Completed in 1972 by architect Kisho Kurokawa, Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower was one of the most radical expressions of Japan’s Metabolist movement. Designed as a living, modular organism, the building consisted of prefabricated capsules meant to be replaced over time — an architecture of flexibility, impermanence, and futurist optimism. In reality, the capsules were never updated. Aging infrastructure, rising maintenance costs, and changing safety standards eventually led to the tower’s closure and demolition in 2022, transforming it from visionary landmark to architectural legend. Continue reading Eye On Design: Nakagin Capsule Tower Commemorative Lamp→
Giorgio de Chirico’s description of New York as a “feverish and dreamy city” finds form in this painting from 1972, Metaphysical Interior in Manhattan. Everyday objects pile into a vaguely human shape within a distorted room that opens onto city skies. The artist founded Metaphysical Painting, a movement that trafficked in the unexpected and irrational.
Photographed in the New York Historical Socially in Manhattan.
Robert Reed (1938 – 2014) considered Plum Nellie, Sea Stone (1972) as a landscape. In it, a clearly defined rectangle of exposed canvas draws the viewer’s eye to the middle of the painting. Bold purple strokes of paint jostle at the rectangle’s sides. The work is part of Reed’sPlum Nellie series, which was exhibited in his solo show at the Whitney in 1973. In addition to referencing its color palette, the title recalls the southern expression “plum nelly.” Reed remembered the phrase to near “damn near,” suggesting that his relationship to abstraction is as much about the process of getting there as it is about arriving at a destination.
An early practitioner of Op Art, a movement that emerged in the mid-1960s and prioritized optical illusionism, Edna Andrade (1917 – 2008) used geometry and color to create abstract interpretations of organic ratios, biological systems, and natural rhythms. Summer Game (1972) features a vibrant palette and an irregular grid that appears to expand and contract, project, and recede, creating a sense of playful, kinetic energy.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
The iconic Bocca Sofa (also unofficially known an the Lips Sofa) was created by the radical Italian design team Studio 65 for the famed Italian manufacturers Gufram back in 1972. Based on an original design by none other than Surrealist Salvador Dali, who took Mae West as his inspiration, Studio 65 looked to that other iconic beauty, Marilyn Monroe, to create this famous sofa. Both Studio 65 and Gufram are known for being places where the art world and design world collided, and their kaleidoscopic fusion of pop art, conceptual art and modernist design reached their zenith with this piece. Continue reading Eye On Design: Bocca Sofa→
