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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Is furniture indestructible? No.
Is the world population growing? Yes.
Does the world need another chair? Yes.
- 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.
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.