All Photos By Gail
In the 1960s, youth culture asserted itself, changing society’s rhythms of mass production and consumption, and generating a sense of upheaval and freedom. The Pop Art movement emerged, taking inspiration from mass media and the everyday. Bold colors, new material and radical forms characterized the work of artists and designers whose appropriation of the ordinary made brash or ironic statements.
Continue reading Eye On Design: Pillola Lamps By C. Emanuele Ponzio
Tongue Chair on Display at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum (All Photos By Gail)
With its curvilinear form, the Tongue Chair (1967), designed by Pierre Paulin (1927 – 2009) demonstrates the innovative construction methods and synthetics that allowed Paulin to make highly sculptural upholstered furniture in the 1960s. His forms foretell those of plastic furniture in the latter half of the decade.
Tongue Chair Photographed as Part of a Modern Design Display at the Museum of Modern Art
All Photos By Gail
Giambattista Valli (Italian, b. 1966) embodies contemporary couture. His collections blend fantasy with simple, clean lines in garments that are inherently wearable and intensely romantic. Each piece is meticulously crafted, with decadent fabrics and impeccable tailoring. Voluminous, indulgent and chromatically rich, his gowns, such as the feathery tulle ball-gown skirt with piped pajama top (2014) are both extravagant and modern.
Installation View
Couture Skirt Fabric Detail
Photographed as part of the Beauty: Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial Exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in Upper Manhattan
All Photos By Gail
In 1965, Achille Castiglioni (Italian, 1918 – 2002) created Model RR-126, a striking, modular stereo system that was based on pure geometry of a perfect cube, which could be combined in multiple configurations. The wheeled base provides an element of portability, while the graphic patterns of the speaker grilles and sound controls offer a bold, modern visual statement.
Continue reading Eye On Design: Stereo Cabinet By Achille Castiglioni
Photo By Gail
Designed by Rene Paul Chambellan (1893 – 1955) and fashioned from wrought iron and bronze, these gates from the entrance to the Chanin Building’s executive suite, are excellent examples of the important role that metalwork played in defining the art deco style of New York skyscrapers from about 1925 to 1940. The gates’ largely linear, radiating design created an industrially informed aesthetic that was part of the machine-age era.
Photographed in the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York City.