Nearly every peek at high design that we had during our NYC holiday was another check in the column of "more is more". It's all so PRETTY. It's decorative, ornamental, baroque, and frilly. And remarkably, this ultra-decorative slant often seems to go hand in hand with the implementation of new cutting edge technology by designers - as if we were all just waiting for these new ways to make things look fancy.
Talking it over with our stalwart traveling companions we came to the conclusion that, for a long time now, we've been shown "good design" that was in the camp of a useful item that was also nice to look at. Simple, streamlined, UNdecorated pieces ruled. Don't misunderstand - how it looked was still often more important than how well it performed, but the look was clean and modern.
We've seen this coming for a while, but on this trip is was very apparent that the high design being shown, is to a large extent, super decorative. MoMA has an exhibit on digitally driven design that had some very ornate pieces and Moss was full of things that exist as simply as art objects; the items that do have some other function (mirrors, tableware, lighting,etc.) are, for the most part, highly ornamental, patterned and in general, gussied up.
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This seems like a classic case of "we can do it so we SHOULD" shame on them
view Julian's profile
Is that silhouette table made of molded plywood or some kind of laminated resin? I am trying to wrap my mind around the construction. Where are the joins? How are they accomplished?
I don't particularly like it, but I am impressed by the ambition.
view stonelake's profile
"Rapid manufacturing, another approach, "prints" three-dimensional objects directly from a CAD file, building them slice by slice in a vessel of liquid resin or powdered nylon that hardens when struck by a laser beam. The object that results is an exact copy of the computer model, produced without any material waste."
From your first link. Missed that.
Extremely weird and cool.
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Ingeniously produced, wittily designed, a brilliant tongue-in-cheek commentary on the new turn towards the delightfully decorative in interiors. Sure, that killjoy stick-in-the mud Louis Sullivan said "Form follows function" but where's the fun in that? Besides, somebody else famous said "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" & this delicious mind-meld of voluptous excess & technology run amuck is sure to enhance your profile among the sophistos, so get yours while you can, at a mere $12,000 USD! Compared to 1/4 of a parking space in the Gold Coast, it's a bargain! Magnaverde.
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