Waste not, want not

After last week's rant against DWR, I've had to explain myself to many people. And I've been doing some occasional kicking of the shins beneath the table, like when I get this in my email:


To a designer, getting a picture of Saarinen's Tulip line is the junkmail equivalent of hearing Abbey Road on the train because someone's ipod is cranked too loud. What am I supposed to do? Tell them to stop? I love it! But then again, why am I being forced to fetishize this? Saarinen is one of my heros; as a child, I made my first wages in nickels cleaning my father's white Tulip chair with Fantastic. Still, I cannot praise Saarinen tonight. I must resist temptation and vanity. But it's so beautiful, my precious....

Seriously though, let's talk about waste and wasted opportunities. Today, Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK lies abandoned except to wilding hippies who manage to throw elite parties there. (At least that's the most recent activity of which I've heard. I wasn't invited.)


We can blame the tragedy of this wasted gem of modern architecture on the failed business practices of TWA, OR we can blame its vacancy of the inability of its design to remain a viable transit hub for a new airline in today's traffic of air travel. Yes, yes, it's my favorite building in New York, second only to... but its flaws must be reckoned with, and Eero's shortsightedness along with them. I suggest we take a look at some triumphs of long term vision in New York design.

We begin in 1832. A Cholera epidemic has erupted in London, the result of contaminated drinking water from the Broad Street Pump. Similar outbreaks occur in New York City. In 1835, the Great Fire of New York wipes out large parts of the city, burning to the ground the newly framed wooden homes of the city's immigrant poor. Insufficient water supply was blamed for the failure to extinguish the inferno. In 1837, in response to mounting concerns about disease and fire, Municipal Engineers in NYC damn the Croton River to create the Croton Resevoir, and dig an elaborate water distribution system to supply water to the growing population of the city. These were thinkers of enormous imagination. They pushed for a scale of construction and innovation unthinkable at the time. (Look at the little dude in the huge tunnel!)


These are the very tunnels that continue to drip and quench us today— 8 million strong! That's forward thinking.

Let's flash-forward to 1930 when a New York urban planner, without a driver's license mind you, envisioned our city consumed by automobiles— the mass transportation means of the future. Robert Moses gave us inner-city transit ways like the BQE, Henry Hudson Parkway, Belt Parkway, and the Triborough Bridge among others.


Thank god he was stopped before unleashing his dream of a freeway across Canal St. (I reveal my elitist attitudes.... He left us Soho. Errr. I have second thoughts...) Moses is often hated for ripping through working class neighborhoods to provide leisurely paths of driving for those with cars. Of course he saw it as leisurely— he never drove himself. His roads remain with us, but alongside are countless poor neighborhoods, often attributed to his developments, which are slowly returning from generations of urban blight. So here's my Colbert "Tip of the Hat" to Moses for creating roadways that continue to be used and wanted, and "Wag of the Finger" for roadways that continue to bypass, alienate, and waste working people needed for our city's growth. To boot, his visions encouraged decades of oil and auto lobby interests, resulting in our current air quality and climate dilemma.

But then there's Mies. Pretty, utopian, fascist Mies and his Seagram Building, all too overlooked for its role in Stanley Kubrick's 2001.


Long story short, in 1958 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe convinced a rich and greedy tycoon to forfeit almost one half of his Park Avenue lot to public space. Unconscionable! From my measly perspective, the only blindspot in his foresight is that he would be less thoughtfully imitated. Park Avenue is now lined with ugly step-back boxes of glass pushed up against the sidewalk. There is no public space except for that left by Mies in '56.

How wonderful was his foresight though, that our crowded mid-town has an oasis of flowing Croton water for the pleasure of those who drive upon and sleep beneath the roads of Moses. For the cost of height, Mies gave open space. The Seagram Building is an enduring success of municipal design. It houses the man and hosts the working stiff. No municipal or technological revolution, nor increase in corporate trading has rendered its generous space out of date.

We return to DWR and poor Eero, whose airline terminal was lyrical, but insufficient over time. Perhaps he was too concerned with his own gestures— his planes and curves, his organic twistings within. Perhaps he was not yet related to air travel and its customers. So to DWR, learn from Saarinen and Moses; some designs of the future are fated to fail and others to succeed while they fail others. Let's look to Croton and Mies for the foresight to provide infrastructure and design to all who need it. And when we take a little here for one party, lets give a little back to the other.

Dear DWR,
Please tell me in your next junkmail how you are working to support public education of design history while disseminating consumer suggestions for sustainable living.
Sincerely,
Ringleader

Read the fine print

My friend Maxo took a look at last week's post about the smokestack humidifier and was like, "wait, is that the Amadana humidifier?!" Huh? "Amadana's this great Japanese home appliance company," he continued. "I've been trying to find their stuff in the states, but only see it in Japan." Well, I can't corroborate any of that, but he did some snooping and directed my attention to the disclaimer at the bottom of this page on the Amadana website:

http://en.amadana.com/product/fh109/fh109.html

For your ease of research, here's the product (a small desktop humidifier):

And here's the disclaimer:

Desktop Rapid Prototyping

Earlier today, the lead article on nytimes.com announced that rapid prototyping printers may be appearing in the home within the next two years. Those of us in the field of industrial design are familiar with available technologies for rapid prototyping, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Stereolithography (SLA), etc. Basically, these technologies allow a product which has been modeled in the computer to be spat out in solid form by a machine. So for example, I drew this:


An FDM printer gave me this:


I removed the support material (the plastic is hot when it's printed— imagine crossing a hotglue gun and an ink jet printer— so it needs additional material to ensure the prototype doesn't sag while cooling) and got this:


Which I then painted and got this:


A prototype of a sangria pitcher for a line of mexican tabletop items.

So you see, rapid prototyping is very cool, and also very useful for ironing out kinks like scale and connections, before you go and produce 100,000 pieces of more junk. But there's been a lot of talk in the ID community about the ramifications of everyone being able to design and print there own stuff at home. As core77.com editor Allan Chochinov laments, desktop publishing gear like inkjet printers has made everyone having a tag sale into a graphic designer. And now the trees along country lanes are littered with bad signage. So what will become of product design? Forget that, what will become of our landfills when every Tom, Dick, and Harry is busy turning his macintosh into an industrial production line of one offs? These neato gadgets and technologies can have tremendous consequences that need to be considered. Fortunately, the Times article included some encouraging pictures:


Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/technology/07copy.html?ref=technology

Proletarian Accessories at Large in Midtown

Yesterday I was out doing anthropological research, but Paul Smith's 16th St. store didn't have any in my size so K and I went to Barneys. Truth be told, we were in the area for drinks at the Grolier Club, where we met the fine gentleman who will engrave our wedding invitations. He was absolutely charming— the very image of gin at noon over Newport harbor. I'd share his contact, save he's ours— and such perfect cuffs! But enough of that, I am a man of the people, so on with the show....

So we're at Barneys and I come across these:


Admittedly, the Industrial Circus is not the first to present this act. Trovata's canvas and patent leather bag was presented in September of 2006 as a part of their Spring collection. Alas I missed it. Sorry I was busy at Marc Jacobs that night. But a quick search of ye olde goegle reveals that whatshaute.com gave this review along with the following image:

"September 23, 2006

Trovata’s Spring ’07 runway show showed off their breezy nautical inspired collection accessorized with unpretentious duffle bags. Based on an old carpenter’s bag, the styles are unisex and were designed in collaboration with bag guru Reed Krakoff, Creative Director and President of Coach.

Trovata's debut accessories collection has the simple and unembellished feel of traditional Coach bags. The canvas body is highlighted by a metal frame, polished leather and patent leather trims. The large tote is unfussy, chic, versatile, and highly practical. The unisex styling makes it appropriate for both men and women to carry.

The handbag collection is set to debut in January of 2007, exclusively at Barney’s New York."


So this:


Became this:


Nice. Score one for the master. But even more disturbing may be the discovery that a similar bag, albeit ignorantly referenced and retold, is on the market for chic yogis. This bag from Crescent Moon offers all the feigned disdain of one's proletarian roots, without all the sweaty yoga mat holding:


Here's the math: $50 for the Klein Tools bag, $595 for the Trovata bag, and $130 for the Crescent Moon bag. Step right up, and pick your poison. But wait! It gets better. Do you know the Coleman brand?


Makers of such fine camping and outdoor gear as this cooler for $31?


If you don't know Coleman, you're a ponce who's been raised in splintered tower's of ivory, all adrip with hemlock. But more power to you now that Barneys is selling Coleman and "Thermos like products" clad in the finest of leathers, like this cooler for $600:





There's a new trend in town. But's it's not new at all, only unpublished to my eyes and ears. Well, I guess it falls under David Brooks' "Bobo" concept. People are desperately dressing down. Casual fridays ain't enough anymore. New sources are necesary, and the stuff of the working class is here to lend its hand again and again. Tool bags with sophisticated colors and materials; roto-molded thermal maintenance camping stuff clad in calf's leather. Please don't set your drink directly upon my cooler.

As for the input of whatshaute.com, somehow I missed how carrying a tool bag decorated with patent leather became unpretentious. I guess pretense only works in an upward direction. Of course! What carpenter could ever club with us and foil our casual plot?