Joint Effort

A couple of weeks ago we reassembled 32 studio tables, originally built last year to Enzo Mari's Autoprogettazione plans, published in 1974. The open-source, self-design logic and aesthetic uses cheaply available timber (2 x 1) and arrives at an object that, as he says, does not 'seem' but simply 'is'.



During the reassembly, Autoprogettazione Revisited opened at the Architects' Association.



Invited designers have been asked to develop plans for furniture, responding to, yet adapting, the originals in the book. Round-table public discussion next Friday with Himself.



This, however, is a direct translation by AA student Korey Kromm, via Wallpaper.



There was pleasure in the lack of skill required to cut and build such a volume of the tables. But the junction points have a kind of basic certainty, equivalent to, but without the finesse of this beautiful shaker joint, via An Ambitious Project Collapsing.



Some parallel with Max Lamb's stool, for Reference Library / Apartamento Magazine's Everyday Life Objects Shop; and that of the Ulm Stool, shown in a previous post.



As seen at Richard Lamb's The Everyday Life Collector show, during Design Week. Son Max responsible for the shelving. Family resemblance to the stool.



Mr. Lamb was very interesting and welcoming. An RAF man, with 15 years of collecting studio pottery, mostly rooted in Cornwall. His folder-bible of magazine clippings was great. More meaty and indispensible than a blog. Weird time for Ceramics. Beautiful newly refurbished galleries at V&A; threatened courses throughout the UK. At a time when there is so much exciting work.



Such as this, by Jochem De Wit. Saw his work round the corner, also during Design Week.



Back on the joints. Allan Wexler's Crate House (1991). Out of my most-treasured, now-hard-to-get, twice-lost-and-found book, Custom Built (as designed by Daniel Eatock and Andrew Blauvelt. Wexler's vocabulary is 2 x 1 timber...



... and 8 x 4 sheet. Permutation out of limitation. Often with misalignments and overlaps highlighted in a flat colour paint.



The almost-isometry and jointed configurations above, call to mind Oscar Reutersvärd's Impossible Figures (via Galleri Bergström).




Immortalised as Swedish stamps in 1982, with granular, hatched tints that, for me, surpass the flat washes of the originals.



Finally, Sam Windett's Cup with Sticks 2 (2008), via The Approach. Somehow fusing the structures and vessels above.



Sorry- also Claire Barclay's Untitled (2007), via Stephen Friedman gallery. If you can, go see her work. Rewards you if you stand back. And if you look very close.