MODERN TIMES

Milan Furniture Fair 2008
The Salone Internazionale del Mobile’s unofficial opening took place on April 15 at Milan’s Palazzo dell’Arte, the 1931 landmark by Giovanni
Muzio, better known as the Triennale di Milano, and now home to the Triennale Design Museum. Reporters and well wishers gathered there to fete “Made in Cassina,” an 80th-anniversary, 135-object survey of the venerable Italian furniture maker.

A neat row of microphone-laden Le Corbusier LC2 chairs promised a stirring introduction, and speeches from a variety of luminaries did not disappoint. How do you improve upon a classic? That was the question posed to Milanese designer Mario Bellini, who spoke about his latest Cassina commission: the Bull chair, an update of his 30-year-old leather-clad Cab chair. From his comments, he appeared to have been genuinely confounded by the task, but the result on display at the fair the following day had the blush of newness: the Bull’s seat is nipped where it meets the back legs to allow for stacking, and handsome topstitching provides a warm contrast to the form’s overall sleekness.

With no one design phenomenon to overwhelm all others, Bellini’s and other designers’ exercises in subtle one-upmanship were among myriad mini-movements announcing themselves. Bartoli Design appeared to have mixed Gerrit Rietveld’s Utrecht and Berlin chairs into the Meet-Me for Segis. With Ligne Roset’s Moël, Inga Sempé channeled the Feltri, the quilted throne that Gaetano Pesce designed for Cassina in 1986. Fabio Novembre produced a kind of perverted Verner Panton chair for Casamania, with its rear molded into the corresponding profile of a woman.
There were also explicit references. Tejo Remy reproduced a smaller-scale version of his You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory drawers in a Droog limited edition of 13. For Fritz Hansen, the artist Tal R conceived 50 different patchwork versions of Arne Jacobsen’s Egg chair. ClassiCon celebrated the centennial of Otto Blümel’s Nymphemburg coat stand, while designs by Tapio Wirkkala and Bruno Munari were reissued by Artek and Porro, respectively.

These backward glances could signal a sudden sobriety in contemporary furniture. The boomtown rainbow that extends from Abu Dhabi to Korea, where many newly wealthy consumers prefer classics, may be shoring up the furniture industry. But the fear of recession also explains the tweaking or reissue of beloved designs.

Some Salone exhibitors offered wow-‘em reprisals of the Big ’80s — an umbrella term for several decades of Pop, Memphis and postmodernism. If many booths were literally whitewashed in good taste, several designs practically jumped into visitors’ faces, thanks to anthropomorphic, architectural, deconstructed or super-scale forms, with audacious color palettes. One stand out was Gufram’s release of Studio 65’s 1970 Bocca sofa with black lipstick and goth-girl piercing. References ranged from the nuanced — Andrée Putman’s tectonic shape and black-and-white checkerboard finish for Bisazza’s Correspondences table — to the hyper-literalness of El Ultimo Grito’s wildly layered tables for Uno Design. The preponderance of objects designed by recently deceased Memphis founder Ettore Sottsass most directly, and bittersweetly, manifested the rebirth of this joyous era. Glas Italia, Serralunga and Emeco all introduced works by Sottsass that were equal parts evocative, functional and delightful. — David Sokol


Another Neutra Masterpiece in Trouble
Between 1932 and 1944, Viennese-American architect Richard Neutra (1892–1970) built a house and offices for himself on Los Angeles’ Silverlake Boulevard, funding it with an interest-free loan from Dutch philanthropist Dr. C.H. van der Leeuw. Neutra named it the VDL Research House, using the three initials of his benefactor’s last name. Designed as housing for three families and office space for the architect, the VDL Research House also served as a test bed for Neutra’s interest in nurturing the human body and mind and facilitating a closeness to nature. It had an open-air courtyard, a sleeping terrace, a solarium and glass walls that folded open, as well as a large separate play space for his three sons. In 1963, after a fire destroyed most of the main house, Neutra collaborated with his son and partner, Dion Neutra (b. 1926), on a redesign, called VDL II. In 1990, Neutra’s wife, Dione, donated the property to the Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design to use as a teaching tool for architecture students. Since then, the house has been the subject of Cal Poly architecture courses for students who also run public tours.

Unfortunately, the house’s endowment has not covered the cost of maintaining the property, which has deteriorated. It will have to be sold, possibly ending its role as a public resource, unless funding can be secured to repair and maintain it. An April 26 fund raiser, held by the Friends of Neutra VDL Research Site in conjunction with the Neutra VDL Advisory Board at Cal Poly, and hosted by actress Kelly Lynch, raised $20,000 towards the $30,000 needed immediately for repairs and insurance, but an additional $2 million endowment is needed to secure the property for the future. To contribute, visit www.neutra-vdl.org/site/appeal-07.asp.– SM