FRIEZE ART FAIR NEW YORK 2012
MILAN 2012: SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE
MILAN 2012: SATELLITE EXHIBITIONS
MILAN 2012: BRERA DESIGN DISTRICT
There is one question that everyone should sensibly ask before designing or making something to show at the Milan Furniture Fair. Does the world need another chair?
That's the opening paragraph of a New York Times preview article of the Milan Furniture Fair by Alice Rawsthorn. Then it goes on:
"A knottier problem is that (and there's no euphemistic way of saying this) the sort of stuff on show at the fair just isn't as interesting as it once was, at least not in terms of design.First, technology is now more important than furniture in product design. (Odds are that the most drooled-over objects in Milan this week will be shiny new Apple iPads, not chairs.) Second, design's intellectual focus has swung away from producing tangible things, like furniture, toward the abstract process of applying design thinking to ethical issues, such as social, environmental or humanitarian problems, and developing sexy new technologies, like data visualization.
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Comments
I think that's a question that we've needed to ask for a long time, now. It actually amazes me how many people think solely of fancy furniture when they think of 'design.'
While all of this is true, at least furniture is honest. As superfluous as it can seem, its purpose is always apparent: something to sit on. With industrial Design its usually not so obvious, in most cases products create a need (ipad,) to fill, and as an industry usually solves one problem and creates ten more. My problem doesn't lie with furniture companies, which material wise, are pretty elemental, but with the big industrial (non)design companies like apple, who release new products with three more planned within the coming months to replace it. All of which are made from heavy metals and shipped in from china. Living in New York, you see furniture on the street everyday, and someone always takes it, what other product gets a second or third go at their life cycle? If you need products to question the need of, go to quirky.com, they have them by the dozen.
You had better believe it does!
And I will continue to design them, cause I'm not very good at that sexy data visualization that's all the rage these days.
"design's intellectual focus has swung away from producing tangible things, like furniture, toward the abstract process of applying design thinking to ethical issues, such as social, environmental or humanitarian problems, and developing sexy new technologies, like data visualization."
- For the most part I don't think these were ever the same people - furniture designers like to make things, use their hands, view things on a material and detail level, not conducting research and saving the world.
I'll answer you question with two questions.
Is furniture indestructible? No.
Is the world population growing? Yes.
Does the world need another chair? Yes.
I would suggest the ultimate democracy: Everybody his/her own designer chair:-)