Our Furniture—Ourselves?

 

While flipping through Modern Furniture: 150 Years of Design, I couldn't help but stop and smile at seeing the same monobloc chair sitting on my backyard deck sitting there on the pages of a proposed history of modern furniture design. When we think of modern furniture design, we too often think of wildly experimental and wildly expensive items found only in the homes of the rich and famous. However, as Andrea Mehlhose and Martin Wellner , founders of the design company Fremdkörper and editors of Modern Furniture, show, modern design is all around us in such a ubiquitous way that we barely notice. Recognizing the power of design to simplify and change our lives can help us recognize a great deal of our culture. Modern Furniture demonstrates that our furniture really tells us a lot about ourselves. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Our Furniture—Ourselves?"

[Image: 2008, Meltdown Chair PP Tube, Tom Price, © Christoph Bolton.]

[Many thanks to h.f. Ullmann for the image above and for a review copy of Modern Furniture: 150 Years of Design.]

Why Fallingwater Still Matters 75 Years Later

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, especially in the arts. Paint, sculpt, or build it right and others will try to follow your path. That truth makes Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic home known as Fallingwater unique in that it has never been copied. “Fallingwater has no progeny,” Lynda Waggoner writes in Fallingwater, published to celebrate the 75^th year of the home’s existence. “It is a singular work that appeared almost without warning, its legacy difficult to define.” Despite that difficulty, Waggoner and other essayists define the legacy of Fallingwater by looking back to its origin in 1936 and then looking forward to how Wright’s integration of artifice and nature continues to matter, maybe more now than ever. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Why Fallingwater Still Matters 75 Years Later."

[Image: View of Fallingwater from below second falls. © Christopher Little from Fallingwater by Lynda Waggoner, Rizzoli 2011.]

[Many thanks to Rizzoli for providing me with the image above and a review copy of Fallingwater by Lynda Waggoner.]