apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Ah, the plastic chair. I have always found these to be comfortable, except their cheap quality kept me from leaning back into them, which I like to do. They are an overlooked marvel and I think cast in aluminum would be quite nice. I'd actually like to see one cast in a heavy copper and watch it age - take it all the way to fabulous.

What I love about simple clean design is that it holds its own against fads. It doesn't wait breathlessly for the next best thing. Take your basic Parsons Table. Simple. Clean. Goes with everything. Nothing pretentious. Classic like Cary Grant, great tea, chocolate, or men's white shirts - just doesn't need improvement.

I like a home that has simple basics and is adorned by the inhabitants, their artwork, pets, ideas, music, stories and tons of color. To me, that's a home.

Thanks for the really interesting thoughts on design of everyday items that we tend to not even "see" anymore.
I also find the whole nature of your retreat very intriguing, I'd love to give it a try someday (and I see that they have a center in Illinois, hmmm...)

My folks have those chairs in forest green, and yes, the plastic is poor quality and so they tend to disintegrate over time.

I think that they should be made in aluminum, but although there is something very modern about it, the vertical slats in the back make it seem traditional enough that a galvanized bucket kind of metal would do quite well for a rural/urban/industrial look, too.

That resonance is one reason why I also love jmarieb's copper idea, too. It should be made in all three.

sweetjeebus, they brainwashed you!
I continue to have no love for that damned chair.
Corelle on the other hand...genius stuff. Esp in plain white.

I 'd like to echo your thoughts about these three ubiquitous objects. To me, what is wonderful about modern design is the thought that beautiful, well designed, functional things could be made cheaply (by mass production) for the enjoyment of ordinary people. If I have a problem with certain modern design afficionados, it is when, by making modern designs "iconic" and elite, they take them away again from ordinary people (like me).(I think that improving the materials in any of these would serve the former egalitarian idea).
Whew! Wordy but I had to get that out -- love this blog by the way. Keep up the good work.

Angelo: I can see you're not liking the chair. I think Maxwell was discussing more the renewed appreciation of simpler things.

Modern design is not necessarily made cheaply for the benefit of ordinary people. Most of it is downright expensive but well made.

I'm an ordinary person and struggling with a day job and a start up business and therefore on a budget. I look at modern design all the time. Not cheap. None of it. And good quality should never really be sacrificed, in my opinion. I don't think we need so many designers getting rich off their name, but I don't want to sit on something that is going to buckle under me, and I'm not a heavyweight.

The plastic chair is more comfortable than it looks like it should be, so I'm glad to see these votes of design approval. After a chaotic move, I wound up using one as my desk chair. I keep intending to upgrade but regular office chairs just don't seem worth the effort. What I discovered is that that the plastic is flexible so it seems to move with me when I wiggle around or lean back if I wind up watching a movie on my computer when the disk won't work with my regular dvd player. So when the spray paints for plastics came out recently, I thought about improving their weathered appearance with a fresh coat of spray paint. I was ambivalent about a color choice but I feel inspired by the metalic suggestion so I will keep that in mind when I'm ready to play with this project. The other chairs (all from the original Ikea patio table set) became impromptu cat feeding stations after an invasion of ants required moving the bowls off the floor. Again, keep thinking of an upgrade but the cats are very happy with the arrangement--they seem to like leaning on the arm rests to get better access for affection (they like elbows for some odd reason); the chairs are easy to move around to clean the floor, etc. So a coat of paint for plastics has been my plan to salvage/upgrade and keep the cats happy at a low cost.

M: You're so right about the cat thing. And these pastic chairs are so easily wiped clean.

Angelo: There is of course the Ikea phenom which is modern yet affordable. I have 2 pieces. But they aren't intended to last as long as a modern piece better made at a higher price. Ikea is for the mass of ordinary folks like us, but sometimes you just can't do cheap/affordable and need to drool over what you're dreaming about and then snap it up after you've saved a bit.

By the way: Corelle - functional and really good to have when you have kids. I remember an incident with my niece as a baby. Had it been china - everyone would have cried.

Curtis: Did you do the faux work I see on your flicker photos - the pompei art etc.? Excellent stuff. This is what I used to do. I like your work very, very much.

Apparently I'm not busy today......

Maxwell, I am envious of the mental state in which you have been returned to us! This sort of clarity of vision is precisely what makes this site so refreshing and enjoyable. Not that I completely agree with you about that chair... but you're right on about the Corelle (in pure white).

jmarieb, very eloquently put: "I like a home that has simple basics and is adorned by the inhabitants, their artwork, pets, ideas, music, stories and tons of color. To me, that's a home."

jmarieb -
Yeah! That's all me. I've done some other wall treatments that have been not as in-your-face bombastically themed, but I haven't put them up; kind of hate give people a reason to snore. I copied the Pompeii stuff from photographs of the real thing, but I can't swear by the exact scale of it. And yeah, that stuff is NOT paint-by-number. But the paint-by-number stuff is what interests me the most these days, and is what I would love to do more of.

jmarieb:
actually, i do like the chair and have had several sets over the years -- they last a season out of doors, then disintegrate in the uv radiation and weather, but they serve their purpose and are inexpensive. recycling issues aside, my point was more of a philosophical one -- that one current in Modernism always has been a democratic one, partly rooted in a socialist idealism perhaps, but admirable in its way of attempting to put beauty in reach for all.
and while some more expensive things are of higher quality, it isn't neccesarily so, and my problem is more of the artificial value often placed upon so-called "iconic" objects -- a sort of extreme of materialism in which a very nearly worshipful value is assigned to a thing, which is, especially in the case of a piece of furniture, something which should serve people and not the other way around.


or maybe i'm overthinking it, lol.

Hmm, does this mean that purity of mind allows a revitalized appreciation for the beauty in the mundane?

Or that retreat houses are untapped fodder for the Queer Eye crew? ;)

You know, if this chair was available in clear, say like a Louis Ghost chair, it may actually look quite chic. :) I'm being serious. I can see it looking quite hip in the right space.

-Holly

I'm laughing hysterically now as I've been to the Shelburne Falls center enough times to have more than a passing acquaintance with those chairs and those bowls and silverware and have come to appreciate the simple goodness that they represent. Kudos, Maxwell! (Arising and passing away...)

Angelo:

:)

jmarieb:

thanks for the smile:)
back at you.

That chair, that Corelle, and that silverware made me smile... assume you took those pics on day 11. :)

Just wanted to make sure all of you old students know that there is now a sit every Tuesday night in the West Village... you can get more info from the official email list, or the unofficial one here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VipassanaNYC/