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2019 FURNISHING UTOPIA 5.0: DRAWING UPON FRAMEWORKS

This exhibit took place during New York Design Week 2019 at the Herman Miller Showroom in Manhattan. This exhibition, Drawing Upon Frameworks, asks 20+ designers to reflect on modernism’s past while embracing the possibilities for the future. The prevailing themes that emerged were frameworks applied to various aspects of life, work and methodologies—specifically, physical and conceptual frameworks that defined a systematic but subjective approach to improving upon people’s way of perceiving life. 

Opening event during NY Design Week, May 18, 2019

Archival content from Herman Miller shown alongside Drawing Upon Framework exhibit.

Exhibit curated by:

Jean Lee of Ladies & Gentlemen Studio

Herman Miller Print Archive Curation by Amy Auscherman

Creative Direction: Jean Lee of Ladies & Gentlemen Studio

Exhibition made possible by: 

Herman Miller - www.hermanmiller.com

Norwegian Consulate General New York -  www.norway.no

Print design: Our Studio

 

DRAWING UPON FRAMEWORKS COLLECTION

 

Designer: Katrine Greiling

Title: Untitled

Technique: Collage, gouache on paper

The works created for this years Furnishing Utopia exhibit are referencing an architectural grid. Visiting a variety of buildings – from Frank Lloyd Wright to Mies van der Rohe – I witnessed a constant dialog between inside and outside – the interior space and nature - as one of the main elements in modernist architecture. A building could not exist without relating to its physical context, embracing nature within its given framework. Inspired by these architects’ embrace of space within the given symmetry and building grid I created abstract illustrations of space. Colors and shapes are suggesting volume and three-dimensionality. The contours of the organically shaped cutouts stand in relation to each other, without a precise interpretation of their purpose. It’s unclear if you see either an aerial view or an object. Collage, as a method, references Mies van der Rohe‘s mixed-media works and collaged drawings, illustrating space, as well as the work of Jean Arp and others, drawing inspiration from organic shapes.

Designer: Shane Schneck

Title: Tape Paintings

Technique: Tape, Paper

Modularity, transparency, and exposition were a few of modernism’s principal tenants. We hope to express these values utilizing another innovation of modern industry. It was in 1936 Germany during the period of radical innovation in architecture and design that a new adhesive was developed by Tesa to become known as tape. To express tapes linearity each object became an abstract orthographic framework that may be perceived as an elevator, thermal diffuser, or small table. The overlapping layers connect to reinforce the character of the material while layers of transparency expose the structure.

Designer: Bertjan Pot

Title: Letter to A4

Technique: Five letter size pieces of paper (8.5x11inches) are cut to fit five A4 size pieces of paper (210 x 297mm)

Where the letter-size derives from old-fashioned-paper production techniques, A4 derives from a bigger standardized system. The ISO 216 is a great example of a rational system that makes sense. The surface of an A0 size paper is one square meter with aspect ratio √2:1. A1 is half an A0, A2 half an A1, A3 half an A2 and A4 half an A3. All have the same aspect ration of √2:1. Letter is used in the United States, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines. Most other countries use the ISO 216 system including A4.

Designer: Earnest Studio

Title: The Dot and the Line (after Norton Juster)

Technique: Acetone Transfer Prints

In creating a personal framework which draws inspiration from the utopian ideals of modernism, we find the possibilities of modularity uniquely compelling. However, modularity need not be limited to the basic grid; it may also explore multiplicity and flexibility within an object or system which is more plastic. Within such a system, the repetition of single units still creates efficiency and flexibility, but counterintuitively, can also add diversity and poetry to objects that might otherwise be considered spiritless or generic. In this way, modularity can take something static and bring it to life. Our “drawings” graphically demonstrate these ideas through the repetition of dots (magnets) and lines (o-rings), in a series of nine acetone transfer prints.

Designer: Gabriel Tan

Title: The Living Office

Technique: Black marker and graphite

The modernists were constantly challenging the status quo and re-envisioning the future in an age of sweeping changes. With a similar drive, the topic of work versus life is one we wish to provoke and effect change. Aristotle’s view of an incompatibility between satisfaction and a paid position led to the separation of work and life for over two millennia. But today, more and more people strive to find enjoyment and meaning at work, blurring the boundaries between work and life. To us, life enjoyment means spending time with our loved ones. One of the main causes for working parents to leave their jobs is the sense of separation anxiety from their young children and the feeling that they are missing out on their kids’ early childhood development. Inadequate maternity and paternity leave in many countries also drive a wedge between job and parental responsibilities. On the other hand, the role of pets in society has changed drastically over the years that for many, the pets they keep are as dear to them as their own children. Could the work place of the future be an environment where children, working parents, beloved animals and working pet owners all inhabit, side by side? We wanted to present this idea in a naïve way, to visualize the concept almost from the viewpoint of a child. Hopefully these “naïve drawings” can be a conceptual framework for further research into how our workspaces could evolve – to bring about more happiness at work, a greater sense of work life balance and self-empowerment.

Designer: Pat Kim

Title: To Failure

Technique: Ink and Drafting

For inspiration for this drawing, I look to the lost art of hand drafting with a sense of foreboding. Automation is looming, threatening to remove the hand in all manners of creative endeavors. With this drawing I explore and celebrate the fallibility of the human hand. Chasing perfection is a major part of my work, though now perfection is conflated with being machine made. With this drawing I use hand drafting tools and ink to create a repeated concentric circular moire pattern. Each line is spaced by hand and eye, as evenly as possible, though inevitably imperfect. Each Circle drawn twice in close proximity, harmonious yet discordant. The circles get larger and larger until something goes wrong: an errant drop of ink; a hole torn by the compass center; a migraine from staring at a moire pattern for too long. In doing the drawings in ink, I have to accept the permanence of every imperfection.

Designer: Pete Oyler

Title: Color-aid Drawings 1.1–1.5

Technique: Embossing

Josef Albers was one of the most influential artists and educators in the twentieth century. A professor at the Bauhaus Dessau, he came to the United States in the early 1930s where he taught at Black Mountain College and later at Yale University. Rigorous experimentation with material was central to Albers pedagogical approach. First published in 1963, Albers’ Interaction of Color had radical impact on modern Western art and design education. Developed in 1948 for photography backdrops, Color-aid paper was embraced by Albers and has been a foundational component of color theory courses since. Working with color as material, these drawings create texture, dimension, and dynamic color relationships through a hand embossing process.

Designer: Chris Specce

Title: Fence Drawing

Technique: watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper

This drawing reflects the cynicism I couldn’t shake when considering the legacy of American Modernism. In trying to avoid a nostalgic interpretation of this defining period in design culture, the image of a fence appeared as something that genuinely appeals to a Modernist’s appreciation of form, efficiency, and ubiquitous distribution. But it also has more immediate associations of exclusion, restraint, and hostility, especially so right now while so much fear, anxiety, and anger are being projected onto “the wall”.

Designer: Vera & Kyte

Title: Formwork

Technique: Water color, marker and pen on paper combined in collage.

Modernists broke with convention creating their own set of rules and frameworks to drive innovation and experimentation in the pursuit of an ideal that better reflected the realities and values of modern life. Inspired by the modernists approach these three prints reflect upon a conceptual framework of our own design practice and process. The ‘Formwork’ trio is a simplified representation of the creative process through three stages. ‘Formwork – map’ shows the initial research phase. A selection of outlined forms collected to draw up the base of the framework. ‘Formwork – interpret’ sees these forms reinterpreted and systemised gaining character and value through color and texture. ‘Formwork – experiment’ is a single example of a multitude of possible expressions, constructions or ideas that can be formed within this framework. A set of of building blocks for experimentation. Through our first hand encounter with the Herman Miller and Cranbrook Museum archives we found the works of Irving Harper, Alexander Girard, George Nelson and Ruth Adler particularly inspiring. Their colorful and experimental expression carry a sense of bold optimism that resonates with us.

Designer: Observatory

Title:Geodesic Pattern

Technique: folded paper

The geodesic dome embodies the spirit of American Modernism, symbolizing both the innovation of industry and an optimism regarding the transformative potential of design to make a better world for all. Pioneered by R. Buckminster Fuller, the geodesic dome was viewed with revolutionary prospects at the time of its creation but has since become an iconic yet niche piece of mid-century design. We admire the idealism of this period, however recognize in contemporary design an exclusivity and insularity that is perhaps better represented by a bubble than a dome. As designers we relate to the theme of Framework through the process we use to develop objects. The geodesic pattern in this piece could be realized into a full dome, but instead is left mid-creation to capture the beauty of the process in search of the resolution.

Designer: Daniel Castillo

Title: Untitled(Calibration)

Technique: Screenprint

Description: This is a representation of a framework that I utilize everyday. A unit of measurement, the inch. Twenty thousandths of an inch. Half an inch. Point one two five. The chart displays the inch in fractional and decimal form; as well as the millimeter equivalent. Today’s accessibility to precise manufacturing is significant. This chart lists marginal differences that today’s manufacturers can easily achieve. It also serves as a reference to succinctly talk about precision and manufacturing tolerances. While creating this drawing I thought about Marcel Breuer and his advocating of mass-production techniques and the standardization of building parts. Breuer, who had come out of a handicraft environment, was perhaps more acutely conscious than most of his fellow students of the possibilities of standardization and mass production, and what both could mean if used intelligently (Blake,1949). Standardization and units of measurement are directly associated. Thus it is a framework that should be applied rigorously. Blake, Peter. Marcel Breuer, Architect and Designer. 1949.

Designer: Sophie Lou Jacobsen

Title: Proun, Composition 1 and 2

Technique: Paper cut-out

While visiting the Cranbrook archives, I learned that Elial Saarinen would render his architectural drawings in one go by shading in the negative space first, then filling in the built environment within that. I was struck by this approach to drawing, but also space and volume in general. Throughout our workshop I realized that this is a key aspect of modernism overall—objects and volumes are treated compositionally in relation to one another,using a specific unit or measurement as the framework to create spatial harmony. I also looked to the work of Luis Barragán, who similarly used color and basic geometry to create buildings that are pure abstractions of architecture, a series of planes and volumes. In this respect, I’ve used stock colored paper and a 20mm metric grid as my frame for positioning shapes in relation to each other in order to create a sense of volume and space. Abstracted of all decoration or context, these shapes can be rotated and repositioned in innumerable ways, triggering only an emotional response and sparking the imagination for what can become of the composition.

Designer: Stine Aas

Title: Untitled

Technique: Block prints

Elevating and appreciating the necessary objects in our lives became a strong focus in modernism, and is something that is strongly embedded in my own practice as a designer. Focusing on my surroundings I started sketching everyday objects, eventually focusing on different vessel shapes. I extracted what for me was the key feature from each sketch and transferred this shape on to a rubber material that I could use as a stamp. Stamping is the act of repeating something over and over and by doing this by hand, each stamp is always different. It varies by the pressure used, how much paint is applied and how you apply the paint. I decided to use this as my framework for this project.; to repeat one of the stamps in each sketch between 3 and 6 times, using the same colour. It became a kind of mass production of expressions and ideas. From these very concrete shapes, new organic forms appeared that are open for interpretation. The paper is semi see-through, which highlights the overlapping of each stamp, giving some depth to the image.

Designer: Zoë Mowat

Title: Vibrations

Technique: collage with silver leaf + colored paper

This series of self-contained, abstract compositions capture moments in time. Using coloured blocks of paper and silver leaf, the drawings aim to convey a personal philosophical framework that balances the normal structures, the moving parts of life, with split seconds of resonance. The interplay of geometric colors and forms suggest they are part of a dynamic and endless stream of elements floating through space. The compositions capture the forms as they arrive at a state of balance or tension—a momentary accord or harmony of parts: a vibration. These drawings attempt to communicate a framework that tunes into such moments of vibration amidst all the noise, moments that can be found in art, language, music, love, nature, or something more indefinable.

Designer: Ladies & Gentlemen Studio

Title: Flexible Frames

Technique: Metal wires

The work of high modernists like Mies Van der Rohe is often written off as overly prescribed, precise, gridded, and in-human. Lesser known are the underlying ideas and intents behind such work. Ludwig Hilberseimer, a van der Rohe contemporary envisioned vastly different city scapes planned on a prescribed grid but intended to be morphed and evolved by changing human needs and whims. Flexibility and human needs were key and Hilberseimer saw an underlying, but changeable framework as the key to enabling this. The reality of the contemporary world is that this vision of an underlying grid that streamlines our lives has become so imbedded and reappropriated that it is no longer of any notice. What was once confusing, unreliable, and inefficient is now automatic due to complex infrastructures (physical and digital) that run behind the scenes of the contemporary world. Here we reflect on this notion of a grid evolved by human intervention, intentional and unintentional, beginning with a portion of tangled gridded wire fencing found discarded on a New York sidewalk. Portions of the fencing were selected and modified mixing effects made by the environment and those imposed intentionally by us as creators.

Designer: Studio Gorm

Title: Object Studies

Technique: Tape Drawings

The framework we started with is working within the constraints of standardized materials. We are interested in the irregularity and imperfections of hand drawing contrasted with the regularity of standardized materials. The American Modernists were adept at bringing a humanistic organic quality to mass manufactured objects, softening the rigidity seen in earlier styles of modernism. We wanted to capture that quality in drawings by using standardized materials like automotive pinstriping tape, ripstop nylon repair tape perforated vinyl and sticker dots. The imperfections of hand manipulating these materials brings out hidden qualities unintended by their manufacturer. These results are yielded through experimentation and play with the materials. This requires an openness to what happens and an intentional application of interesting results. The images are abstract sketches of possible objects like mobiles lamps and carpets.

Designer: Shigeki Fujishiro

Title: Study of caster wheels and new concept for stool

Technique: pencil drawing and cutting paper

While researching movement of furniture, I thought it would be better to look at the caster wheels. I started examining the history of casters, then compare it with the modern ones, and saw the evolution of the casters taking Herman Miller as an example. However, I noticed that there were fewer types than I had imagined and noticed that the evolution of the caster have stopped evolving after a certain point. From this research exploration, I would like to imagine a simple stool with a new typology of casters.

Designer: Jamie Wolfond

Title: Amazon Prime Autoprogettazione

Technique: Ball point pen on watercolor paper

In 1974, Italian modernist Enzo Mari released his famed book Autoprogettazione. The book consists of a collection of simple plans for furniture which can be easily assembled using standard building materials. The purpose of the project was not the end result, but to teach the public to think critically about production and manufacturing. We have created a series of hand-drawn diagrams describing useful objects which can be made exclusively from products available on Amazon Prime. As a modern day answer to Autoprogettazione, the drawing asks the the viewer to once again think critically about the way in which things are manufactured in a system that has only become more obscure and opaque since 1974.

Designer: Jonah Takagi

Title:Colored Pencil Drawing

Technique: Colored Pencil on Bristol

For this drawing I wanted to use a framework to explore ways of mixing color. The process developed is as follows: There are 24 randomly selected colored pencils. Each pencil is used to make six parallel hash marks in eight consecutive positions within the table. The angle of each consecutive color’s hash marks should be greater than 15 degrees from the previous color. The table is comprised of 32 positions arranged in an 8 x 4 grid. Starting in the top left corner, the first color spans the entire top row. The second color begins in the second position and continues for eight positions. The third begins in the third position and so on.

Designer: Henry Julier

Title: Repeat Repeat

Technique: pen / colored pencil on watercolor paper

Modernist designers concerned themselves with using mass production and industry to solve old problems in new ways -- a hallmark of the movement. Often they embraced industrial techniques that are viable only when multiples are made. My own work often involves systems of objects produced in quantity, and, perhaps not coincidentally, my approach to drawing is similar. I sketch details and shapes repetitively in order to convince myself an idea is valid. It's a personal approach that is largely about the process and the result is often incomprehensible to others (but invaluable to me). This embrace of and enjoyment of repetition is my "framework" for Furnishing Utopia 4.0. The drawings shown here explore the idea of repetition--a major commonality between my process and modernism. The same shape is drawn over and over, revealing small differences between things intended to be identical. This struggle for consistency and the reconciliation of small variations parallels my experiences with producing real objects - it's hard to make multiple objects truly identical.

FURNISHING UTOPIA 3.0: HANDS TO WORK

MAY 19 - MAY 22 2018

For the 3rd Furnishing Utopia exhibit, the collective opened up a dialogue between designers and viewers to explore the virtues of focused work and cleanliness that the Shakers regarded as a path to enlightenment.

The theme of chores, conventionally understood as tedious, burdensome work to be avoided, reexamines our concepts of these activities and the tools related to them, proposing a renewed sense of engagement between humans, objects and their environment in the pursuit of a more virtuous way of living through ritualizing the mundane, with the potential for clearing one’s mind, connecting with one’s body and confronting the indifference of the natural world.

The 3rd collection included 50+ new objects from 26 international designers.

Exhibit curated by Studio Gorm, Christopher Specce and Ladies & Gentlemen Studio

overall creative direction by Ladies & Gentlemen Studio.

Photography and Videography: Charlie Schuck & Natasha Felker

Catalog Design by Our Studio

Exhibit support provided by: Design Within Reach and the Norwegian Consulate General New York.

2017 FURNISHING UTOPIA: SHAKER INFLUENCE NOW

MAY 20 - MAY 24 2017

The Furnishing Utopia collection exhibited at Design Within Reach Studio in SoHo.

Exhibited 50+ design objects from 14 design studios'. Participating designers were Studio Gorm, Ladies & Gentlemen studio, Chris Specce, Darin Montgomery, Norm Architects, Gabriel Tan, Hallgeir Homstvedt, Studio Tolvanen, Jonah Takagi, Tom Bonamici, Anderssen & Voll, Vera & Kyte, Zoe Mowat, Bertjan Pot.

New York, NY

STOCKHOLM FURNITURE & LIGHTING FAIR

FEB 7 - FEB 11 2017

 

The Furnishing Utopia collection exhibited at the Stockholm Furniture & Lighting Fair.

Exhibited 40+ pieces from 14 design studios' work from previous & new designs. Participating designers w Studio Gorm, Ladies & Gentlemen studio, Chris Specce, Darin Montgomery, Norm Architects, Gabriel Tan, Hallgeir Homstvedt, Studio Tolvanen, Jonah Takagi, Tom Bonamici, Anderssen & Voll, Vera & Kyte, Zoe Mowat, Bertjan Pot.

Stockholm, Sweden

FURNISHING UTOPIA AT HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE

SEP 4 - NOV 6 2016

 

The Furnishing Utopia collection exhibited in context at the Brick Dwelling at Hancock Shaker Village.

Hancock Shaker Village (hancockshakervillage.org)

ADDRESS: 1843 West Housatonic St. Pittsfield MA, 01201

LUMINAIRE SHOWROOM

JUNE 2016

 

Exhibit at Luminaire’s showroom during 2016 NeoCon. The collection received positive reviews by established designers such as Patricia Urquiola and Patrizia Moroso — describing the project as “the future of American design.”

Chicago, Illinois

DEBUT LAUNCH / OFFSITE NY DESIGN WEEK

JUNE 2016

 

OFFSITE is a curated design exhibition taking place during New York’s Design Week welcoming nearly 7,500 visitors from all around the world. The debut collection featured 33 pieces from 11 studios with original Shaker artifacts shown alongside. 

New York, New York

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