this is a private blog for my design students and assorted other survivors. Tro blemakers all
this is a private blog for my design students and assorted other survivors. Tro blemakers all.
this is a private blog for my design students and assorted other survivors. Tro blemakers all.
this is a private blog for my design students and assorted other survivors. Tro blemakers all.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Greetings Earthlings,











I really must be quick ... as I'm still waiting for my brand new lawyer
to arrive with the cash for the border guards.

So I've only time for a few, rather practical, observations for Christmas.

Well one really important one - and it's this ....

You guys, ... If something comes with gravy, for heavens sake eat it.
That's the whole point of gravy !! Gravy is not a stand-alone people.
Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy.
Eat the volcano. Repeat.


wishing you a Peaceful Holiday - Thomas

Ps. I bought a local dog. Well they said it's a dog, .. jeez I hope it's a dog


Thursday, December 21, 2006

Bauhaus renews Icon of Modernism

DESSAU, Germany (Reuters) -- Spurned by the Nazis, rehabilitated by communists and now restored to its former splendor, the Bauhaus school in the eastern German town of Dessau has had a turbulent history.

Like the Bauhaus movement itself, led by architects including Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the building has fallen in and out of favor as tastes and fashions changed."Our aim is to put this building back up where it belongs," said Omar Akbar, director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.

The Bauhaus was a prototype of modern architecture when it was built in 1926, breaking with tradition with its imposing flat-roofed, boxy structures. The glassy, four-storey facade of the building still looks contemporary today.

Fans of the late 1990s trend for urban loft living will feel at home among the untreated concrete surfaces, while anyone who has shopped at Swedish furniture superstore IKEA will find the plain and functional furniture and light-fittings familiar.

But 80 years ago the building, its teachers and its style were controversial, sparking a debate which lasted for decades.

"There is not just one story of the Bauhaus," said Walter Briggen, curator of a new exhibition on the history of the now fully restored school. "There is the good story and the bad one and both have to be told." Bauhaus, short for Staatliches Bauhaus or State Building School, refers both to the school in Dessau, 120 kilometers (75 miles) southwest of Berlin, and the style of architecture it came to be associated with.

Hostile governments

Gropius, who is credited with designing the building, believed that architecture should reflect the new developments in 20th century industry and technology. His vision comes to life in the Dessau building, through the use of copious amounts of glass, simple lines and the elimination of surface decoration.

The Bauhaus movement, which began in 1919, came up against resistance from state officials in its first home, Weimar, causing it to move to Dessau, which was governed by the more favorable Social Democrats.

Bauhaus flourished there until the Nazis forced the school's closure in 1932.

"The Nazis actually changed the flat roofs for a pitched roof as there was a need to destroy the legacy of the Bauhaus movement," said Johannes Bausch, one of the architects who worked on the restoration of the building.
The building itself was partially destroyed in World War II and, after initially being rejected by the communist government of East Germany, it was later rehabilitated by the authorities and has since been fully restored.

Colorful past

To anyone who thinks the Bauhaus movement was characterized by black-and-white color schemes, the building in Dessau will come as a surprise. As part of the restoration process, architects discovered the extent of the building's original color scheme."It was an incredibly subtle color palette and we have managed to win back that color," Bausch said.

Familiar only with 1920s black-and-white photographs of the building, the architects were surprised to discover that many of the walls had been painted. Computer imaging software allowed them to work out from the myriad of gray tones on the photographs what colors the walls were.

Now the main entrance doors are painted radiant red, the ceiling of the lecture theater is silver, and one of the walls of entrance hall is a dusky pink. "It is unbelievable the way that the white turns to blue or gray if the sun is shining in the right way," Bausch said. "I have been working here for five years and it is still wonderful when one sees the effect of the light on these colors."

Icon of modernism

Having completed the restoration, the Bauhaus foundation wanted to celebrate both its 80th birthday and the 10th anniversary of entering UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites. An exhibition entitled "Icon of Modernism" opened in the building this month. It runs until March 11, 2007. Housed in a former carpentry workshop on one of the upper floors, the exhibition is based around full-sized reproductions of parts of the building, displayed at a 5 degree angle to the building's axis and accompanied by photos and text. The exhibition charts the building's fortunes and explains the theory behind its industrial look, suggesting that one of the movement's most lasting legacies is its use of practical mass-produced components -- a triumph of function over form.

Gropius's masterpiece is urban, avant-garde and transparent and has become a true icon of modern design, the exhibition claims, and Akbar wishes it to remain that way. "My theory is that Modernism should not age," he said. "It must be kept new and kept modern and so we must also identify what it is that gives Modernism that sparkle."





www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/index.htm

Monday, December 11, 2006

the Floating World of Ukiyo-e

The earliest Ukiyo-e prints date from about 1600. These early works were monochromatic, with the design laid out in bold black lines. Beginning in the seventeenth century, artists began to add color by hand, including red, blue, yellow, and orange. They also began to experiment with light-catching textures. With the advent of multicolor printing around the mid-eighteenth century, single prints were built up in layers of aligned blocks, each carrying different colors and pieces of design. Erotic works and images of actors and beautiful women were common subjects in early Ukiyo-e. Also popular were themes from Japanese myth, legend, literature, and history.
click to enlarge















Ukiyo-e prints by early masters working from about 1600 to 1740 were issued
in limited numbers and are extremely rare today.














Japanese art is replete with symbols and allusions. Today's viewer may, understandably, at first might encounter, have difficulty recognizing the literary and historical references and other cultural idioms found in " early modern " Japanese works.

However difficult it can be to translate the work, Japanese art does explore themes familiar to Westerners and Easterners alike. The individual versus society; humanity and the forces of nature; this world vis รก vis the the unknown future, are among the themes commonly explored in Japanese art, as they are in other cultures' artistic expressions











click to enlarge

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

things most remarkable No.3
for extra marks - identify each
object or person, beyond the
meerly obvious.

no.1












no.2












We have a winner Ladies and Gentlemen !!!!!!
Bravo - Joseph Pintabone - yes - that's his real name.

You can pick up your ca$h prize up from Martin Siberock
the Mirra chair








Herman Miller's innovative Mirra work chair received a Gold
Award in the Best of NeoCon 2003 Competition.












The result of more than four years of research and development by
Herman Miller
teamed with Studio 7.5, a German design firm.

http://www.seven5.com/

Composed of five designers--Claudia Plikat, Burkhard Schmitz, Nicolai Neubert,
Carola Zwick, and Roland Zwick--Studio 7.5 has been involved for over 10 years
in the design and development of products that improve the way people work.

They consider themselves 'the grandchildren of the Eameses' ( see my earlier post)
and, like those pioneering designers, they are experts at observing how workers
interact with their environments and finding ways to make that interaction more natural.

Rather than relying on any individual in the firm, Studio 7.5 works as a team, without
titles or hierarchy. The Mirra chair is a product of their collective imagination, talent,
and persistence--along with a willingness to break the mold in order to create a chair
that sets a new standard for comfort, fit, balanced ride, and visual refinement in
its price range.

Studio 7.5 envisioned a chair that reacts to what people do. Part of the concept was
to " make the chair like a second skin, like a shadow of the sitter". From this concept,
Mirra's passive adjustability was born. - Just sit on it, and it fits.

There are only a few adjustment controls, and they are designed to be very intuitive.

Mirra is a high-performing, environmentally advanced
work chair that sets a new
reference point for
ergonomic comfort, aesthetics, sustainability and price in the
mid-price office seating market.


Mirra utilizes an innovative combination of
both passive and active seating adjustments to
deliver natural performance and long-term comfort
for a wide range of body types and postures. Passive
adjustments automatically respond to each user's
body shape and movements to provide outstanding
support; active adjustments give users the ability to
fine-tune their sitting experience for even greater
comfort.


fyi- You can get them here. After much humming and hawing & wringing of hands, I got mine in the old port from Triede Design,... and guess what ? .. it's probably the best $800.00 I've ever spent- The chair sells for about about $1200.00 (+/-) - all dressed -tax in - retail. - and no I can't get you a deal. If your parents are complaining about their backs, and whose doesn't, ... tell them about it.

Monday, December 04, 2006

the skateboards of Jeremy Fish












check it out, dude
http://www.sillypinkbunnies.com/#
Me Talk Pretty One Day 1999 the Lifhe Lifsthe Life of Insects 1997












Art Director Susan Mitchell
san hesan heDesign Little, Brown and Co.
Graphic Designer Rodrigo Corral san hesTypeface Univers


click to enlarge
for extra marks - who was the designer ?
Kostadinos Neofotistos was the only person to get it BRAVO !

the book cover was designed by Kelly Blair

Sunday, December 03, 2006