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Michael BierutWilliam Drenttel
John Foster
Jessica Helfand
Alexandra Lange
Mark Lamster
Paul Polak
Rick Poynor
John Thackara
Rob Walker
Observatory
Dream Weaver
By Alexandra LangeWhen I wrote about the figure of the knitting architect in February, little did I know that a panoply of knitted, woven and recycled work would soon be on display in New York ... all under the rubric of art, but definitely spatial and challenging. El Anatsui's sinuous works at the Brooklyn Museum, Orly Genger's Red, Yellow and Blue in Madison Square park, and, most modest in scale, the first New York show in 50 years of the work of midcentury sculptor Ruth Asawa, who wove forests, anemones and orbs out of metal wire.
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Places
“Everyone a Tourist”
By Jim BassettOn a recent trip to Chichén Itzá, architecture professor Jim Bassett explored very different ways of photographing the famous Mayan ruins — he took black-and-white images that self-consciously reference an older tradition of art photography and the romance of travel, and color images that highlight the familiar realities of contemporary mass tourism. The two categories, he suggests, raise enduring questions about the incomplete nature of appearances, and the ease with which we can manipulate mood and meaning.
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Observatory
A Nod to Surrealism
By John FosterIn the image-driven web world most of us frequent today—Tumblr, Flickr, and Pinterest, for example — we are bombarded with images that beg us to look twice. It’s relatively easy to create a yellow zebra with blue stripes, if that’s what suits your fancy. Masterful digital imaging can bring us whatever level of Surrealism you may desire — if you can imagine it, it can be done with pixel manipulation. For artists not working in digital media — those who cut, build, draw, paint, glue, bend, and make things in the more traditional manner — there is something of a “Surrealist” popularity at hand today.
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Change Observer
The SunWater Project: Advanced Solar Technology for Poor Farmers
By Paul PolakFarmers need a reliable, low-cost water pumping system so that they can grow cash crops to increase their incomes. They also need electric power to add value to their crops (grinding, processing, etc.). Current pumping systems cost too much or are unreliable. How can we radically reduce the purchase price of solar PV powered pumping systems along with technologies that efficiently transport irrigation water?
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Change Observer
Transforming Solar Pumping to Eliminate Rural Poverty
By Paul PolakIf I want to water my petunias, I turn on the tap outside my house, hold my thumb over the end of a battered green hose, and water away. If a small farmer in Ghana or China wants to water a small patch of vegetables he’s growing to sell in the local market, he breaks his back hauling water in two buckets or sprinkling cans from a nearby stream. It takes six hours a day every other day for three months to water a tenth of an acre of vegetables that he hopes to sell for $100.
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Observer Media
Jessica Walsh
By Debbie MillmanOn this episode of Design Matters, Debbie talks to Jessica Walsh about selling moss covered rocks to her elementary school classmates, her quick assent in the world of design, becoming a partner with Stefan Sagmeister and, of course, taking those naked pictures.
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Observatory
The Conceptual Posters of Boris Bucan
By Rick PoynorWhat still seems surprising about the posters Boris Bućan designed in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the Student Center Gallery, the Zagreb Drama Theater, and other Croatian clients is how confidently reductive they are. If this is not quite anti-design, it is certainly design gripped by a powerful sense of restraint. I recall my first impression of the posters in a gallery. The images seemed sharply defined, cerebral and enigmatic.
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Observatory
Finding The Story
By Rob WalkerWhen Emily Spivack points to product descriptions on eBay, and reveals them to be funny, poignant, or otherwise surprisingly meaningful stories and narratives, she’s up to something effective, and affecting. What looked to the rest of us like mere detritus, the marketplace vernacular of a virtual nation trying to hustle a buck from used goods, gets transformed. Now these are tales of love, of memory, emotion, misadventure, family, fame.
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Observatory
Anxiety, Culture and Commerce
By Alexandra LangeIn recent years, it has become a slam to say, of design collections and exhibitions, that they looked like a shop. When I take my son to the MoMA design collection, he looks in their glass fronted cases and sees the same Massimo Vignelli for Heller plates we have in our glass fronted cabinets at home. Should the difference be obvious? Or is the ability to experience design as a consumer how we spark an interest in history? A series of panels I've organized at MAD examines these questions in the past, present and future.
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Observatory
The Alphabet Card
Kit Hinrichs and Delphine HirasunaThe year 1913 marked the peak of the picture postcard craze. Even though the population in America was less than 100 million, nearly 970 million picture postcards were sold in the U.S. alone. At a time when most people did not own a camera and color commercial printing was in its infancy, the little picture postcards were a delight to view. Collecting and displaying picture postcards in scrapbooks became a popular pastime. Manufacturers encouraged this by issuing postcards in sets so that the public would want to own the whole series.
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Places
Digital Deception
By Belmont FreemanThe technologies of representing architecture have advanced steadily over the years, from drawing to photography to digital rendering — and have lately taken a new leap. As Belmont Freeman argues, "the crafts of architectural rendering and photography have now merged into a common activity of digital image-making — so completely that one can conceive a work of architecture and produce a 'photograph' of it without having to go through the expensive, tedious and corrupting intermediate step of actually building the building. Welcome to the world of architectural photography without architecture."
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Observatory
The Tower that Beer Built
By Mark LamsterSomewhat unwittingly, I have embarked on a series of pieces on skyscrapers born of alcoholic beverage magnates. The Seagram Building was the product of the (bootleg) whiskey fortune amassed by Sam Bronfman. In Dallas, we have the Kirby (nee Busch) Building, now a residential apartment house but originally a spec office tower financed by the St. Louis beer barron Adolphus Busch. Like the Woolworth in Building in New York, it celebrates its centennial this year.
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Observatory
The Medium Is The Mail
By Rob WalkerSomething surprising arrived in the mail not long ago: actual mail. Jill Stoll's "random acts of mail art" combines artistic ritual, creative reuse, and the postal service as unexpected connector. It's a distinctly analog project — with a digital twist. And it made my day.
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Observatory
Audrey Real Helfand: Designer Manquée
By Jessica HelfandOn this Mother's Day we present Jessica Helfand's tribute to her mother, Audrey Real Helfand: designer manquée.
Where design was concerned, my mother was indefatigable: a passionate classicist, a committed modernist, she had a mind that never quit and the aesthetic fervor to match it. Back then, she was my adorable visual mother. Today, she’d be running her own design studio.
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Change Observer
8 Ways to Grow New York’s Design Sector
By Center for an Urban FutureNew York City is home to more designers than any other U.S, city and a top location in the world for cutting-edge design. NYCxDESIGN — the city’s first citywide design festival, launching this week —builds on much of that activity to increase awareness about what design is and what it can do. But there is more the city can do to solidify New York’s claim as a capital of design.
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Observer Media
Ben Chestnut and Aarron Walter
By Debbie MillmanOn this episode of Design Matters, Debbie Millman talks to Mailchimp's CEO Ben Chestnut and User Expereince Lead Aarron Walter about how they arrived where they are, why and how email marketing is fun, Freddie the monkey and how to create creativity.
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Observatory
The Age of Wire and String Rebooted
By Rick PoynorThe Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus is a fiction of incomparable strangeness. What and where is the world that its stories describe with such dedicated observational precision? A new edition from the London literary publisher Granta has pulled off the improbable feat of making the book seem even stranger. Its visual interpretation by British artist and illustrator Catrin Morgan goes way beyond the norm for an illustrated book.
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Places
Temple of the Vanities
Thomas Jorion & Josh WallaertA century from now, when architectural historians consider how humans lived in the 20th century, most will look to the commercial centers of great cities and read therein a story about the rise of global capitalism. But perhaps a few will take a cue from archaeology and look instead to the modern temples: defense towers, nuclear reactors and industrial facilities sited in remote forests and on rocky coastlines, wherever there was oil to extract or a shipping lane to defend. Paris-based photographer Thomas Jorion has been documenting these structures in a series about vanity; here we present a portfolio of recent work.
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Observatory
Our Shopping Lists, Our Selves
By Jessica HelfandLists are the practical roadmaps by which we quantify our obligations. They're scorecards for accomplishment, spreadsheets for success. At once truncated and annotated, they urge us to consider hierarchy and value, want and need. Lists embrace both duty (what we’re meant to do) and aspiration (what we yearn to do), thereby perpetuating the enduring illusion that maybe we’re actually making progress.
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Observatory
Paranoid But Pretty
By John ThackaraIn his new show at the German Architecture Center (DAZ) Matthias Megyeri has developed a design language for the artefacts of protection and security in public space. Megyeri poses the question: does protection have to be inconsistent with harmony and beauty? His answer is a family of padlocks, chains, fences, and razor wire that he describes as ‘lovable objects’. Megyeri’s show prompted me to Google “design” and “homeland security” once again and question: "Are we safer?"
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Places
Please Save Modernism from the Modern
By David HeymannThe Museum of Modern Art's decision to tear down the Folk Art Museum has incited huge controversy and intense debate. But as David Heymann argues, "While some claim the Folk Art Museum should be preserved because it’s a great Modernist building, and therefore part of the MoMA collection, rather than its campus, no one has unequivocally answered the question of why it is so. The discourse remains one of opinions asserted as imperatives: I love it / I never liked it / it must be saved / tear it down. So I think it’s an important question. Here is why I think the American Folk Art Museum is a great Modernist building."
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Observatory
New York + London: A Vision of Home
By Daniella ZalcmanWhen I moved from New York City to London late last year, I decided to create a series of double exposures. The images are part New York, part London, and collectively represent my vision of home.
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Observatory
Enjoying TypeToy
By John FosterThis week's Accidental Mysteries highlights the blog TypeToy — an online collection of mid-century design and typography created by Aaron Eiland. According to Aaron, the name of the blog is derived from the playfulness he sees from much of the work of that era.
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Observer Media
Wendy MacNaughton and Caroline Paul
By Debbie MillmanOn this episode of Design Matters, Debbie Millman talks to Wendy MacNaughton and Caroline Paul about their first book collaboration, Lost Cat; Wendy's journey from advertising to Rwanda to illustration; and Caroline's path from Stanford to firefighter to author.
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Places
Expect Everything
Peter Holzhauer & Aaron RothmanSince moving to Los Angeles several years ago, photographer Peter Holzhauer has amassed a significant body of work on the city. As Places photo editor Aaron Rothman writes, "because the city has been so heavily mythologized — as paradise or dystopia, or both — it can be difficult to resolve the idea of L.A. with its actual presence. Holzhauer's photographs — a graffitied tree suffused with Southern California light, a Jiffy Lube glowing in the night, a nondescript building with Korean signage topped by a billboard for a luxury condo —are balanced perfectly between materiality and idea." We're pleased to present a selection of Holzhauer's recent work.
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DESIGN OBSERVER JOBS
RECENT COMMENTS
A Nod to Surrealism (1)Anxiety, Culture and Commerce (3)
“Everyone a Tourist” (3)
Transforming Solar Pumping to Eliminate Rural Poverty (3)
Our Shopping Lists, Our Selves (2)
Places: From the Archive
Retrofitting SuburbiaSummer 2005
Photo
Focusing Growth amid Sprawl: Atlanta's Livable Centers Initiative [Speaking of Places]
New Visions of Suburban Life [Dispatches]
Greatest Hits
Recommended Books
Paris versus New York: A Tally of Two Cities
Vahram Muratyan
Gertrude Stein’s famous formulation “America is my country but Paris is my hometown”. has been given an inventive twist by Vaham Muratyan in his new book Paris verses New York. Paris is Muratyn’s country and New York is his hometown. Through a perceptive and amusing series of opposing graphic depictions he teases out oppositions that make each city so different and yet so related. Food (boulette/burger; macaron/cupcake) culture (a hilarious depiction of Godard’s glasses frames vs Woody Allen’s) personalities (amelie/carrie, jospehine/Liza) and sense of place (cage/elevator, le periph/bridge and tunnel). Words don’t come close to the inventive cleverness of these conjunctions; it’s all about the graphics. You can get a sense of his work here. [AHL]
Buy This Book >>
More Books >>
Vahram Muratyan
Gertrude Stein’s famous formulation “America is my country but Paris is my hometown”. has been given an inventive twist by Vaham Muratyan in his new book Paris verses New York. Paris is Muratyn’s country and New York is his hometown. Through a perceptive and amusing series of opposing graphic depictions he teases out oppositions that make each city so different and yet so related. Food (boulette/burger; macaron/cupcake) culture (a hilarious depiction of Godard’s glasses frames vs Woody Allen’s) personalities (amelie/carrie, jospehine/Liza) and sense of place (cage/elevator, le periph/bridge and tunnel). Words don’t come close to the inventive cleverness of these conjunctions; it’s all about the graphics. You can get a sense of his work here. [AHL]
Buy This Book >>
More Books >>
Unmarketable
Anne Elizabeth Moore
A merciless response to the contemporary culture of branding. If you read this book looking for advice on how to reach younger consumers, the author will probably hate you forever. [RW]
Buy This Book >>
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Anne Elizabeth Moore
A merciless response to the contemporary culture of branding. If you read this book looking for advice on how to reach younger consumers, the author will probably hate you forever. [RW]
Buy This Book >>
More Books >>
Exquisite Corpse
Michael Sorkin
Whenever I feel that contemporary architecture criticism has gotten too dull, I flip through this collection of Sorkin’s Village Voice reviews from the 1980s, pick one, and feel instantly refreshed. Sorkin can be mean (to Paul Goldberger) and paranoid (about the Ford Foundation), but his proto-snark is thoroughly backed up with architectural analysis that is both pointed and full of feeling. [AL]
Buy This Book >>
More Books >>
Michael Sorkin
Whenever I feel that contemporary architecture criticism has gotten too dull, I flip through this collection of Sorkin’s Village Voice reviews from the 1980s, pick one, and feel instantly refreshed. Sorkin can be mean (to Paul Goldberger) and paranoid (about the Ford Foundation), but his proto-snark is thoroughly backed up with architectural analysis that is both pointed and full of feeling. [AL]
Buy This Book >>
More Books >>
The Religious Imagination in Modern and Contemporary Architecture
Renata Hejduk and Jim Williamson, Editors
A wide-ranging and scholarly anthology on the religious imagination and "its influence on architectural form and ideology," appearing at a moment when religion is resurgent in history and culture. [NL]
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More Books >>
Renata Hejduk and Jim Williamson, Editors
A wide-ranging and scholarly anthology on the religious imagination and "its influence on architectural form and ideology," appearing at a moment when religion is resurgent in history and culture. [NL]
Buy This Book >>
More Books >>
Clip, Stamp, Fold
Beatriz Colomina & Craig Buckley, editors
An ambitious overview of "the radical architecture of the little magazines, 196X to 197X," focusing on how experimental magazines both recorded and inspired the work of avant-garde designers and theorists. [NL]
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More Books >>
Beatriz Colomina & Craig Buckley, editors
An ambitious overview of "the radical architecture of the little magazines, 196X to 197X," focusing on how experimental magazines both recorded and inspired the work of avant-garde designers and theorists. [NL]
Buy This Book >>
More Books >>
Books + Store: Books Received
Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building BreakthroughsLarry Keeley and Helen Walters
Close-Up at a Distance: Mapping, Technology, and Politics
Laura Kurgan
Vernier: Fashion, Femininity and Form
Robin Muir and Becky Conekin
Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums
Mabel O. Wilson
Maynard L. Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream
Jennifer A. Watts, Editor
Meme Wars
Kalle Lasn and Adbusters
Designing the Creative Child: Playthings and Places in Midcentury America
Amy F. Ogata
Souvenir Nation
William L. Bird Jr.
Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects
Jeanne Gang and Zoë Ryan, Editors
The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science
Jenny Volvovski, Julia Rothman, Matt Lamothe
John Heartfield and the Agitated Image
Andrés Mario Zervigón
The Address Book
Sophie Calle
Brooklyn Makers: Food, Design, Craft and Other Scenes from the Tactile Life
Jennifer Causey
Curiosity and Method: Ten Years of Cabinet Magazine
Various
Sky High
Germano Zullo
Norman Bel Geddes Designs America
Donald Albrecht
The Complete Engraver: Monograms, Crests, Ciphers, Seals, and The Etiquette of Social Stationary
Nancy Sharon Collins
Between Page and Screen
Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse
Design for Emotion
Trevor van Gorp and Edie Adams
Material Manifestations
Rensselaer Architecture, Shaker Museum Mt. Lebanon
More Books Received >>
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