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September NY Design Meetup: Robert Langhorn's Rem Vase

9-13-rem3.jpgDesigner: Robert Langhorn
Product: The Rem Vase
Link: RobertLanghorn.com

A singular project. Last week, at our 4th Meetup, Robert Langhorn presented a vase that has been very challenging to produce. Initially inspired by his surprise at the proximity of guns and violence in NYC (which is not as common in his native Britain), the Rem Vase takes the shape of a Remington bullet casing and inserts it into the relative tranquility of the domestic space...

 
 

- Rem Vase
- Porcelain (made in Belgium) 4.25" x 11.5"
- $380 (available soon)

Producing this shape in porcelain without flaws of any kind took Robert through a number of manufacturers, the best of which did the work above. It is his first vase.

9-13-rem2.jpg

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Comments (13)

I love it...but I can't afford that. A gun would be cheaper.....

posted by Keisha Kornbread on September 13th 2007 at 12:03pm
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i don't get it. the vase in the shape of a gun with a flower in the barrel is pretty cool, but this doesn't look like anything until you flip it over...then it dawns on ya what it is. and for that price? really?

posted by kdkaboom on September 13th 2007 at 12:29pm
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Wait, so this guy is lamenting the pall of gun violence over American society with an item that would replicate gun-oriented design in non-gun-related products and settings?

Yeah, the answer to the US's gun problems is totally MORE gun paraphernalia, not less...

That said, it's a pretty vase.

posted by the opoponax on September 13th 2007 at 12:43pm
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Lamers.

posted by jon on September 13th 2007 at 1:36pm
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I think it's cool. But you don't get to appreciate the stamped numbers unless you pick it up. And I certainly would not want people picking it up and flipping it around. Because maybe they would drop it and the water and flowers would spill out and.....

I'm sure people "in the know" will know there are those markings on the bottom of the shell. And if it's on a glass table you can have your friends appreciate the full detail by telling them to sit underneath the table and look at the vase from underneath.

I bet you could knock one of these off pretty easy. A spent casing from a tank shell could probably ordered over the internet. A nice smooth spray paint would finish the job!
Oh my! Some of these are very intricate! http://www.libertymemorialmuseum.org/display.aspx?pgID=969

posted by art on September 13th 2007 at 3:10pm
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Making fun of Americans and getting us to pay to be made fun of... hard to beat that as a career move.

posted by wende in the twin cities on September 13th 2007 at 3:19pm
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Gee, at the next design meet-up, (most of) you can all confront the designers with these same types of questions in person.

posted by patrick (the other one) on September 13th 2007 at 5:36pm
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p(too), I saw RL in the earlier pics from the Meetup and assumed he was you.

posted by Jon_B on September 14th 2007 at 4:45am
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Oddly enough, the vase costs about as much as a Remington 597 .22 rimfire rifle. Or 870 Express autoloader with a synthetic stock shotgun.

posted by Max on September 14th 2007 at 5:36am
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How long has this guy been in NYC??? Or is he just overdosing on "Law & Order"??? If he wanted guns & violence, he should have been here in the 70's and 80's. New York is no longer the center of American urban violence and decay that used to make creampuff Euro ex-pats feel edgy and tough. For that you should maybe start with Newark. Today, NYC is the land of SoHo as outdoor shopping mall, Coach stores opening on Bleecker Street, luxury condos in Harlem, gentrification of Bed-Stuy and the Atlantic Yards, and waterfront park develpment. Not to mention the cupcake wars.

The vase is great looking, and I'd like one or two, but it's ridiculously priced, and to say NYC is the inspiration... perpetuates the past, but certainly not the present reputation of what NYC is.

Anyway, didn't SUCK.UK.com already do this "guns & roses" motif? We talked about it in regards to the Pivoting Perfection. And didn't Philippe Stark already do this too? This isn't the most original concept.

posted by paul on September 14th 2007 at 5:42am
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Please put a porcelain pacifier in Robert Langhorn's mouth.

posted by Rick on September 14th 2007 at 5:49am
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I really want one of the Stark gun lamps by Flos, it's too bad they are so expensive. I'm kind of tempted to make my own our of airsoft guns and a lamp kit.

posted by Max on September 14th 2007 at 7:14am
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Robert was very articulate and a good speaker, he seemed like the kind of person who would have welcomed the questions people have posted above.

I became burnt out on critiques in college, but had a lot of fun listening to the constructive conversations at the meetup. A big portion of the presentation was about the process of having something made (and distributed), and was a very good story to hear about - especially for a room that had other designers that also were looking to have something produced. Robert had to design and then learn quite a bit about porcelain sculpting and firing in order to talk/haggle with and negotiate with manufacturers - which would come in useful for any future projects with porcelain, regardless of the subject matter.

I also think part of the fascination was that so much has been put into making destructive devices, and when they are taken apart they have some very beautiful, simple shapes contained within them. As a vase shape it is very pretty, and no doubt many pieces from a gun or destructive devices could be used for everyday, non-destructive uses.

I may actually prefer the vase without the numbering on the bottom and just enjoying the simple form.

There was a bronze sculptor (can't remember his name) in MA. that based his shapes on prehistoric weapons. Everyone enjoyed the shapes and the tactile quality of the forms, even after we asked him what had inspired his design. He had taken them away from their original use and made them solely about their form, weight (solid bronze weighs a ton), and feeling in the hand.

posted by mattplantguy on September 14th 2007 at 10:21am
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