Now we want to meet Paola Antonelli. When we first picked up her book - Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design - we read it from back to front (on the subway - two rides).
The books premise is that design's greatest achievements are humble masterpieces - objects that serve us well, but often go unnoticed as they slip into the daily vernacular of our lives. We couldn't agree more. Modern design's greatest achievement was and remains the melding of form and function. The rest is all hoo-ha. Cases in point are the sugar cube, the champagne cork, the zipper and the condom (great story!). There's no iPod or fancy cell phone in here.
Antonelli devotes two facing pages to each of her 100 inventions and the layout is gorgeous and not overwhelming. We wish, however, that she'd written a bit more about the inventors themselves. For us the heart of the matter isn't the stuff, it's the living, breathing people who have expressed themselves through their inventions. For us this is a great launching point for a Designer's Almanac. Perhaps we'll be able to do it with her.
(Re-edited from a post originally published 11-30-05)
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Does she mention that George Bernard Shaw called the rubber condom the greatest invention of the nineteenth century?
This in an era that saw the railroads and commercial refrigeration! Makes you think just how wonderful rubber is...
Years ago in a design magazine I saw an article about coffee cup lids, with a full page photo of 12 different lids. It was so beautiful I cut it out and hung it up at my desk, and now I'm always fascinated by the beauty of coffee cup lids.
This reminds me of Henry Petroski's "The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts - From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers - Came to be as They are."
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Useful-Things-Artifacts-Zippers-Came/dp/0679740392/ref=pd_sim_b_1/002-2301697-8368853?ie=UTF8&qid=1185892838&sr=1-1
It's a great book.
This book was one of 10 chosen from several hundred for the 2007 JP Morgan Summer Reading List. www.bn.com/jpmsummer
This reminds me of......
Nicholson Baker wrote a terrific piece on nail clippers for the New Yorker's fasion issue a few years back. It's in his book of essays ( I think it's called The Size of Thoughts).
His novels The Mezzanine and Room Tempature both deal beautifully and thoughtfully with details of everyday life - straws, perforation, escalators, shoelaces, disposable diapers...
I can't ride an escalator without thinking of his writing...
D'oh! It's the 2006 list.
Hi, This book looks and sounds fabulous. Please enter me in your drawing. I appreciate it.....Thanks,Cindi