Design Talks

Observations on design

Brave new word: Reflections on 2019, predictions for 2020

Posted on January 4, 2020 by Nargess

Needless to say, it has been a turbulent introductory decade to the new millennium with so much profound change and so many challenges ahead. Yet, even as dark as it is politically around the world, and hopeless as it feels with our planet’s health and our people’s happiness, we may have climbed the steepest part. Joan Didion wrote, ‘I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means.’ Great words. I’ve been writing most of my life, and the decade gone has been the most challenging and possibly exciting. In particular, the last twelve months have pushed me to explore beyond my comfort zone and to stay focused despite the chaos that surrounds us. It is equally terrifying and thrilling visiting new people and places, discovering new ideas and worlds that shift the mindset – question the dogmas.

Citroen Ami One provides a new concept for shared transport electric cars — Citroen’s futuristic electric car Ami One

So, what have I learned? Our lives may not look quite the dystopian vision pictured by the 1980s films ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘Running Man’. Many of us live in homes with doors and windows and refrigerators, and still, drive rectangular cars with four wheels and a conventional engine. But our homes and refrigerators and cars talk to one another and with bigger forces. And, in the way these plots predicted, corrupt elites around the world are gaining power over hopeless populations through media manipulation. The films all have happy endings though.

Extinction Rebellion at the V&A uses bold graphics that are universally understood

This year I met visionary artists, architects, designers, scientists, musicians who are collectively pushing their creative forces to find better solutions for how we live, drive, learn, wear, eat. I drove some conventional motor cars, relics of a bygone era, almost dinosaurs unwilling to give up pleasure when it is clearly killing our planet. I met self-congratulating architects and designers reluctant to part with their egos, still creating work with little social relevance. But then, I also experienced hugely progressive design – community-building, socially-engaged housing projects, and transport ideas envisaged and created by generations embracing change.

Lautre riveimpressions cyanotypes disparaissant progressivement à la lumière du soleil,Irak, Syrie, Turquie, Grèce, Allemagne, Danemark, France, 2011-2017. — Émeric Lhuisset’s ‘L’autre rive’ depicts scenes of the sea where many migrants vanish

Look beyond the headlines and there is much progress out these. Women in art and design are finally getting noticed – as was evident in the number of powerful exhibitions dedicated to lost females of creativity. Vehicles coming off production lines are cleaner, safer and smarter. They may not conjure up the immediate visceral joy of the motor car in its golden age, but why should that matter? Why can’t they instead have their own language to express the new era of clean transport – this brighter future ahead of us. There is huge visceral joy in that. Likewise, with the global population expected to increase to 9.8 billion by 2050, we have to rethink urban planning, architecture, and design, examine health (physical and mental), produce and food, work towards a green economy. And there is excitement in all this. We need to step outside the nostalgia lane and shift our attitudes.

Goldsmith-Street — Mikhail Riches Architects, Cathy Hawley’s RIBA Sterling Prize-winning social housing project

Which brings me to another subject which will increasingly shape the world in this coming decade: movement and migration. Kwame Anthony Appiah writes, ‘cultures are made of continuities and changes, and the identity of a society can survive through these changes. Societies without change aren’t authentic; they’re just dead.’ Towards the final days of the 2010s, I met with a visual artist concerned with the narrative given to the refugee. I am always amazed at how a term, a simple word, can alter the image of a displaced people: émigré, migrant, immigrant, refugee – the first carries such romantic notions, the last such demons. Émeric Lhuisset’s work is a critique of a global culture where facts and truths are in danger of losing all meaning. He offers an alternative story to media photography of war and migrants, with its immediate yet temporary digital age shock value. His is about the power of a photograph, of art to influence humanity’s collective consciousness.

Michael Anastassiades: A Fountain for London — Michael Anastassiades’s ‘A Fountain for London’ are site-specific drinking water fountains

My predictions for 2020? There are huge challenges ahead of us as we figure out how to balance the physical and digital world – how much of our privacy and freedom to give away for security, how to shift our attitude and lifestyle to help better this world, how to be more generous with ourselves and our skills, and towards our planet. And we all need to be involved and be held accountable. Too many rely on others to make things happen. And we need a certain amount of optimism. I am convinced more than ever that, to borrow from the words of another great female Louise bourgeois, ‘art is the guarantee of sanity’. Here’s to a new decade of possibilities.

Take a look at my articles in Forbes Life and Wallpaper*.

New books celebrate the Bauhaus centenary and its legacy

Posted on March 20, 2019 by Nargess

I attended an art and design foundation course much like the famous Vorkurs run by Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy, a year-long requirement for all new Bauhaus students before they could progress to study in a specific workshop. In a similar way to how the Bauhauslers ran the famous art school a century ago, mine was a place that taught experimentation and encouraged abstraction, tasking us to find our own unique solutions. And it happened to be the finest year of my formal education. The specialist art school that proceeded, failed entirely to capture my imagination, lacking the free spirit, the magical weirdness of that original school. So, I left my paints, clay, tools and camera, and took up writing.

‘To have the gift of imagination is more important than all technology,’ wrote Gropius, reflecting the spiritual origin of the school he founded. And as the Bauhaus celebrates 100, a series of publications aim to explore the enduring legacy of this modest art school founded in 1919 in the quiet town of Weimar. Some are assessing the impact of the Bauhaus post 1933, as Bauhauslers emigrated to England and America and beyond. Others have re-published some of the original Bauhaus journals and documents. Together they tell a compelling story of the most famous school of design – a place of collective dialogues, progressive ideology, imagination and creative madness.

The Bauhaus was formed in response to the crisis and devastation following the first world war. It represented a collective voice desperate to forge a new world order. It was and remains so much more than an art school – it represents a significant cultural movement. The Bauhauslers championed the power of imagination and freedom of expression. They believed strongly in bringing the art of craft to industry, embracing architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity. They explored utopian ideas, celebrated the avant-garde and encouraged free love and creative madness – sometimes to the extreme. And long after they were forced to shut down, pressured by the Nazis who saw the progressive ways a threat after assuming power in 1933, as émigrés in London and Paris and New York, their dissident voices continued to be heard.

The first of the series of books takes us back in time for insight into the teachings, ideas and philosophies of the Bauhaus when it was alive with discussion in Weimar, Dessau and then Berlin. Lars Müller has collaborated with Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung for ‘Bauhaus Journals 1926-1931’ with edited voices of the key figures of the modern movement in art and design. Josef Albers, Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Gerrit Rietveld – all feature in this stimulating publication.

They address developments in and around the Bauhaus, the methods and focal points of their own teaching, and current projects of students and masters. The exact replica of all individual issues is accompanied by a commentary booklet including an overview of the content, an English translation of all texts, and a scholarly essay to place the journal in its historical context.

Accompanying this are four beautifully-republished journals from the ‘Bauhausbücher’ series, all in their original design. ‘International Architecture’ was the first to start the series with the school founder Gropius offering an illustrative lesson on the theories of the modern architecture movement of the mid-1920s. In ‘Pedagogical Sketchbook’ artist Klee expresses key aspects of the Bauhaus’ guiding philosophies, writing of his desire to reunite artistic design and craft in a tone that moves between the seeming objectivity of the diagram, the rhetoric of science and mathematics, and an abstract intuition.

Third in the series by Lars Müller is ‘New Design’ by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. He begins with a philosophical foray describing art as a figurative expression of human existence, questioning the prevailing hierarchy between painting and architecture, observing the future of his movement, neoplasticism – abstract painting which used only horizontal and vertical lines and primary colours. Lastly, ‘Painting, Photography, Film’ by Moholy-Nagy argues for photography and filmmaking to be recognised as a means of artistic design on the same level as painting. With some fascinating illustrations, the Hungarian makes the case for a functional transformation within the visual arts and for the further development of photographic design options.

All this was before 1933. With the closure of the Bauhaus school, most of its prominent members left Germany in search for new homes, and new schools to teach. They took with them their ideologies, which in turn evolved and changed with their new destinations. Two books explore this post-Bauhaus journey.

‘Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain’ by Batsford narrates the brilliant story of the giants of the international modern movement – Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, Breuer – and their brief émigré life in Hampstead, London before they moved to America. The story centres around the Isokon, the building by architect Wells Coats, where they lived and where they collectively pioneered concepts of minimal and shared living. Isokon’s apartments, restaurant and bar became a creative hub for writers and artists and designers in the 1930s and 40s. Authors Leyla Daybelge and Magnus Englund paint a colourful portrait of the notorious dinners here, as the Bauhauslers party and discuss advancing the world alongside local creatives – Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Peter and Alison Smithson, even Agatha Christie was a guest here.

Thames & Hudson’s ‘Bauhaus Goes West’ also explores the cultural exchange between these émigrés and their new adopted homelands. The general idea is that England wasn’t receptive to the avant-garde in 1933 – possibly a concept backed by the fact that there are few early projects of significance made here. Much like what we learn in the Isokon, author Alan Powers also challenges this notion, suggesting there was a provocative dialogue between the Bauhauslers and local young leaders of opinion here, namely Nicholas Pevsner and Herbert Read. The book follows their journey onto America, where the Bauhaus titans really flourish. Gropius prospers at the Harvard architecture school, Breuer gets to design great monumental buildings, Moholy-Nagy sets up a new Bauhaus school in Chicago, as husband and wife team Anni and Josef Albers shine at the brilliant liberal Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

We will never know if the Bauhaus would have such an ongoing impact on generations of creatives had the school not been forced to close in 1933. Yet what’s clear is that the discussions initiated in this small school of art and design in Weimar in 1919 evolved and enriched through a broader, international dialogue with artists and designers and philosophers and writers from London to Paris, New York, Tel Aviv and beyond. What is also clear is that the creative community could benefit from revisiting these journals, reading some of the ideas being weaved at a time that also was in the midst of crisis. As we navigate a new world, assessing how we can design for a more efficient and fairer world, we should tap into the spirit of this progressive movement – this school of thought.

Nargess Banks

All images are strictly © Lars Müller. From the ‘Bauhaus Journals 1926 – 1931’, edited and published Lars Müller and Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung; and the re-published journals from the ‘Bauhausbücher’ series (1926-1931)

Japan House London presents ‘Prototyping in Tokyo’ to illustrate design-led innovation

Posted on January 17, 2019 by Nargess

‘I’m told there is something Japanese in my prototyping,’ says professor Yamanaka Shunji, ‘that it has this “Japanese style”’, he smiles as he guides us around ‘Prototyping in Tokyo: Illustrating Design-led Innovation’ (until 17 March, 2019). The design engineer and University of Tokyo professor continues: ‘I don’t go about trying to be so, but perhaps there is something in the attitude that is Japanese.’

We are at the latest exhibition in Japan House London. Exhibited on long floating white tables, in this minimalist basement gallery of the deco building, are examples of objects showing the possibilities of advanced design and engineering in positively shaping our future. Perhaps it is the meticulousness of this collection, the earnestness of each object on display, as well as the modest presentation of the creator which makes the show distinctly Japanese in style.

‘Prototyping in Tokyo’ takes on three main themes: additive manufacturing, bio-likeness robots and prosthetics. The first looks at prototyping and rapidly evolving technologies like 3D printing which allow engineers and designers to create infinitely more complex structures in a fraction of a time it would take to do this otherwise.

Bio-likeness robots proposes adding life-like motion and behaviour to typically mechanical metal-and-motor robots. Yamanaka has therefore injected the impression of intelligence to these man-made objects. For example, the robot ‘Apostroph’ examines mechanisms that allow living organisms to stand. Or ‘Ready to Crawl’ are a series of working robots, created to be fully formed just like a living thing. This means all the various parts were created and fully-assembled simultaneously, with form and movement closely mirroring living species. The professor moves his hands across the sensors and one by one these intricate little robots come alive. We are encouraged to touch and interact with select displays, to feel the structures and textures of the future.

The final section feels like the area closest to impacting on reality. Prosthetics presents various interpretations of elements of the human body – limbs etc – and the advantages of working with 3D printing in terms of speed and accuracy of construction. For instance, ’Rabbit’ are a series of bespoke prostheses designed for competitive running. They are made to measure for Takakuwa Saki, the Japanese Paralympics athlete who is now part of the development team at the Yamanaka’s laboratory.

He is keen to also show how new tech can advance old tech. For this the professor takes on the karakuri ningyo automaton, popular puppets that perform continuous movements, yet their clothing traditionally hides the clever mechanics beneath. Yamanaka wants to highlight the beauty of the machinery, commissioning a ninth-generation master craftsman to make a doll of bare mechanics as the wooden ‘Young Archer’ plucks an arrow out of the quiver, notches it to the bow, and shoots.

‘Prototyping in Tokyo’ is a glimpse into the future with a touch of the present. This is about exploring the potential of prototypes to act as a link between cutting-edge technology and society. These 3D printed objects, moving mini robots and prosthetics offer a human touch to machinery. This is warm tech – technology not made for the ego, but for progressing life.

Yamanaka returns to his initial statement: ‘A professor from the US described his understanding of “Japanese style”, as the fusion of organic and machine-made. Although what I am doing is simply searching for the common ground between science and beauty.’

Images © Kato Yasushi and Shimizu Yukio. In order: ‘Apostroph’ explores the act of standing; ‘Ready to Crawl’ mini robots with natural movements; ‘Rami’ – additively manufactured running specific prosthetics; ‘Archer on a Boat’ skeletal automation

Best new books on architecture and design for 2018

Posted on December 19, 2018 by Nargess

Once-upon-a-time design theory was considered art history’s inferior sibling – a bit of a side-subject. When in 1989 Terence Conran and Stephen Bayley opened the doors to the cubic white Design Museum at Shad Thames, it was such a revelation. Finally, the applied arts were given a platform to talk. Some years later I recall my excitement at discovering a university course in Design History that promised to dissect and analyse the subject in the context of social history and wider ideologies.

Now, design is everywhere. The Design Museum has moved to a bigger place in Kensington, the V&A’s exhibitions challenge design in all directions, whilst the Barbican is instigating dialogues between art, design, creativity, music, dance. When I first began writing, and my work took on the motor car, discussing design in the context of the automotive world was considered novel. All this has changed, and it is a great time to be involved in analysing the world of design. To reflect the trend, publishers now offer a grand choice of design books. Some can be a touch superficial; then again, a seasoned hunter will find plenty of excellent, thought-provoking, and at times beautifully-bound books to relax the festive weeks away. Here are my recent finds.

California Captured, published by Phaidon, brings together the work of the brilliant photographer Marvin Rand. Los Angeles was a kind of utopian dream in the mid-twentieth century. The sunny southern Californian city had attracted a progressive set – experimental filmmakers, independent artists, writers and patrons of design came here for it offered freedom of expression. This coupled with urban growth and industrial expansion led to a period of exceptional architectural innovation. Rand captured this spirit. Throughout the post-war period, the native Angeleno photographed the buildings of Richard Neutra, Craig Ellwood, John Lautner, Louis Kahn, Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolph Schindler. He also played a crucial role in helping shape the mid-century Californian modern style – all of which is explored in this stylish book.

Also by Phaidon, Designed in the USSR: 1950-1989, created in collaboration with Moscow Design Museum, is an account of life under Communist rule told through the design of everyday objects, graphics, illustration and advertising. The images here, selected largely from the Museum’s collection, tell the compelling story of design behind the Iron Curtain.

Modernist Design Complete is comprehensive study of last century’s progressive movement. Published by Thames & Hudson, this impressive hardback brings together most facets and scales of design under a single volume to present the vast breadth of towering and lesser-known figures within modernism. This lavishly-illustrated book reveals unexpected connections and aims to form new insights. Elsewhere by the same publisher, The Iconic House features over 100 of the world’s most important and influential residential homes designed and built since 1900. International in scope and wide-ranging in style, each has a unique approach that makes it radical for its time.

Then a trio of architectural books take on a more academic position. Le Corbusier: The Buildings, is a comprehensive survey of the work of the modernist pioneer. The features his vast body of work – the early Swiss villas, his mid-career buildings, his role as the first global architect to venture out to Argentina and Russia, his late contributions including the extensive civic plan of Chadigarh in India – an unforgettable place to visit. With an authoritative text by scholar and curator Jean-Louis Cohen, the book reveals the creative evolution and global breadth of a great practitioner, theorist and evangelist of modernist architecture.

Santiago Calatrava: Drawing, Building, Reflecting is an intimate publication in which the celebrated Spanish architect reflects on the nature of the his work’s imagination and reveals the breadth of his influences. The architect’s words and thoughts are extensively illustrated with photographs of his buildings and drawings from his private sketchbooks, work rarely seen outside his studio. Elsewhere, Kengo Kuma, Complete Works records the work of the acclaimed Japanese architect. It features Kuma’s thirty projects, including the brilliant V&A Dundee. There are personal and architectural reflections on each project alongside specially commissioned photography and detailed drawings. An essay by Kenneth Frampton frames Kuma’s work in the context of post-war Japan’s flourishing architecture scene.

Social Design is a timely book – a survey of architects and designers hoping to make a positive impact on society. Published by Lars Müller, the 27 projects featured here look at cityscape and countryside, housing, education and work, production, migration, networks and the environment. They are framed by three research studies that trace the historical roots and foundations of social design and look at today’s theoretical discourse and future trends. Projects here include Fairphone, Little Sun by Olafur Eliasson and Frederik Ottesen, and Shigeru Ban’s Paper Emergency Shelters.

Radical Essex follows a similar theme. It sets out to reveal another side to the county at the edge of London that has been a victim of crude stereotyping. The book captures the raw rural beauty and the radical spirit of Essex. It features some excellent finds – the 1960s student halls at the University of Essex in Colchester, the bungalows at Silver End at Braintree, built by Francis Crittall and fitted with his famous steel frames, London Underground stations designer Charles Holden’s cottages near Maldon, and there is the brilliant white crop of International Style houses at Frinton-on-Sea.

Lastly, another relevant design book delves into the approaching age of sustainable mobility. The Current – New Wheels for the Post-Petrol Age by Gestalten takes a closer look at some of the pioneers of eco mobility, introducing a selection of the more inspired products and concepts to include vehicles with two, three or four wheels. The combination offers an interesting glimpse into what to expect from a new generation of creatives in the next decade.

Japan House London presents ‘Subtle’ to salute paper art

Posted on November 28, 2018 by Nargess

Paper is alive. Paper breathes. Paper is ever-evolving, changing conceptually and physically with time. Paper can be moulded, manipulated, sculpted. It can be decorative, functional, seductive, argumentative. It can even deceive. ‘Subtle: Delicate or Infinitesimal’ at Japan House London explores the possibilities of paper.

The show is curated and directed by Kenya Hara, the gallery’s global chief creative director and art director at Muji. The display is subtle, modest even, set within the building’s clean and clear deco beauty. It begs you to walk up, take an intimate look at these delicate objects and read the accompanying text which adds intrigue. For instance, the Origata Design Institute writes alongside its exhibit: ‘The act of folding paper – once you fold, you cannot return to the original state… but then you create structure and entrust your feelings onto paper.’

‘Subtle’ follows a successful run at Japan House’s other galleries in Los Angeles and São Paulo. The idea originates from the Takeo Paper Show, which began in Tokyo in 1965 as a way of engaging artists, challenging them to find new potentials for paper. Fifteen creatives living and working in Japan are on show here. They come from a diverse set of disciplines too – art, animation, architecture, fashion, graphic design and literature – each introducing their very own unique layer to this intriguing paper narrative. It reminds us of the value of the material, whilst highlighting the delicate craft of paper art in a modern light.

Read about the previous exhibitions at Japan House.