Why Settle for a Toaster When You Could Have a Work of Art?
When it comes to everyday objects, San Diego architects tend to see the world as their own “Nightmare on Elm Street.”
Where you see a refrigerator, they see a formless white abomination. A rear-view mirror with a minor flaw seems as blatant to them as Frankenstein’s scar.
“I’m constantly re-designing cars on the freeway,” said architect John Nalevanko, a man obsessed to the extent that he does much of the furniture for his houses. “American cars seem to follow in the footsteps of European. I’d like to see the American designers more in the forefront. Even the Ford Taurus, a reasonably good design, is reminiscent of an Audi.”
Car Lines Irritating
When shopping for a new car recently, Nalevanko considered a Taurus, but the back window had an extra flap detail that annoyed him. Ford’s new Probe also appealed to him, but he couldn’t stand the way the side-view mirror joins the triangular piece at the front edge of the window opening. He bought a Honda Civic.
For Nalevanko, everyday annoyances don’t stop at cars.
“We had trouble finding a clean, white mini-refrigerator for the office,” he said. “Everything seemed to have wood-grain walnut on it. I hate that stuff.”
Architect William Smith agrees. “Plastic wood grain bothers me more than anything--on dashboards, ovens, microwaves. I was driving an American car my dad paid a lot of money for, and it had that plastic wood grain on the dash,” Smith said. “I was trying to explain why he doesn’t need that stuff. He owned a Chevy dealership for years, and the clientele just wasn’t educated as to good design.”
It’s not so much the idea that the stuff is phony that bothers Smith. It’s that you can tell it’s phony.
Fake wood grain isn’t the only thing that mars the kitchen experience for designers.
“The one single item that’s ugly is the corn holder,” said Pili Muller-Eberhard, a designer and the owner of a La Jolla shop called Pili, which specializes in well-designed objects. She would like to see an aesthetically pleasing replacement for the little yellow plastic handles.
Brooms Not Much Better
American brooms don’t exactly sweep her away, either. She considered importing a beautiful, sleek black broom from Spain, but shipping costs were prohibitive.
Architects stress the importance of marrying form to function.
“My idea is that you should live with your little things,” Muller-Eberhard said. “I’m against people buying delicate, gorgeous things they only use once a year.”
Three architects put Mont Blanc pens at the top of their list of well-designed, functional everyday objects, even though these luxury writing utensils hardly carry an everyday price.
Explained architect Marc Tarasuck: “Mine is big and bulky. It’s like holding a cigar. It helps build confidence when you’re drawing. Cross pens are too thin and feminine. I use the Mont Blanc for both writing and sketching.”
At $400 to $500, the pen ought to be well-designed.
When architect Janice Kay Batter goes shopping for detergent, she doesn’t just see plastic bottles. She stares down rows of misshapen containers. She buys Joy, but not for the bottle.
“There are others that are better designed for your hand,” she said. “Unfortunately, they haven’t put the right soap in the right bottle yet.”
Good doormats are scarce, Kay Batter said.
“I have clients who send back to New York for those clean-looking black rubber ones with the little pointy things on them,” she said.
Consumers are slowly joining architects and designers in the search for well-designed everyday objects.
Housing Money Diverted
Architect Kotaro Nakamura thinks the reason has something to do with outlandish housing costs, especially in California and Japan.
“When affording a house becomes impossible, people transfer that design desire to smaller objects,” he said. “They buy cars, coffee makers, stereos. Those small, well-designed items do especially well in Japan. Their stereos are very high-tech, sleek, compact and well-made.
“Western culture designs things that are very bulky, strong, long-lasting. The Japanese do fragile, sensitive designs.”
Meanwhile, the list of nightmare designs continues.
La Jolla architect David Singer thinks most can openers are about as tasteful as C rations, and that someone ought to devote more time to the look of wall clocks. Nakamura believes doghouse designers have been dogging it. So he designed his own. Davis hates most wallpaper patterns and thinks many camera designs don’t click.
On the other hand, some Rolodexes, egg beaters and staple guns succeed at performing their tasks while looking reasonably good, the architects report.
Obsessed architects and designers give strange bedfellows to the nation’s museums. Not far from the Matisse show at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, there’s a permanent case full of everyday objects. It includes an Italian bicycle, several chairs, a pair of ski boots, an Italian pocket calculator, and an attache case.
For the common man, well-designed objects are only a pipe dream. The cost can be outlandish, and, until Sears or K mart hires Michael Graves or a team of designers, some of us can only drool. But, as New York Times columnist Paul Goldberger once observed, not all great designs are costly.
If you want a work of genius that costs only pennies, try a paper clip.
DESIGN NOTES
The Baltic, the downtown single-room-occupancy hotel designed by Rob Quigley, is included in Progressive Architecture’s October report on low-income housing. Meanwhile, Quigley is working on plans for his third SRO, with developer Chris Mortensen, to be built in the historic Chinese area downtown at 2nd Avenue and Island Street. . . .
The downtown St. Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center, which gives beds to 250 homeless people, will be pictured in the November issue of Architectural Record, according to Father Joe Carroll. It was designed by Mark Bucon and Fred DeSanto of Krommenhoek McKeown. . . .
Dick Friedson’s design for an Imperial Beach senior citizens’ center, which won a coveted Honor Award from Progressive Architecture last year, began construction last week. . . .
