At March 16th 1992, Cornelia, Jane, Greetje, en Weimpje Koelewijn Vermeer cleaned the pavilion of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
the soberness and functionality of Rietveld
the neatness and the costume of the women from Spakenburg
respect
space – light – color.
a women that cleans will not lose her morality.
Job Koelewijn, Winner of the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art (2006) talks.
photo’s by Erik van de Boom, reprinted from Rietveld Publication no 76
Wiener Werkstätte
The first thing I saw of the book “Wiener Werkstätte” was the cover which was a original signet of the Wiener Wrkst. from 5th avenue NYC.
When i was checking the books at the library, i saw a book about the topic that i’m really interested in, Soviet Architecture. I checked it and yes it was the book that i am looking for. Then i looked for other books to find some images to support my topic, i couldn’t find though. Suddenly i saw a boow, looking old and having old, dark red just jacket. Yes! It was about Russia Architecture. The best thing about it is the just jacket. It is just like Soviet public architeture or Soviet mentality. A book need to covered and there it is, nothing more ( i love “the Raven btw). One barely reads the name of the book, there is nothing on it to make you buy it (if you were in the book store). No colorful letters, no information about what it contains. One can find it, only if he/she needs it. Which is what i did. Which is why this dust jacket is a perfect match for this topic.
On the left side you see the book i choosed and on the right side there is a book from BRD – Germany (to compare)
718.8 lis 1
“subjective library” images and flickr tag-cloud
Read the reflections of A and C group’s journey into the Rietveld Library’s Design and Art section. This journey to investigate, made our fascinations, preconceptions and hidden desires manifest. How does a subjective book choice create a personal mirror and leaves traces of tags, connecting Design to Art, exposing autonomy in both.
Read about the subjective, open and intiutive first book choice from the Design section of our library. Wonder about the tags connected to those accounts. Follow the continuing story as a second book is selected based on those tags created. Witness the third posting in which those sets of tags lead us from Design to Art. A move that forces us to reflect upon the connection between them both.
Follow the continuing accounts of the three succeeding investigating postings by clicking on the yellow link. Experience the total list of tags created during this “Subjective Library” Project.
LIST OF TAGS:
3289 days, A4, cover, funky colors, television, unatractive, film photography : fauna, flora, interesting, lines, strange, fluffy, simple, horrible, brainwork, complicated, proud, “to know” : disorder, game, grid, systematization, “One Minute Sculpture” : library, swindler, breaking news, library loser, extraordinary, talented : space, absence-presence, framework, surrounding, returning : abnormal, rediscover, choice, plain, others : 1000, 754., direction, signs, city, direction, traffic, political, posters : blue Pinocchio, screaming, spine of book, blue, Pinocchio, blue fairy, eyecandy, contemporary, folk, mentality : not getting there, unknown, judging by covers, content, connection, strangers, subject : supermarket, theft, housewife, tiny, midlife crisis, multilingual : logic, question, reason, consciousness, interest, remarks, impossible, mathematical, perspective : attraction, strange, swissfolk, art, death, life, love, Maurizio Cattelan : cover, old book, unique, obsession, miniature : Anita, eyes, portrait, dominant, name, color, film : Wiener Werkstätte, characteristic, hand work, mass fabrication, original, process, realization, detail, photography, the nude : cheap fashion, funny, random, tattoo, tribe, weird, mysterious, tribe : attraction, new texture, action, quick, warning, a priori, new, amusement, choices, eye-catching, eyes, random : escape reality, library, overflow of impulses, fruitless reality, jostling time, absorbing force, déjà-vu : arrange, industrial, library, architecture, museum, self-made, Andreas Gursky, index : city, nomadic, reality, funky, colors, interiors : contrast, fat, texture, typography, culture, nudity : conceptional, distance, no image, steps, thinking space, braille : cat, compulsive, font, chaos, subjective, illustration, objective, random, Tadao Ando : airplane, airport, choice, structure, worldmap, 756, 80’s, human, machines, unique, flying : dot, jewelry, shapes & forms, yellow, children, fun, paint, playful, all colors, blue, green, theory : extraordinary, life, normal, objects, absurd : 80’s, desire, fashion, party, techno, desire, fabrics, orgasmatic : alchemy, identical, methaphysics, mysticism, mythology, Arabic, identical, inaccurate, ladies, naked, orient, sculptures, stereotypes : Canada, Indian symbols, kitsch, raven, Indian art, Mexico, Jeff Koons, porn : attraction, gold, meeting an old lover, recognition, cheap, irresistibility, not psychology, wrong, beauty, compare, contrast, couple, same, similarity, together, two books, ugliness : connection, embroidery, hundred years, death, funerals, general terms, invisible, object, spirit, visible : color, feeling, personal story, feminism, graphic : first sight, mystery, old-fashioned, bloody, mad, rituals, revelatory, Yin : oblivion, automatic lives, bottom shelve, eat, mantra, story-making, colorful, dogs, double-take, eat sleep, vases, vegetables : attracted, nothing, black, disturbing.
still curious read the books involved at the Gerrit Rietveld Library, (catalogue numbers are included).
At the beginning of the 20th century Josef Hoffmann, Kolo Moser and the industrialist Fritz Werndorfer founded the ‘Wiener Werkstätte’. In order to protect traditional handicraft from mass-production they designed exclusive handmade everyday objects and gave them the aura of art. At the same time they tried to find an alternative to old representative art forms favored by the rulers of Austria which shaped the picture of Vienna at this time. When they started to design architecture which they filled with their handmade furniture and their handmade objects their work became a concept that led to an idea of a different society based on pure aesthetics: they tried to create a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’.
Under which circumstances could such a concept develop? The design of the ‘Wiener Werkstätte’ is still very modern and popular while the concept of the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ is not relevant anymore. But why? Do we need a similar utopia today? If one wants to get an idea ‘why’ one has to take a closer look at the development of the concept ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ in relation to its historic background.
The exhibition to the Zuiderzee-museum itself was preceded by a moment in which I really felt connected to my country, the Netherlands. Descending from the train, the wind and sky managed to awaken conflicting feelings regarding the Dutch folklore. A typical Dutch sky colored in dark purple gray pink, white beige and all colors in between carrying raindrops building up in the belly of the sky. Waiting to burst over the open waters of the Ijsselmeer. The smell of wooden boats and the whistling of the wind through the energetic sails with stature and strength. By pushing my sunglasses higher up and closer to the eyes, the lines separating the sky from sea became clearer. Pushed by the wind and the rain, the rhythm of the roofs covered with red tiles led to the smell of the Hema “rookworst” warming my mind. Seeing the beauty with a soberness and acceptance of circumstances, surviving in tougher times characterizes the Dutch people and at the same time bonds me to them. Looking at the way they deal for example with the weather by inventing an umbrella suitable for tougher times, I think it symbolizes the Dutch people. keyword: storm umbrella
Sofia Design Week was held in Sofia Bulgaria from June 5th-12th 2009.
Dima Stefanova, designer of the website of Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Sandberg/Design Institute and Henk Groenendijk, moderator of Designblog form together Icecreamdesign. As advisers they are involved from the beginning in this fist ever Bulgarian Design Week. As speakers and organizers of the “Bird’s Eye View” workshop they participate in the program.
“One Magazine” interviewed them for their latest issue
Next Identity Forum took place during a 7 day long event with lectures, workshops, exhibitions and presentations that gathers representatives of the worlds design avant-garde in product, communication, graphic and interactive design.
In search of its next identity, Sofia welcomed 17 of the most indicative in their field. Putting Sofia on the global design map for the first time. Ji Lee, Niessen en de Vries ( the succesful traveling instalation TM-City was on display again), Peik Suyling YD+I, Frank Tjepkema “Tjep”, Marti Guixe, Erik Kessels from KesselsKramer, Lust en Ruedi Bauer were attending among many others.
A part off this book is about connecting differents parts.
All these nice objects and combinations…
The pictures are so clean, there are a silent feeling on the pages.
The pictures shows different kind off machines- mostly from daily life such as iron, hairdryer and mixer.
-It’s the perfect world – I will stay here for a while…
In my imagination I can see the young women standing there with her brand new iron. Proud and pleased with herself.
-Did she change a bit?
A woman with a iron. Is more than a woman without..?
Here there is a very nice mixer, with a lot off possibilities.
You can put parts together in new combinations.
– Is this what we have as a human being? – 3 separate tools?
and then we just have to combine them in different way, so it fits with the situation we are in.
How many tools do we have?
-are they changing over time?
They are, I think.
cat. nr: 772.9-pen-1
keyword: connection
The choice of projects, which are presented in this book is very various and reaches almost any kind of design. Many international designers are introduced with their latest works.
A lot of the projects are highly conceptual and touch the blurry spaces in between design and art.
I found the title “design and the elastic mind” very appealing in opposite to the cover, which is rather scary.
Therefore I posted a picture of Elio Caccavale’s project “Utility Pets”.
He is concerning himself with the various effects, that inter-species organ transplantation might have in our lives in the not-so-distant future.
The tools he invented, presented on the picture, are supposed to generate an intense contact/relationship in between the donor (in this case the pig) and the receiver.
From the upper left to the lower right:
– Smoke Eater- Toy Comunicator- Memento Service- Comforting Device
cat.no. 772.9-ant-
keyword: overview
…While thinking about repetition and about the idea that practically anything could become a pattern by repeating it over and over again, I came to think of industrial design.
Where repetition in a pattern becomes this new image that, in a way, is stronger than the pieces apart. Repetition in products doesn’t really make it stronger. It makes the product less original en less valuable.
Unless you only plan on making a few of the same product, than the product suddenly becomes a collectors item or special edition.
Well, this second book was about industrial design…but also about language. Funny how these two subjects work together. Because through industrial design it becomes possible to have the same products all over the world. So for new products, new words have to be invented. A lot of products are called after their function, at least in Dutch they are. But wouldn’t it be an idea, to have international words for these international products? Ikea is already using this concept, so now people all over the world start having their own strange Swedish vocabulary of really silly words. Does that mean that in ten years every person, from Singapore to Munich would know that a LILLÅKER is the thing you rest your mattress on?
I think this book gives a better solution to this language problem, by just learning the different words.
cat.no. 772.9 cat 50
keyword: repetion
My search for another fragile subject led me to the book “The Crystal Palace Exhibition, illustrated catalogue”. Again I choose by title. Crystal Palace, what a beautiful combination of something stable and something fragile almost a contradiction. The combination crystal palace is somehow a little impossible as if it would only exist in fairytales.
The book is an old paperback, it used to be brown but on the back it’s been bleached by time and sunlight and has turned into a fifties purple. The pages are yellowed and the book is full of beautiful etchings of art nouveau design, furniture, elegantly ornamented pistols, silverware, and luxurious flower-print fabrics.
Last week I wrote about the book Fragiles, a book about contemporary ceramics and I can see a lot of connections between the two books. The art nouveau designs, just like the contemporary works, has a kind of playfulness in it, the flower ornaments seems almost alive as they intertwine around the legs of the tables and when you look closer at the ornaments soon you will find creatures and fairy tale animals hiding in the patterns. Another thing that I connect to some of the contemporary ceramic is the “more is more motto”. Some of the furniture in the art nouveau book is crammed with decorations, ornaments, cherubs and flowers, just like some of the objects in Fragiles are over the top kitschy. But there is something quite beautiful about this unwillingness to stop when it is enough.
cat. no. 772.1 cat 2
keyword: fragile
There is a blatant connection between my first and second choice.
I started out with a book by Rem Koolhaas called Project On The City which is a collaboration with several students from the Harvard design academy where he holds the position of professor. This Project investigates the consequences of the unbridled urbanisation taking place all over the world. In this context the meaning of the word urbanisation go’s further than just the focus of human inhabitancy in city’s but also refers to the cancerous growth of commercial landscapes which are framed by concrete walls becoming the centre and at the same time the banks of a river of ongoing development. One of the problems stated in the book being that the design professions can not keep up and apply outdated methods to the urban landscape creating a chaotic and unpleasant maelstrom of overlapping visual and audio stimuli with which the citizen (caught up in this maelstrom) is forced to deal.
Then I found my second book. City Signs and Lights by Stephen Carr (almost completely) coincidentally dealing with the exact same problem but focusing it’s attention on the problem with -and the potential of (the name says it all) City Signs and Lights. Rarely have I seen two books that complement each other more (although not always in the most constructive manner) and the focus on the bewildering aspects but also the potential of urban public space is a connection that fascinates me deeply.
cat. nr: 754.5 carr
keyword: develope envelope
It was big….impressively big. That’s why.
Maybe it wasn’t fair for the other books, because this book was also on a ‘special’ place. It had a place of its own as if it was more valuable than the others.
It’s not that I’m a shallow person, but it just caught my eye because of its physical appearance.
I think the pattern on the outside was disastrous by the way.
This book is about patterns. I became really fascinated about patterns, because it seems to bet hat everything becomes a pattern as long as you repeat the shape, form, act or colour over and over again. This is also how patterns become part of our life. Interesting
…At least I thought so
cat. nr. : 701.9-sch-1
keyword: repetition
You start playing with plastic cubes…
for now, they are big… easy to fix…
they get smaller… it s time to play more precisely…
they are really tiny… play really precisely…
50 years later… still playing with cubes…
but now, they are huge… really huge…
cat. nr: 710.9-cat-6
keyword: playground
“How things don’t work”…I have to admit that title worked as cliché of love at the first sight. Coming into the section of strictly design based field and being obligated to choose one book as starting point of next one month of study didn’t completely contribute to the feeling of being excited about further choice but then this title appeared. For miracle to be even bigger it was in part of industrial design to which one I defenetly don’t feel interested in.
Passing through introduction and first paragraph gave me satisfaction of knowing that there is no possibility of wrong choice. It is about practical problems which modern technology that we are using for every day activities brings and opposite result of the image of comforts and easiness that we expect but it is not critically focused. They don’t directly attack industry for producing all this kind of gadgets… there is a solution and that is inventing, studying, understanding and improving things that are already made or left over. In first chapter discussion about convenience of bathrooms and bathtubs appears, which is quite funny on the first reading. As you think about it more closer it is actually truth. Also what might be interesting is comparison to situation of the same kind of environment that we are situated right now maybe 20-30 years after this book was written.There are some improvements but basic problems are still the same caused by politics of capitalism market…use less make more.
“Societies and the individuals making up social groups ,tend to respond in a number of different ways to each new problem.There is capitalist approach-make it bigger,the technocratic one –make it better,the “revolutionary”solution –portry the problem as an example of an exploitative system ,and pre-industrial romantic fallacy-don’t use it.maybe it will go away by itself.We propose a fifth alternative response-let’s invent a different answer.
cat. nr: 770.6 pap 2
keyword: invention
I browse dusty books signified by typeface and the often great level of deterioration.
Title, Title, Title, stain, Title, stain, tear and of course a nagging pain in the neck caused by the uncomfortable positioning of the head, necessary to read the titles on the afore mentioned dusty books with ugly typeface justifying their own existence by amazing amounts of crappyness meant to be intriguing.
I browse dusty books and I am very impatient and yes, very annoyed.
I have an assignment to fulfil.
I bend down to take a peek at the lower levels and find: stain, tear, Title, Title, stain, bright clear red outstanding unpretentious untitled fat thing. It was such a relief.
cat. nr: 942.9 chun 1
keyword: develope envelope
Somebody should not ignore the beauty of products, nether do I, but an overload of the visual and mental impact of consumption is forcing me to find a way to deal with this headache, which emerges from the stress of speed. Speed is arising from measurement. So the first step was to put down my watch to give myself some freedom. But “slowness” almost doesn’t exist in my life, what means that the stress is not erasable. What is left is to find a way out of this reality into daydream spaces, where I can have the total freedom of time in a self-chosen speed or system. “Daydream spaces, such as those generated by reading a good book, are often more commanding than physical spaces. While you read, you don’t even notice people who walk through the room because you are actually in the space that’s generated by the author. … the spaces generated by music can be much larger than the one in which you are physically…” here I totally agree with James Turrell. The same goes when he says that these are the spaces that we are inhabiting most of the time, much more then the conscious awake space that is called reality.
Wiener_Werkstätte
