted Boerner, Sandy Chilewich and, yes, Karim Rashid. They are also one of only a handful of retailers licensed to sell Isamo Noguchi's spectacular Free Form Sofa and Ottoman.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 12:09:24 -0800

They are also one of only a handful of retailers licensed to sell Isamo Noguchi's spectacular Free Form Sofa and Ottoman. It's a great design, but good lord, $7k for a sofa and ottoman? This is why people mock "design within reach" since so many of its feature pieces aren't in the reach of anyone I remotely know.

By: jfuller

jfuller — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 12:29:41 -0800

> Is This All There Is To Modern Design? It's at least conceivable that it is--by which I mean some periods don't produce any great designs in a given medium (consider Victorian furniture and bric-a-brac, for example, 100% of which is dreck) and we may now be in such a period as regards meubles-de-la-chambre. After all, barring the occasional Mies or Corbu who may toss off a chair (and leaving aside the theoretical possibility of entering a Henry Moore sculpture garden and sitting on one of the pieces,) furniture designers are not designers of the first rank any more than towel designers are. What child ever wanted to grow up to design chairs? And architecture itself appears to me to be in a notably themeless and higgledy-piggledy phase, which makes it less than likely that architects are secretly sketching great chaises and telling nobody about them. I am not all that eager to try to relax on a sofa designed by this fellow. The most functionally successful thing I have sat on recently was a brand new, fully powered, fully conformable-to-the-body dentist's chair. Nice attached swing-out table for the scotch, nice very bright reading lamp. If it wasn't for the damned dentist, who insisted on doing things to me that precluded reading, it would have been an utterly satisfactory furniture experience. I doubt, however, that this chair (however successful) will ever figure in anyone's coffee table book.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:42:30 -0800

Design Within Reach is a chain store. It's in business to sell large quantities of stuff. Like most chain stores, it's not particularly avant-garde. I'm not sure why this surprises anyone. (I bought a coffee table from them, and it's a fine coffee table. But I didn't confuse them with a museum or an educational institution or anything other than a store.)

By: clavdivs

clavdivs — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:43:32 -0800

This is interesting. and this one has me thinking of Swan Vestas'. we can always dream though.

By: hyperizer

hyperizer — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:47:20 -0800

I think I met Rashid when I was nambe's Web developer. Every once in a while the designers would stop by.

By: JollyWanker

JollyWanker — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 14:29:54 -0800

matthowie: This is why people mock "design within reach" since so many of its feature pieces aren't in the reach of anyone I remotely know. The "reach" in their name has never meant within "financial reach," at least not as I've understood it. Their mission has been to collect together these 20th century icons and make them available, all from one source, which prior to their establishment meant dealing with a design professional and their fees, or stomping around town trying to assemble pieces yourself, if you even knew where to go. It's not like DWR goes about claiming they're "bargain priced" - they stock 12" square pillows that cost $150 a piece, for heaven's sake. I'm just sorry you don't know anybody who owns one of these, because they are truly beautiful in person, regardless of how much they cost.

By: beatnik808

beatnik808 — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 15:37:05 -0800

I have been known to stare at DWR's catalogues for hours. I would basically move heaven and earth just for an Eames Lounger to call my own. Sigh, that damn catalogue porn gets me every time.

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 15:44:11 -0800

I have ordered some smaller items from DWR (when they had more Alessi), and if you are in the market for designer items, their prices are quite good. If I ever get the chance to buy that Eames lounge chair and ottoman, I know where I am gonna buy it. The other part of the equation is that most of what I have seen is of superior quality and construction than what you would find at American Furniture Warehouse or some such place. It's like modern heirloom furniture which I know is counter to our disposable society. At that price too, you'll be more careful about getting skid marks on the sofa.....

By: jfuller

jfuller — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 15:55:39 -0800

> At that price too, you'll be more careful about getting skid > marks on the sofa..... Be sure you order it with the clear vinyl slipcover option.

By: adamgreenfield

adamgreenfield — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 16:02:31 -0800

Miguel, what you're missing is that "modern" is entirely distinct from "contemporary." "Modern" design - that is, design produced under the influence of modernism, the Bauhaus, etc. - dates maybe to the 1970s at the very latest: Dieter Rams and the Eameses and Mies and all that yummy stuff. It was all (relatively) unselfconscious work which proceeded from first principles of simplicity and integrity, which absolutely cannot be said about the work of the delightful Newson, the vile Starck, the ego-mad Karim Rashid, Ross Lovegrove, Hella Jongerius, et al. About the only "modern" designers I can think of who are currently active are Jasper Morrison and (in a different way) Naoto Fukasawa, and they'd probably both dispute the characterization.

By: clavdivs

clavdivs — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:19:17 -0800

some Fukasawa work.

By: danbeckmann

danbeckmann — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 18:28:40 -0800

adamgreenfield, I completely agree. We must be sure to make the distinction between modern and contemporary. The modern movement (much to my chagrin) died fifty years ago. People don't "do" modern anymore. It was replaced with (my favorite!) post-modernism. But, (fortunately?) this seems to be near death, as well. What it will be replaced with, remains to be seen. I think that "Yes" is a perfectly legitimate answer to Miguel's question "Is this all there is to modern design?". But indeed, the amount of contemporary design that is widely available is lamentable.

By: marvin

marvin — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 20:31:56 -0800

..and Fukasawa did this too. I'd say the current Apple Industrial Designdirection is distinctly "Modern". No frills, no bollocks, but getting down to the essence of the product, brand, and audience... Technolust

By: quonsar

quonsar — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 21:37:36 -0800

miggy. tell me you don't actually sit around and think shit like this. i mean, without smirking and giggling giddily.

By: Summer

Summer — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 02:37:54 -0800

It really niggles me when people use the word 'design' to mean 'fashionable, contemporary, expensive, independent furniture design'. It gives a totally false impression of the scale of the design industry and the important but often quite dull work that most designers engage in. Last week in London there was the World creative Forum [smug] I was there [/smug]. You forgot to mention it was part of the first London Design Festival, which was quite a bold attempt to cover design in its entirety - furniture, graphics, web, fashion, architecture etc. I'm not sure how well it worked but at least someone's trying to do it. In most big cities, but in London especially, all these strands are increasingly feeding off each other and it's fitting we've now got an event to celebrate that.

By: Dick Paris

Dick Paris — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 06:00:45 -0800

I subscribe to FRAM? magazine to keep in touch with contemporary design. (And some Modernism as well.) Maybe contemporary design is being swept under the carpet but the designs that last will eventually manifest themselves as the lasting lumps under the rug worth keeping while others dissolve into little more than the specious little dust-bunnies they are.

By: Dick Paris

Dick Paris — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 06:03:05 -0800

Oops. FRAM∃

By: jfuller

jfuller — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 06:05:09 -0800

> the important but often quite dull work that most designers engage in. Well, somebody's got to design those hair clippers and seatback trays. What's coolest to me is someone who takes one of those boring assignments and nails it so hard the earth trembles. While Raymond Lowey's Greyhound bus was in service it was the handsomest vehicle on the road.

By: Summer

Summer — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 06:12:22 -0800

What's coolest to me is someone who takes one of those boring assignments and nails it so hard the earth trembles. Me too. You can keep your contemporary furniture, design to me is all about improving lives.

By: anastasiav

anastasiav — Wed, 01 Oct 2003 13:04:24 -0800

I'm strongly reminded of the objects of design line sold by MoMA. Victorian furniture and bric-a-brac, for example, 100% of which is dreck I'm actually a big fan of Victorian, because it goes with my house. However, remember that this too is an example of 'Victorian Era' design. Perhaps they were simply the equivalent of DWR for the 1880's?

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 02 Oct 2003 08:34:17 -0800

Interesting story on a hot Dutch design school--Design Academy Eindhoven. (nyt)