As I write this on a rainy night in Amsterdam, I’m aware that several friends and colleagues are descending upon Miami for Art Basel. While I myself wouldn’t trade the Netherlands for Florida these days, I am curious about the goings on at the Artek pavilion, where 100 used Alvar Aalto chairs are being revived under the title ‘2nd Cycle.’ In so doing, Artek claims to acknowledge the chairs’ previous lives, their unique physical histories as well as the life stories they must have been privy to.

In an early post on this blog, I wrote about a few slow designers whose work is forging new, more intimate connections with the objects that surround us. Certainly, Artek’s presentation of these chairs is a positive step in that direction. But why the title ‘second cycle’?? Surely these pieces aren’t merely on their second go round?

—
Let’s pretend that one day you see a Paimio chair in my living room and ask me about it. It’s possible that I value this chair primarily as design object– like those pieces that so many people have in their homes these days— and, if so, I might not have a lot to say about it beyond its physical attributes, what I know of its design history, or perhaps where I bought it.

But consider instead that the chair had been in my family for a while. Then I might have a lot more to tell you: “Oh, this was once my grandfather’s chair. When I was a small child, he sat in it every evening and smoked his pipe. Often he told stories while I played at his feet. Even now I sometimes curl up in it and imagine the scent of apple tobacco.” In that statement, you understand that the chair is much more than just a design object in my home; rather, it has a unique and lasting presence or expression in my lifeworld. What’s more, I’m certain that the chair carries a different presence/expression in the life of my mother, just as it may one day in the life of my own grandchild. In my family alone, that chair embodies or carries the potential for multiple cycles of expression.

Now let us return to these ‘2nd cycle’ chairs in the Artek pavilion. While this may be the second time that Artek has them in its care, I’m quite certain that their history of expression goes well beyond whatever is imbedded in those rfid tags. And so I hope that in the frenzy of the fair people will slow down long enough to look up from their mobile phones and imagine those other possibilities.

:)

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 00:37 and is filed under Design, Miami 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.