German Car Zone

LOL look at that citroen table.. haha it so ugly that i almost want one

Haha...that Cadillac chair is cool and funny...

You'd love going to MomA here in New York Rob. They got some really nice stuff going on there...
For me, I'd love to go sometime 'cause they got an animation exhibit going on (yea, I love animation )

http://www.moma.org/collection/brows...6&sort_order=1

Lights:

Martinelli Luce





...and some classic lights from the late 1960's and early 70's ..still manufactured by Martinelli Luce.




I have always loved this light, The Pipistrello light designed around 1968 by the famous Italian born architect Gae Aulenti ..she lives in Paris where she designed the Musee d'Orsay in the late 1980's



FLOS
Flos is one of Italy's "big name" manufacturers in the design world.


And some classic designs from the Castiglioni brothers ...both are dead now but are greatly revered in Italy.

Very nice lamps especially those designed by Martinelli Luce. It seem like some of the most beautiful objects were designed in the 60s, very round and nice shapes.

Here is my contribution to the thread:
The space saving room

A cool chair, those I don't know if it can actually be used as one.




Bench made out of newspaper.


Lamp


A clock which can suck itself to most surfaces.




Rocking chair for two people.


Clamshell remote control


Controversial footballs




Belt perfect for storing credit cards and hiding razor blades in for an air flight.



Bonus:
This cool clock which I would like to have on my desk. Too bad it is automatic.

Thanks for your contribution Luwalira ...some curious things there. I like the newspaper bench very much.

Mid-Twentieth century Furniture

Furniture made by the American company Knoll International

The Brno chair was designed in Germany by Mies van der Rohe in 1930, It was put into production in the US in the 1950s


The widely imitated tulip chairs were designed for Knoll in 1956 by Eero Saarinen.


One of my favourite American furniture designs of all time, Warren Platner's wire collection from the 1960s.


Meanwhile, the Scandinavians were creating wonderful design objects of their own.

Hans J. Wegner's "The Chair" from 1949 -- considered to be one of the finest design objects of all time.


The CH 24 designed in 1950 by Hans J. Wegner.


One of my all-time favourite pieces of twentieth century furniture, is this brilliantly conceived chair by Poul Kjærholm, the PK25 from 1952. It was designed in his last year as a design student -- it is so clever.



Arne Jacobsen's Ant Chair from 1952


Jacobsen's "Series 7" chair from 1952 and "Swan" chair from 1958.


The "Egg" designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958.

Those "rocks" are really fun Lu, they are not unlike the foam rocks first made in 1970 by Gufram. They were designed by a group called Studio 65.

Gufram is an Italian company that mostly makes auditorium furniture, but in the early 1970s they produced some furniture/object designs inspired by Pop Art.

Left: Sassi. Right: Cactus coatstand.


Left: Bocca sofa. Right: Pratone giant grass.

I don't quite know enough about design to contribute much to this thread, but I find your posts to be very interesting and informative. Please keep posting.

+karma for the Mid twentieth century furniture post.

Thanks notic . I didn't think anybody was interested anymore.

You don't need to know much about design to contribute -- I have just been posting things that I like. It wasn't supposed to be a history lecture ...I just get carried away sometimes

I'm glad you find it interesting because I have a really big interest in design -- graphic, fashion, but mostly industrial product design -- like furniture, appliances, and of course, automobiles.

I think furniture design is particularly interesting because it is often through furniture design that social trends and technological advancements are first translated into consumer-products for the real world.

In late 1940s and early 1950s USA, everything "Atomic" suddenly entered the popular imagination. High science, was translated into consumer products for the "The Atomic Age".

Molecular model of Aspirin


The designs are quite kitsch - they often take great inspiration from microbiology and scientific models of molecular structures.




A child's toy from the 1950s.


The biomorphic style of much popular design in the 1950s was eclectically combined with other popular interpretations of recent technological developments -- the 1950s were an exciting time for science -- design of that time was always optimistic, always looking to the future, taking great inspiration from the zeitgeist of discovery, "The Atomic age", "The Rocket Age", and "The Jet Age" -- it seemed like nothing was impossible, and science and technology were going to make all our lives better -- it was going to be an exciting and glorious future. Household objects started to look like they could fly -- streamlined refrigerators and aerodynamic kitchen blenders -- also new materials were being exploited, like plastic laminate (Formica) covered kitchen surfaces ..sometimes printed with biomorphic or atomic design themes.





Possibly the ultimate popular expression of "the spirit of mid 20th century America" is the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado.


Abstract Expressionism
The curious thing about High art of this time is, amidst all of this great social and technological change, Fine art was becoming increasingly inward-looking, no longer taking inspiration from the outside world, but rather, looking to new forms of artistic expression unrelated to the "real world". High art was more concerned with: the process, intention, or concept, of the artwork itself more than the subject matter.

Franz Kline, untitled, 1957


Mark Rothko, "White Center", 1950


Pop Art
Pop Art rejected the intellectualism and elitism of the Abstract Expressionists. Pop Artists immersed themselves in the popular imagery and casual attitudes of the "Throw-away" society. Taking their ideas from magazines, advertising, comics and everyday objects of mid-20th century consumer culture, but also the industrial processes that produced them.

Richard Hamilton, "Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?", 1956


Robert Indinas, "LOVE", 1963



Soviet Art
Under Josef Stalin, all forms of Modernism were officially banned in the Soviet Union -- even the music of Debussy and Stravinsky was considered "undemocratic Western decadence" by the Soviet officials. The Soviet artists of this time were utterly discouraged from any form of self-expression; instead they were required to create art that upheld Communist ideals and celebrated the USSRs achievements.

I have a personal love of Soviet Sculpture ...it is mostly total propaganda, but it is grandiose and powerful ...and ironically, despite rejecting Western Modernism, can now be understood more in the context of Postmodernism.

Russian Monument to Space flight. It is made from titanium.