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February 05, 2007
Train to Milan
In the next series of blogs I will be discussing some furniture design. Though at the rate I am going my posts will be few and far in between. This will be a very long train ride.
I recently came across some old pictures an acquaintance of mine took when he went to Milan in 2004. I want to use these pictures so I can show you what the heck I am writing about. So the pieces I will be going over will not be that current but are still something fun to talk about. However, this will not limit me to the furniture that has come out in the time in between or the pieces to be coming up shortly in April.
Though not a furniture designer specifically I certainly do appreciate the aspect of design in furniture. I have done a couple of projects in school around furniture and they were very difficult. But the more I did and thought about them the more it really got into me how fun it all is. Experiences searching for the right material to truly express the meaning of the design are events that only some can truly grasp. Highlighting certain attributes about a piece that makes it really jump, or makes it lie calm. Making it is always the fun part because that is when you put down the think pad and get to doing. You realize sizes, dimensions, and how it feels; too low, too long, weird angle, or just right. It is fun to stretch the mind to really try something new and different to express your reflection of modern furniture.
There is a lot to be said about furniture and its design. Is it all about form, function, or a wonderfully blended combination of the two, finding a middle ground? What I find fun are the farthest reaches in either direction. When designers and craftsmen really get into their creation it can be wild. And that wild aspect is very important because why does the world need another chair? It is the creation of a fresh new viewpoint and item on an old topic that sustains the evolution of taste and modernity. So when a designer dreams up the craziest and produces a smartly crafted piece of design that object is their mark on the gigantic map of furniture.
That designer has just made a freakn' statement whether they realize it or not. This new object is them saying, “this is what I think of furniture and where it can go”. And the cool thing is that as designers we are never done. There is always more furniture to make and think of. Atomic chain reactions. Once you start going with one idea it can spur a dozen more. So the designer keeps creating, keeps going because there is always more. And why not? Just because you've done it once does not mean you cannot do it again. So let's keep making that furniture and making more chairs for the world to sit on.
Funny. Words like chair, seat, and furniture have different meanings to people. So when I say any of those words I am talking in the general sense because I like to mix words up. If I keep saying one thing over another it starts to sound repetitive repetitive. Unless I am being specific those words (chair, seat, furniture, object, and piece) will be used interchangeably, maybe. I am not sure yet. Sorry if this might confuse those with strict furniture design diction.
All this time and still I have not talked specifically about any one piece of furniture. Well I will save that for another time. Let this be the prologue before the action sets in.
Posted by Will at 06:25 AM