A Different Road

(NYIAS)

One of my votes this year is for Lincoln.  Often enough Cadillac's less-attractive twin brother, they have at times held their own over the years.  I personally love some of the high, sharp, boxy things they did in the 1970s when Cadillac was getting progressively less regal.  

I definitely can't say this was one of the most beautiful of the concept cars.  But all the major manufacturers seem to more or less go in the same stylistic directions.  This year: imposing, muscular front-ends that look angry and mean.

Lincoln's offering really stood apart from them, though, with a look that I found to be quite distinctive, and that's what I liked about it.  This is the MKT Concept:

There's something about the back-end profile that looks peculiarly Lincoln to me, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

It can run on either gasoline or ethanol, and can switch back and forth, but gets 415hp, fairly impressive.

The interior is quite suave, as well, with beautiful swooping lines and extremely interesting detailing.  It has an almost entirely glass roof back to about midway of the back seat (which seems disturbingly dangerous to me, but what do I know):

If you click and look very closely at that second image, you may see this really interesting Baroque detail etched into the door-handles.  That screen behind the front passenger seat at the press of a button swivels up around and hides in the ceiling.  There are cameras aimed at all the passengers for video conferencing.

©2008, Ryan Witte

Cozy Consumer

Here's another amazing item from Citizen:Citizen.

Click this:

"The American Comfort Quilt" by Bradley Price & Joel Yatscoff

From their press release:

This handmade art piece, a limited series of ten, includes 58 logos of mass-market retailers, fast food chains and other corporations that participate in the creation of the contemporary North American identity and condition. Iconic North American brands such as these give us both comfort and identity, yet we feel ambivalent or even negative toward their hegemony over our cultural and economic landscape. It is the problematic balance between familiarity and alienation which this quilt seeks to examine.

With today’s increasingly fractured social fabric, it is now brands that give us a feeling of collective identity, heritage, and continuity, gradually taking over the role that family and cultural heritage once held. Our identities are no longer defined by our ancestors and our traditions so much as by multinational corporations who shape our personas through advertising and product placement. The traditional American quilt serves as a living family document, surrounding us both physically and emotionally with the events and the people who came before us. This quilt forces us to question the cultural legacy we are passing along to the next generation.

Joel Yatscoff states, “…this is a very topical product that questions the effects of consumerism in North America. We were very interested in playing with the dichotomy between the comfort and suspicions brands produce. Throughout North American history, quilts have had a tradition of stitching together family history so it seemed to us a natural medium to document these shifting cultural values.”

Ryan Witte

Industry Booms

(ADHDS)

Ghislain Antiques is based out of Saint-Ouen (about 100 miles southwest of Paris), but also has a shop in Stamford, CT.

Overall, they seem to specialize in big, beefy antiques, like big, soft, brown leather club chairs, or this Henry II table:

But more interesting is the majority of their finds seems to be taken from old factories and warehouses, and has an extremely industrial kind of aesthetic.  Here's a low, early-20th-Century table which would make a great coffee table:

These kinds of items have obviously proven popular, and I can see why, myself--I think that's ridiculously cool (although in my NYC apartment, I'd need something a little bit more light and airy--or at least easier to move around).

The representative at the booth was explaining to me, though, that many of the trappings of a present day home can't really be found in a century-old factory.  They'd have no reason to have bookshelves in an environment like that, he pointed out to me, motioning to this piece behind him:

So that's a new piece.  They have a whole selection of pieces in steel to fill in this gap, but still look like they once lived in an old factory building.  

Here's a new coffee table in that vein:

And here's a new dining table and chairs:

 

The table may not be for everyone, and I'd even suggest an entire room furnished this way could get a bit oppressive.  But as I've often said elsewhere, with a few light, delicate items mixed in for contrast and relief, I think this could be gorgeously dramatic, so robust, and at the same time, wonderfully unpretentious.  With a table hinting at being a factory work-surface, one wonders if dinner guests would begin to work as a well-oiled team--more efficiently passing the mashed potatoes and green beans.

 

The chairs are a bit problematic, because they're extremely heavy.  Especially if you're sitting on a rug, you're not going to be able to stand up and just bump the chair out from underneath you with your legs, in fact, it probably wouldn't even budge.  They're not going to treat an antique rug all that kindly, and they'd likely scratch the you-know-what out of a fine wood floor.  I asked the designer if he'd ever thought to use aluminum, thinking he could get essentially the same look at half the weight or so.  He said no, because it's not strong enough of a metal, but I still believe a few adjustments in the design to accommodate a lighter material would make these much more practical.  Nevertheless, the chairs are very comfortable to sit on, and I adore the look of them.

As far as the shelving goes, at first glance one might be inclined to think a collection of fine glassware or heirloom pottery would be served a great injustice arranged on here:

 

I propose exactly the opposite.  First of all, the very delicacy and detail of such a collection would be set into such sharp contrast in a piece like this that their refinement would stand out far more than on some fussy carved wooden china cabinet.  On top of that, the aesthetic of these pieces calls attention to manufacturing, which would highlight the very craft of the pieces on display--why I chose to use hand-thrown pottery as an example.  Subconsciously, the shelving would make a visitor much more aware of how the pieces on it were created.

©2008, Ryan Witte