Designblog

When you look around in the modern world, the plastic materials by which it is formed are inevitable to the eye.
From everyday objects like the interior of households and infrastructural facilities to the sex industry and medical surgery, synthetics have become a big part of humans and the human/animal world.
But how did this came to be and what will the future be of this plastic world with its benefits and downsides.

(left- Alexander Parkes, right- Parkesine objects ) 

Before plastic became fully synthetic in the way we know it nowadays, cellulose found in plants was the base material for the discovery of modern plastics.
This discovery was made in 1862 by Alexander Parkes who invented the material he named “Parkesine“.
Parkesine was made from in alcohol dissolved nitrocellulose mixed with oil or camphor wax which created a transparent, moldable material which maintained shape after cooling down.
Therefore it was used to make things like combs, stamps, and buttons.
The American brothers Hyatt picked-up this idea and created a variation of this Parkesine in 1869 they named celluloid by pulverizing camphor an nitrocellulose separately, adding pigments to the nitrocellulose, after mixing it was pressurized to remove water and then molded with extreme heat.
It was used as a replacement for ivory, specifically ivory billiard balls.
Celluloid became a great success and eventually made it possible for the film industry to be born.

(left-celluloid film, right-bakelite factory)

These two inventions can be seen as the ancestors of the modern plastic society, nevertheless, it only came to be because of the first fully synthetic plastic, meaning no molecules that can be found in nature are used.
This first fully synthetic plastic was called Bakelite.
Invented in 1907 in the USA by Leo Baekeland in the search for a synthetic insulator, he found a way to control the condensation reaction of a phenol-formaldehyde mixture and stop this reaction while remaining liquid.
This could be formed into different stages with stage A, the first stage, directly making it into usable plastic.
Stage B, making it into a solid state with the possibility to make it into powder and soften it with heat.
Stage C is where stage A or B are being heated under pressure and the result of this is what he called Bakelite.
Bakelite appeared to be a perfectly suited material for the purpose of insulation as it was heat resistant and could be manufactured in mass-production as it could be molded quickly.

This last fact and the fact that it was fully synthetic opened the doors to a world of mass-produced synthetics, the plastic world we live in.
Soon new materials followed this creation with the invention of polystyrene in 1929 (used for electronics like refrigerators, microwaves and tv, medical equipment and packaging), polyester in 1930 (used for clothing), polyvinylchloride (PVC) (used for pipes, electrical insulation and clothing) and nylon in 1935 (mostly used for clothing and parachutes).

(left-nylon parachute, right-plastic mass-production)
During the 30’s of the 20th century, these synthetic products were seen as extremely glamorous and beautiful but still, all these materials did not completely infiltrate society during that time.
While used for a lot of military equipment during the second world war, synthetic products really became part of everyday life after the end of the war when the manufacturers of plastic products had to find a way to stay in the business and therefore aim at people and everyday life. Because of the low price, moldability and the way it could be mass-produced, it is not more than logical that plastic became such a big leading part of the capitalist consumer society.

 (left- WW1 plastic surgery, right-plastic surgery movie brazil1985 )

Like the plastics, humans are moldable as well, changing along with new inventions. During the same period as the development of synthetics, doctors were forced to find a way to repair the extreme damage done to soldiers during the first world war.
Never before had there been so many heavily wounded soldiers whom all needed treatment for their facial wounds, burns and lost limbs and with the development of anesthetics, surgeons could develop new techniques without the patients experience pain during this operation.
Yet the use of plastic surgery for the beauty industry really kicked off in the 1950’s when the first breast implants were used to enlarge the female breasts.
This was done by injecting it with the liquid, synthetic plastic called silicone and in the 60’s by implanting a bag-like version.
In the 70’s liposuction (removing fat) was developed and not long after that botox was tested on humans for the first time.
Botox temporarily relaxes and smoothes wrinkles by blocking signals from the nerve to the muscles, this gives the user a smooth, young and Barbie-like face.
With this slow infiltration of plastics into the human body, the birth of the plastic human became a fact.
Largely stimulated and promoted by the cosmetic glamour industry.

(left- plastic waste mountain, right- plastic ocean)

Due to this rise of plasticity, synthetics slowly took over the world.
The waste created by the plastic consumer society has already created big islands in the ocean intervening with the animal and human world, fish-eating tiny plastic particles, humans eating fish.
Entering our body through food and cosmetic products, plastics are now even detectable in our blood influencing our hormones.
Humans becoming deformed from natural appearance due to cosmetic surgery in their striving for perfection, plastics infiltrating our body and system and the extreme use of plastic products in modern life could in my opinion only lead to the beginning of a more extreme, new plastic human being disbanded from its nature.

(left/right- Floris chair)

To me the in 1968 made Floris chair by Günter Beltzig, which was the starting point for this research, is the perfect example of what has happened and may come.
This chair is made out of fiber reinforced plastic and molded into an alienated human shape which could only have happened because of all the developments and inventions mentioned in the first paragraphs of this research.
The shape of the chair gives the impression that it is a plasticized human being or at least that it is made for such a human, as it seems to be made for a specific kind of person.
Like with the shoe of Cinderella, it should fit perfectly to be a match and not to lose all its comfort.
Is it not possible that it is the plastic ‘perfect’ human of the future who will fit perfectly in this piece of furniture, alienated from his natural self in its plastic world.

If you walk into the Stedelijk Base exhibition, set up in the basement of the Stedelijk Museum, you will find yourself immersed in a forest of metal walls. Artworks, design objects and furniture are placed next to each other and sorted by theme or movement, rather than after the usual concept of a timeline.

After a turn to the right and a subsequent turn to the left along the metal walls, the visitor (you) will find himself in the Bauhaus area, where you will immediately lay your eyes on a white, light woolen landscape hanging vertically from the walls. The name of this artwork is reliëfkleed, ‘relief rug’ in English, designed by the studio of the Dutch artist Kitty van der Mijll-Dekker.

The first thing you will notice is the size of it; a sheer glance couldn’t cover the whole area of the relief rug. Reaching the top of the wall all the way down to the floor, the light beige, almost white color of this reliëfkleed blends wonderfully with the background wall. The rug is made out of differing techniques of weaving and knotting the wool, thus forming intricate geometric patterns.

The second thing you will notice is related to the name of the relief rug: weaved and knotted, the rug forms an ocean of chunks, blobs and follows an intricate rhythm of geometric pattern.

The relief rug was gifted to the Stedelijk museum in 1936, accompanied by handwritten congratulations of Willem Sandberg. It toured the world exhibitions as part of the Dutch Pavilion in Brussels and Paris, not without receiving several awards. After the success of the relief rug, Kitty van der Mijll Dekker’s studio received invitations from the commissioner of the Queen to design and produce the carpets, wallpaper, bedding and the curtains for the royal provincial house in Maastricht [source].

Even despite her success with the studio, Kitty van der Mijll Dekker and her works are seldom mentioned on the internet. Try googling “relief rug” without attaching her name, you can find hardly any photos.

The tea-towels are up to date the most well-known product of Kitty van der Mijll-Dekker's weaving studio

Why is it so? In order to understand why the women of Bauhaus were often under-mentioned and forgotten in history and publications, we will look into the history of Bauhaus:

The Bauhaus school in 1919 in Weimar.

Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919 with the idea of a modern, forward-thinking school in mind. For the first time, uniting real artistic practice and craftsmanship under one roof brings back the necessity for the “neue Baukunst” which translates into ‘a new way to construct’. For this purpose, the Hochschule für bildende Künste (focussing on artistic practice) and the Kunstgewerbeschule (focussing on craftsmanship) in Weimar were merged together [read more here].

The formation of Bauhaus fell simultaneously together with the beginning of the Weimar Republic, in which women gained new rights, amongst which being allowed to vote for the first time and also attending university. Women were more than welcome to attend school at Bauhaus, as stated by Walter Gropius in the beginning. However, more women than men applied for Bauhaus once after it was opened, which lead to a drastic change in Bauhaus’ (and Gropius’) statements.

Photograph from Bauhaus Archive, with Gunta Stolzl center left

The large number of women at the Bauhaus attracted many forms of criticisms, including the complaints of the teaching bodies of the workshops, who are not used to have women work physically in their workshops. Traditionally, females are not allowed to be “Gesellen” journeyman, which students or rather workers who have completed an apprenticeship in a workshop are called.

Second, the image of women as artists at that time has been depicted as decorative and rather less professional, in which female works are rather suited for the household, more crafty and seen less functional. Admitting a large number of women could lead to the chances of critics or society decreasing the serious status and idea behind Walter Gropius’ planned pioneer school

[source, in German]

Wanting to set up his Bauhaus as a success, Gropius feared that his school might be denounced as a failure or taken not seriously if admitting so many female students, thus narrowing the admission of female students and setting up an all female class, which merged with the weaving department after a while.

This is a collection of works produced in the weaving department - google term 'Bauhaus textile afdeling'

Some female artists entered the school before the change in teaching happened, which lead to the above mentioned restrictions in choosing the departments. Others joined the school after László Moholy-Nagy was appointed head of department, replacing Johannes Itten and his restrictive worldviews towards female artists [x]

Marianne Brandt

is one of the few female artists who succeed in the metal department, succeeding her male classmates.

The weaving department, which also had few male students, was the space in which most female students were sent to after completing the ‘Vorherige Ausbildung’ our Rietveld Basicyear. Although the weaving department supported the school financially the most, it was seen as ‘less relevant’ or serious by the other departments. Other reasons, such as the philosophy of Johannes Itten towards the gender role or the increasing influence of the national socialists in Germany led towards a more backwards-facing behavior of treating female students than intended.

As a result, many female artists from the school of Bauhaus are under-represented or solely left out in literature or online. The solution would be a step-by-step collection of female Bauhaus artists and their works to make it accessible online for a wider audience, for example an open platforms such as wikipedia.

In this photo: Gertrudt Arndt, Otti Berger, Benita Koch-Otte

Biography Kitty van der Mijll Dekker

Kitty van der Mijll Dekker, born as Catharina Louise on Djokdjakarta (Java) in 1908, was raised as a child in a wealthy art-interested family of Dutch expats in Indonesia. In 1916 at the age of 8, she and her family moved back to Den Hague in the Netherlands. Growing up, Kitty van der Mijll Dekker enjoyed educational travels to Switzerland and the United States. After studying art history in London from 1925-1927, she received private lessons in architecture by Cor Jarens.
In 1929, she attends the vooropleiding of Bauhaus in Dessau and finishes her ‘Gesellenexamen’ in 1931 at the textile factory in Meschke in Rummelsberg, Germany. After receiving her diploma (nr. 66) on April 12th 1932 from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, she returns back to the Netherlands and sets up the weaving studio ‘De Wipstrik’ with her former co-student Greten Fischer-Kähler and Hermann Fischer in Nunspeet. Greten-Fischer leaves the studio after two years, leading to the formation of the name ‘ Handweverij en Ontwerpatelier K.v.D. Mijll Dekker (Hand weaving and design workshop K.v.D. Mijll Dekker).

From 1967 until 1970, she taught at our school, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. This would be an opportunity to continue research related to school activities

Clay furniture is a set of eight pieces of furniture presented at the Stedelijk museum : chairs, a bookshelf and a table by dutch designer Maarten Baas.  He describes his pieces as “part of a set design, a decor ” and how he “always go from a story that (he) wants to tell instead of starting with materials.

This aspect of the work, its appearance of a movie prop probably is why I was drawn to it.

The pieces are functional but they also have a pleasing aspect and unconventional colours, crafted in steel and clay – by hand, without using a mold. I enjoy the fact that they are not shy about showing how they were made.

While I went to the museum I had the lecture given by Fiona Candling in the context of the Stadium Generale at Rietveld about how people touch art in museums in mind.

When I stood before this piece I couldn’t resist the urge to feel it. I looked around if anyone was watching and touched the baby highchair. It felt great. If felt like the object wanted it and asked to be touched.

Touching it confirmed and completed the visual aspect of the piece, the human of it that I sometimes miss in design object. It reminded me of the sensual experience of working with clay, somewhere between the realms of childhood and adulthood and between spontaneous and control.

The different pieces were arranged on platforms, seemed to be floating and occupied a whole wall. Somehow, the objects themselves clashed with the the seriousness of their own arrangement. It’s always bizarre to look at furniture in the context of a museum where they’re dissociated from their primary function.

You look at the chair. The chair teases you. You wish you could sit on it. But you’re not allowed. It’s not a piece of furniture anymore, it’s the manifestation of your unmet desire to sit.

My friend Dasha coincidentally also chose to write on this clay furniture. We looked for a place where we could touch it with no shame, as long as we wanted. On Valentine’s day, we were on our way to the Mendini Restaurant in Groningen. Decorated in 2014 by Marteen Baas, containing some of his chairs, lamps & a mirror. But before our lunch date, we visit the Groningen museum attached to the restaurant.

Outside, the textures, colours & shapes of the building clashed. The whole building seems to have been built by artists who didn’t consult each other before merging all the (unmatching) pieces together.

It was in fact designed and completed in 1994 by three different architects, Philippe Starck, Alessandro Mendini, Coop Himmelb(l)au. American artist Frank Stella was also approached for this project but he wanted his structure completely out of Teflon, which was too expensive and he was replaced.

Inside, after the multicolored mosaic covered stairs is the entry to the main show. The bright couches and walls clash with the solemnity of the paintings from the “Romanticism in the North” exhibition.

Dasha doesn’t like old paintings. I do. Romantic painters have a dramatic way of depicting the gravity of ultraviolent emotions that I strongly relate to.

I find my date bored, sitting on a bench and recognize Baas’s sketch-like, improvised signature look. The object is long and its legs merge with the visitor’s legs resembling a clay centipede. Remembering how the furniture pieces seemed out of context at the Stedelijk, I’m relieved to see the bench so comfortable and fitting in this mismatching room where, in all its playfulness, it truly belongs.

A little later, in another room we walk past the the Pleyel Smoke piano, one of the artist’s earlier works which is part of his series Smoke Furniture. The instrument was charcoaled with a blow torch, preserved in a clear epoxy resin, which makes it usable again. In contrary to the clay pieces, this one doesn’t fell like it’s inviting you to touch it, it has already been touched- by fire.

Visually, it’s very cinematographic and a little alarming, bringing you somewhere uncanny between the ruins of a abandoned manor and a piano playing a gloomy melody by itself. (for more info read Maud Paul’s research on his smoke furniture )

It’s 4 o’clock, the untranslatable french heure du goûter or time to sit in a room containing 165k worth of chairs made out of clay. I don’t know how often visitors travel specifically in order to touch the furniture of the restaurant but for me, putting all this effort into that built up a lot of suspense and anticipation.

Maybe I expected too much, but I somehow wanted the whole room to be out of clay.

Clay floors, clay walls, clay-clad waiters, clay-like cakes, clay everything.

More than seeing the pieces in flesh and touching them, what was very pleasurable was to sit on them. I had previously only seen them displayed in galleries, elevated to the status of the out of reach art/ design object. Now, returning to their true function the chairs were what they were. They seemed more approachable, straightforward and practical – maybe we could even be friends.

Fitting for the occasion, I ordered a romantic pastry. 

On the way back, on the top floor of a bus driving into the night, I kept thinking about all the chairs I’ve ever sat on without considering them. I don’t mean to break anyone’s hearts. I just didn’t know.

Maybe I should call back and apologize.

It is tricky to recognize when you are misplaced, it is even harder to respond to it right on the spot. You are supposed to serve your human, you are most and foremost functional and have sublime social purpose. Then your human drags you out of your context so inconsiderately that it leaves you nothing but to show your worn out bottom on the pedestal which supposed to elevate you. As I approach you, by climbing the stairs which is set up next to you, I have the chance to look at you horizontally. Although, a deep and artificial ravine appeared between us. The human expression provoked by your forced position urges me to interact with you but the circumstances leave me unsatisfied.

 Chair by Mies van der Rohe (but it doesn’t matter)

The chair was the first object at the exhibition which talked to me through the atypical situation that chance created. The situation was somehow absurd and opened to interpretation. Just as if Pawel Freisler, a Polish avant garde artist would had created it to dislocate my train of thoughts.

Freisler “was negating reality and its status quo by encouraging people to create alternative imaginary order. In his work a given subject or place served as a catalyst for creating an extraordinary social situation.

His actions in public space are a form of probing reality, to reveal its absurd dimension. (…) In 1971 he undertook his first work with a table and a chair. What mattered was the table’s status as a “basic idea”. He was attempting to arouse interest, to break routine, without giving observers any hints as to the real meaning of his activities”.

I found myself in the position of a pleased voyeur, which tickled both my curiosity and fantasy. I was busy with taking photos then I looked around with a sheepish grin. As if I was afraid of being caught on the street while taking sneaky pictures under a stranger’s skirt.

Pawel Freisler – Activities: Table and Chair

Self-realisation as a spectator helps to stay alerted and turn reflective. Gabriel Lester found another way to break habitual patterns down. He introduced a project (SEEN) in an arts centre where “projections suggested a look inside. The projected scenes are environments where groups of people observe something that is out of sight, hidden behind the wall. This juxtaposition – created by watching a projected environment inhabited by people who, in turn, appear to be watching something out of view – provokes the sensation of the observer being observed, and consequently a higher awareness of one’s active and inverted role as a spectator –

as though watching an image that is quite literally looking back at you.”

SEEN (2006)

Standing and staring underneath the pedestal, the unusual imagery in my head widened my perspective as I was abducted of the traditional and passive spectator’s role that I usually undertake. I started to look at Stedelijk’s way of displaying more critically as their concept seemed to override the artworks so much that whole new stories were about to emerge. My story, and the museum’s story. But certainly not the chair’s.

The designers explained, they made the arrangement in order “to  reinforce cross-connections and shared narratives. The lay-out understands the collection as a network of relation rather than as a presentation of individual artworks. To capture these networks, very thin walls define an almost urban environment of free association and multiple relations.” 

How much freedom do I have while walking between the walls of the designers’ concept? How much space do the objects have to be explored from three meters high?

 Zofia Kulik and Przemyslav Kwiek were post war Polish artistic duo and uncompromising critics of their surroundings. They said once: “The world is half wonderful, half ugly. The humanistic and artistic theories are usually formed in the mood of the former half. This creates a false edifice of ideas and philosophies, especially a false concept of the artist, his mission and values, his false status.”

 Chair by Mies van der Rohe (exhibition design by Rem Koolhaas)

Real exchange with the chair could not happen. I could not find anything beyond the meanings that I gave to it. The revealing moment that I experienced did not say much about the object itself. It was about the gap between me and it, and all the uncanny thoughts I filled the gap up with. The chair appeared to be in the weird melting pot of the museum’s peculiar way of showcasing, chance, and my tyrannical associations, which made me unable to explore the chair’s real properties.

But still,

how handy errors can be?

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.

Are they errors to be fixed or useful hyperlinks?

What is a design icon, and how does a design become one? It is clear that the Series Seven Chair is a well known chair that you often see. It is also clear it has been a solid element in a so called good taste interior setting since it got designed in 1955. But what makes the Series Seven Chair so timeless and popular that it has stayed on the market ever since it got released?

As mentioned the Series Seven Chair got designed in 1955, three years later than its bigger brother, the Ant. Arne Jacobsen, the designer behind, was as many other designers in the 50’s experimenting with different materials to get the maximum out of its potential. Especially plywood had Jacobsen’s interest, and from that material he created a shaped bend shell resting on a fundament of thin steel legs. The shell chair was born.

The organic simple shape of the Series Seven Chair is unique. It is easily recognisable and suitable for lots of different settings which many brands during the time have made use of in various advertising campaigns. But everything has a start, and so did the Series Seven Chair.

It all started with a scandal caused by an affair, The Profumo Affair. A young, attractive woman called Christine Keeler, who was working as a topless waitress and model, had an affair with an English politician, John Profumo. But Keller didn’t only sleep with one, she had several lovers, and another of them was a Russian naval attache, Yevgeny Ivanov. When Keeler’s different affairs got revealed, Profumo was forced to stand down.

Because of the cold war, there were speculations about Keeler passing state secrets to the Soviet Union, which made the scandal even more remarkable.

But how does the scandal relate to the icon status of the Series Seven Chair? In the 60’s the famous photographer Lewis Morley shot a series of nudes of Christine Keeler. She was sitting the wrong way around on a Series Seven Chair. Ironically the chair used in the shooting showed not to be Arne Jacobsen’s famous chair but a simple copy. However, the shoot caused a boom in the sale of the original chair.

But simply because the chair got popular doesn’t mean that it right away became an icon. Becoming an icon demands a timeless, futuristic design that goes well in various settings, from old farmer houses to minimal modern glass buildings. An example of a design icon is Philippe Starck’s lemon squeezer, Juicy Salif. It is easily recognisable and futuristic in its shape. One can argue that the Series Seven Chair has what is needed to become an icon since it is also timeless, futuristic and classic at the same time. But the two designs don’t only share the same adjectives, they are also both exhibited in the permanent design exhibition of MOMA in New York.

The design collection of MOMA covers design objects from the 20th century till today. Every object is carefully chosen and is considered having played an important role in the design history. Being a part of the permanent collection can be seen as an icon indicator since it is only ‘the very best’ that is invited inside MOMA. But it is not only MOMA that has chosen to have the Series Seven Chair in its design collection. Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is one out of many other museums that has chosen the Series Seven Chair to be represented within its design collection.

Personally I find the Series Seven Chair interesting because of its beautiful, simple design and good quality. I believe that if you once buy a good, timeless product you don’t have to replace it in time. But of course it gets replaced and ends up in another setting, in another home, once in while, and that, I think, is the most interesting part. You don’t throw good design out, you sell it or give it away, and that means, that a chair as the Series Seven Chair can have a lot of history.

Imagine a chair that started its life in an institution, then it continued its journey to a second hand shop, where a family bought it and had it for years. And then, when the son of the family moved out of home, he took it with him. Imagine how many different people who have sit on the chair. Imagine how many stories they have carried, and how many stories the chair now carries. That is true iconic design for me.

Although being already more then few times now at the Stedeljk museum, it’s always pleasant be here,  environment, the architecture itself and the natural light that create a charming atmosphere all around.We moving towards the so called BASE 1 to see the new permanent installation of iconic works from the collection of the Stedelijk Museum. It occupies the entire new wing of the museum and features a selection of around 700 pieces grouped around historic movements, social themes, and influential artists.

After I’ve made aware about that what I am going to see is going to be like this for the next 10 years, I approached my visiting focusing my attention mostly on the division of the space and the solution founded to display the artworks.

The space allow visitors to experience the collection through an open-ended route.The chronology can be followed on the perimeter, while freestanding walls in the middle create separate sectors highlighting groups of artworks that represent a specific theme or aspect of the collection.

I have this constantly feelings of jumping between a sort of labyrinth in which I can keep choosing different directions but as soon as I taken one, those vertical high walls create a dynamic and cozy environment, almost like little galleries inside a enormous place.

The layout display  the collection as a network of relations rather than a presentation of individual artworks. All the artworks do not loose their independence even tough, there are chairs and carpets hanging at the walls, and the displaying of some works are not as we are used to see.

I am  wondering about how they bring inside here this massive standing steel walls? And how they organized  works in different areas of the collection…

I’ll try figure all this out a little bit more

stay tuned…

Alvor Aalto : Screen 100

Alvor Aalto was born in 1898. Most of his childhood and youth he lived in Jyväskylä, a town in the center of Finland, surrounded by the big finish nature. Thousand of lakes and woods with millions of birch trees, must have influenced the young Aalto.
In his work nature is always present, either in the organic shape of the products or the choice of materials. And Finland is present, one can say that Finland is with Aalto and that Aalto is with Finland.

Aalto was both an architect and a designer. It is very obvious in one of his early works, the Paimio Sanatorium. In addition to the new and functional building he also designed all interior for the building. Today the Paimio Chair is probably the most well-known Aalto chair from that time. It was designed for the patients, functionality and mass production was important issues, together with the organic shape it all makes the chair an icon of good design.

“Beauty is the harmony of purpose and form.”  Alvor Aalto 1928.

Alvor Aalto has had an immense impact on our perception of Scandinavian design today.
In 1935 he founded the company Artek together with his wife Aino and Nils-Gustave Hahl and Maire Gullichsen. The company should handle the sale of Alto furniture, but they wanted to take it further. They saw themselves as promoters of “Rational living and interior Design” (as they write in ‘the Artek Manifesto’). In other words they wanted to educate people and teach about the ”good life”.

All over Europe design changed or evolved in to something more functional, modern and lighter. There was a new way of thinking, new production possibilities and materials. Just think of the Bauhaus movement in Germany. In Aalto’s design he combines that thinking with natural materials and organic shapes.

It is evident in the screen 100 from 1936. The construction is so simple. Wooden sticks assembled with a metal wire. When the screen is used as a room divider or a simple screen it forms different organic shapes.
The repetition of the vertical wooden sticks leads the minds to forests with beautiful slender birch trees. An effect Alvor Alto also used, when he worked with different expressions on the facade of his buildings. That can be seen on the picture of the finish pavilion which Aalto made for the world exhibition in New York in 1939.

The screen has been sold since late 1930s. At the Stedelijk, I found it attractive and it caught my attention at first because of the simplicity and round shape.

On the attached picture it can be seen in the Artek Showroom in Helsinki in the late 1930s.  Today it is still for sale in the Artek Showroom together with the Paimio Chair and many other Aalto products.

Even though Alvor Aalto made fantastic design he still wanted the user to influence the design.

 “ A standardized object should not be a finished product, but on the contrary be made so that man and all the individual laws controlling him supplement its form.” Alvar Aalto 1935 

The Screen is a standardized object, but the user is the one who forms it.

A small conclusion:

Why did I try to build the screen, how was it and what happened on the way?

At first when I saw this screen, my first thought was that I wanted it at home. It looked so simple and gentle in it’s look. How it stood there and divided the exhibition with its calmness and simpleness. But still what I was fascinated by, was that it was also simple to make, it is basically just sticks put together and then the shape makes it stand.

But such an iconic and great design object needs time to make. And often with design and especially Scandinavian design, simple stuff takes the longest.

Therefore I decided to build a model myself, I wanted to try and put myself in the making and designing of this. It was fun, I made a small 1:10 scale model

The small model didn’t give me any trouble that I didn’t expect. It was simple and easy and a very honest object. I think If I scaled it up I would have had more trouble and I would have been confronted with some other problems.

But all in all it was clear for me after trying to make a model and looking into the design and production of this, that this object is very honest.

It is exactly what you see.

French version:

Sillonnant depuis plusieurs heures les allées sans vraiment en connaître la raison, je décidais je hâter le pas en direction de ce qui semblait être une cage d’escalier. Je m’y engouffrais, et toujours dans la hâte commençait à grimper les hautes marches, deux par deux.

« Trente-six, trente-huit, quarante, quarante-deux…soixante-quatre,soixante-six, soixante-huit..quatre-vingt-deux! » m’écriai-je, le souffle haletant. J’étais arrivée au bout. Mais rien. Il n’y avait rien; rien d’autres que de nouvelles allées, semblables à celles que j’arpentais quelques minutes auparavant. Je m’asseyais, afin de reprendre mon souffle, suffoquant toujours de ces quatre-vingt-deux maudites marches que je venais de monter. En m’asseyant, je m’adossais contre la paroi murale et sentis un léger glissement. « Ce doit être mon imagination: je n’ai presque pas dormi et je ne sais guère à quand remonte mon dernier repas» me dis-je, en m’appuyant plus fortement encore. Mais cette fois-ci, la paroi eut un glissement soudain et cette fois-ci ce ne pouvait être mon imagination: je me retournai, et la paroi s’était ouverte sur un nouveau dédale de ruelles. « C’en est assez, de ces allées! » D’un bond, je me levais et passais le seuil de ce qui ressemblait fortement à un labyrinthe. Je me mis d’un mouvement frénétique à pousser les parois murales qui m’entouraient et sans m’en rendre compte je créais ce qui pouvait être associé à un repère un abri, une maison, ou toutefois quelque chose qui me servirait d’habitat.  « Cela manque tout de même de couleurs, ces teintes grisâtres ne m’inspirent pas. » Il suffisait de le dire, et une lueur vint teinter l’enclos de couleurs que je ne saurais nommer. J’exaltais, et m’empressais de pousser à nouveau le mur qui me servait de sortie, dévalait à toute allure les allées à la recherche de quelqu’un avec qui je pourrais partager ma découverte. Personne à l’horizon, mais je continuais à explorer la cité avec engouement. « Hey! » m’écriai-je. C’est alors que j’aperçus quelqu’un: elle ne m’entendit pas, et semblait déambuler avec candeur tout en bousculant, abaissant, inclinant plus de parois que je ne pouvais en compter moi-même. Je restais béate, devant l’architecture qui se créait peu à peu sous mes yeux. Et je décidais de la rejoindre. « Ludens » me présentai-je. « Babylone » me dit-elle sans un regard tout en continuant gracieusement à articuler ses mouvements, créateurs d’une architecture que je ne saurais qualifier. Nous continuâmes sans un mot à assembler, élever, courber, soustraire, façonner pendant un temps qui me semblait ne durer que quelques secondes mais qui m‘aurait pris une éternité à décrire.

C’était comme si mon esprit s’était dissocié de mon corps, et que je pouvais me voir, près de Babylone, des structures suivant harmonieusement nos gesticulations jaillissant de part et d’autres de cette superstructure. Il me semblait participer à un tableau architectural, où le temps ne faisait pas raison et où nos envies seules motivaient notre initiative.

Quatre heures dix-huit. Suffocante et moite, je me réveillai d’un souffle haletant, me précipitai dans la salle de bain et m’aspergeai le visage d’eau, me contemplant dans le miroir. « Qu’est-ce qu’il t’arrive, Ludens? » me demandai-je dans un bégaiement. J’avais passé la soirée à écrire jusque tard mon roman, et m’étais réveillée au beau milieu de la nuit, avachie dans mes brouillons éparpillés sur mon bureau. Un sentiment étrange me transperçait: avais-je bien écrit cette histoire que je ne cessais de me répéter en boucle, ou n’avais-je que rêvé cette incroyable cité? Je me dirigeais à nouveau vers mon bureau, avançais ma main vers le tas de papier gisant sur le bois luisant dans l’obscurité. Je ne trouvais qu’une pile de papiers, griffonnés du mot Babylone.

Je m’asseyais une fois encore derrière mon bureau, saisis une feuille vierge et sans hésitation me mis à écrire cette histoire que je venais de rêver. « Sillonnant depuis plusieurs heures les allées sans vraiment en connaître la raison, je décidais je hâter le pas en direction de ce qui semblait être une cage d’escalier » étaient les premiers mots de mon roman que je nommais New Babylon.

English version:

Roaming for several hours across the aisles without having any clear the reason, I decided to hasten and go into the direction of what seemed to be is a staircase. I rushed into it, and still in a hurry began to climb the high steps, two at the same time. “Thirty-six, thirty-eight, forty, forty-two … sixty-four, sixty-six, sixty-eight … eighty-two! » I yelled, gasping. I had arrived at the end. But there was nothing: nothing but some more aisles, similar to those I had been striding across just a few minutes before. I sat down to get my breath back, still suffocating because of the eighty-two wretched steps I had just climbed. As I sat down, I leaned against the wall and felt a slight slip. “It must be my imagination: I’ve hardly slept and don’t even remember when was the last time I had food” I said filling dizzy, slouching against the wall. But this time, the wall suddenly clearly slipped and this time, that wasn’t my imagination: I turned around, and the wall opened on a new maze of aisles. « Enough! » In a single bound I jumped crossed the threshold of what looked like a labyrinth. I started pushing in a frenetic move the walls around me, and before I could even realize I’ve created a shelter, a house, or somehow something that could be a living place. « I’m still missing colors, though ». All I had to do was saying it and the walls started to slowly get tinted into colors I couldn’t name. I exalted, and hastened to push again the wall that seemed to be the exit, ran down the aisles searching for someone I could share my discovery with. Nobody was around, but I continued to explore the city with enthusiasm. « Hey! » I yelled, stopping my race. She didn’t hear me, and seemed to move with candor while jostling, lowering, tilting more walls than I could even count. I remained blissful, in front of the architecture which was slowly being created under my eyes. And I decided to join her. “Ludens,” I introduced myself. “Babylon,” she said without a glance, continuing gracefully to articulate her movements, creating this architecture any word couldn’t invent. We continued without a word to assemble, raise, bend, subtract, shape for a while, that seemed to last only a few seconds but that would have taken me an eternity to describe.

It was like my mind had been dissociated from my body, and I could see myself near Babylon, the structures following harmoniously our gestures springing from both sides of this hyper structure. It like participating to an architectural painting, where time wasn’t serving any purpose and our desires alone motivated this initiative.

Eighteen past four. Suffocating and clammy, I woke up gasping, rushed into the bathroom and sprayed my face with some water, contemplating myself in the mirror. “What’s the matter with you, Ludens? I asked myself in a stutter. I spent the whole evening working on writing on my novel, and had woken up in the middle of the night, slumped over my drafts scattered on my desk. A strange feeling was running through my body: have I written this story that keeps looping in my mind, or have I only dreamt this incredible city? I headed back to my desk, moving my hand toward the pile of paper lying on the wood glowing in the darkness. I had only found a pile of papers, scribbled down with the word Babylon.

I sat down once more behind my desk, grabbed a blank sheet of paper, and without hesitation began to write the story I had just dreamed of. “Roaming for several hours across the aisles without having any clear the reason, I decided to hasten and go into the direction of what seemed to be is a staircase” were the first words of my novel that I named New Babylon.

Spatiovore,1958 / Constant

Astonishing, humble yet clever form, presented in a corner of the basement of Stedelijk museum, behind a translucent display case with a black background, its shape appears to be like two convex lenses of a thick and rigid perspex, half-opened almost like a shell; containing a fragile installations of metal shafts, of which stands out a thinner layer of orange perspex; the whole forming like a complex machinery lying on a wooden base.

I lingered over it for quite a while first because I didn’t, couldn’t understand it at first sight. I just found it beautifully standing there, laying inert.

It appears as being paradoxical to me though: its whole shape, so geometrical and immobile because of this thick and stiff perspex seems at the same time setting in motion; its metal shafts seem to slowly get activated, rotating and could be like seeing a painting taking physical spatial shape and rise. Forming a whole thing where each fragment becomes complementary to perfect the machinery. I fully appreciate its size, neither excessive nor ridiculously small; I appreciate the interplay of lines; alternating between transparencies and opacities, its colors as being injected with a syringe into the space. But I still don’t get it.

Now I do. Constant has effortlessly been trying to assert and establish what reality could be with New Babylon 1, and I would like to salute his attempt of creating alternative life experiences, what he called situations. I could only merely explain his lifetime project consisting into megastructures where « the bourgeois shackles of work, family life, and civic responsibility would be discarded. The post-revolutionary individual would wander from one leisure environment to another in search of new sensations. Beholden to no one, he would sleep, eat, recreate, and procreate where and when he wanted. Self-fulfillment and self-satisfaction were Constant’s social goals. Deductive reasoning, goal-oriented production, the construction and betterment of a political community-all these were eschewed. » 2. In other words his city of future was placed under the guidance of playing, adventure, mobility, as well as all the conditions that facilitate the free creation of the own life of its inhabitants who would have at their disposal a large collection of material and tools to freely shape and reshape their own environment.

In a lecture given by Constant at Delft University, he summarized his retrospective thoughts about New Babylon as follows:‘… it is possible to form a fairly clear idea of an as yet uninhabited world. It is more difficult to populate this world with people who live so very differently from ourselves: we can neither dictate nor design their playful or inventive behavior in advance. We can only invoke our fantasy and switch from science to art. It was this insight that prompted me to stop work on the models and to attempt in paintings and drawings, however approximately, to create some New Babylonian life. This was as far as I could go. The project exists. It is safely stored away in a museum, waiting for more favorable times when it will once again arouse interest among future urban designers.’

 1 – Wigley Marx in Constant’s New Babylon, The Hyper Architecture of Desire:

« the conception of the city and its effects is based on the autonomy of the single building, or on the interrelation of individuals in a social matrix of extreme functionalism, derived from one-way political thinking »

2- Wikipedia article: New Babylon, Constant Nieuwenhuys