"For Frank Lloyd Wright, harmony was the key. Like the Arts and Crafts architects of the early 20th century, he custom-designed his furnishings for the spaces they would occupy. In contrast, Modernist designers reached for universality. They wanted to design furniture that could fit in any setting" (ie. bauhaus)
"A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous."
--Mies van der Rohe, In Time magazine, February 18, 1957
* chippendale saw cabinet-making (furniture making) as a gentleman's art, the chair, therefore was an expression of the refinement of taste.
digicoll library
about.com/chairs
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i think the idea of taste may relate strongly to the chair in paris...especially with regards to its strong ties with cafe culture. could we have in Berlin, a rejection of these bourgeois ideals? could this maybe say something about the the city's identity - how it chooses to manifest itself?
ReplyDeletebenjamin said a lot about cafe culture in paris...when i get back to ithaca i will go through my notes.
yes, I think. I've been reading Ladd's book on the rejeunvination (or rediscovery) of the Mietskasernen, the tenement buildings built between 1860 and 1914, by the alternative scene: "Official policy classified them as slums; their proximity to the Wall made them even less desirable. Many Turkish workers moved in during the 1960s and 1970s, as did German students, artists, anarchists and punks. The new residents recognized what official policy had long denied: that the buildings were solid adaptable, and represented the irreplacable handiwork of craftsmen. By the 1980s, they were more after than the postwar high-rises nearby" (107)
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