Thonet-stoel repaired by Harco Rutgers. Photograph by Leo Veger
You've seen Platform 21's Repair Manifesto before. If you will be in Milan this month don't miss the Premsela Design Forum, a discussion on the value of repairing things in a throwaway society:
At the Design Forum in Milan on Wednesday 22 April, Premsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion, will focus on an all-but-forgotten alternative to recycling: repairing broken and damaged items.Speakers Piet Hein Eek (designer), Corinne Poux-Bernard (Director of Innovations, Hermes), Satyendra Pakhale (cultural nomad) and Joanna van der Zanden (Artistic Director, Platform21), led by moderator Marco Bevolo (independent author), will share their views on the value of repair in the context of the global economic crisis.
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Click below to read more about the manifesto. "The Premsela Design Forum on Repairing a discussion on the value of repairing things in a throwaway society:
Wednesday 22 April 2009, Milan Design Week
Recycling is a contemporary code word people often use when talking about responsible, conscious production. At its Milan design forum on Wednesday 22 April, Premsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion, will focus attention on an all-but-forgotten alternative path to reuse: repairing broken and damaged items.
Repairing is environmentally friendly, but it also changes the relationship between object and user from superficial to enduring and unique. To repair is to restore and renew. When a missing or broken part is replaced, a product's character can change radically. Countless repair manuals and links to repair sites can be found on Planet Green and YouTube. At the Premsela Design Forum, our point of departure will be the cultural and social aspects of repair.
Stop Recycling. Start Repairing.
"Make your products live longer! Repairing means taking the opportunity to give your product a second life. Don't ditch it, stitch it! Don't end it, mend it! Repairing is not anti-consumption. It is anti-needlessly throwing things away."
This is the first line of the Repair Manifesto written by the Amsterdam design centre Platform21 for its project Platform21 = Repairing. The manifesto has been disseminated and picked up by weblogs, designers and consumer programmes. In addition, 20,000 copies will be distributed during 2009 Milan Design Week. Through an exhibition, workshops, lectures, repair clinics and a competition, Platform21 = Repairing investigates how repairing can become a contemporary activity again."
Doors: 6.30pm Discussion: 7.00pm (preceded by an introduction by Dutch Minister of Culture Ronald Plasterk) Cocktails: 8.30–10.00pm Free admission
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Comments
My goal was not to 'show off' that this chair has been repaired, but to repair it with rest materials available to me at the time. I agree that multiplex is probably not the best suited material to restore a Thonet to it's original glory. But using this material made giving it my best shot a real challenge, with a very rewarding result. This Thonet now has a unique aestatic through it's repair process, that I personally find much more enjoyabe than an acurate restauration.
So I guess what you qualify as 'ugly' might be in the eye of the beholder... don't you think?