Since my last car post was about something so expensive, I thought I'd switch gears. Of course I love to see all the crazy stuff I'm not likely to be able to drive any time soon, but I can be a realist, also. If I were legitimately going to purchase a car, for the price, I'd have to say I'd be looking at Mazda. I also like the Chryslers a lot in this range, and of course I'd want to test drive a few things, but I really do like Mazda's styling.
Since I've gotten my Zipcar account, I've been trying to choose a different model each time I go out. I did get a Mazda the first time. More recently I drove a Kia Soul. It was a nice enough looking car and nice enough to drive, but I couldn't get past the miserably huge blind spots. I once got into a minor accident merging lanes on the highway (which I still don't think was my fault), so I'm particularly paranoid about that.
I did say that if you're going to spend the money on a Rolls, you deserve something that looks like it costs that much. At the same time, I can't put my finger on how they do it exactly, but the cheapest cars just look cheap. Mostly I'm thinking of the bland sedans offered by Toyota and Ford, the magnificent new Mustang notwithstanding. It's as if they strip the cars of every last detail that could make them remotely interesting. They're about as boring as they could possibly be at best, at worst their design is ugly and awkward.
And I'm actually confused as to why they do it. That is to say, what marketing goal do they hope to accomplish? I've seen some concepts from them and some design drawings that were really not bad at all. What demographic is turned on by this? But maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Maybe the consumer they hope to attract doesn't want to be turned on, because something that turns you on can't possibly be a "sensible" purchase.
Since we just had Fashion Week, I'll use a clothing analogy. We all know someone who can say with the ultimate sincerity that they do not care about clothes. He or she is most often found in jeans and a t-shirt, a plain white one preferably, or something they got for free. Seemingly, very little thought went into their choices and it's purely a matter of luck whether he or she is matched or mismatched. I find this whole notion to be terribly oxymoronic and even self-deluded. The operative word here is "choices." A hundred different choices were required for the resulting jeans and t-shirt outfit, the same amount of choices as for any other outfit. Faded boot-cut button-fly, not pegged stretch acid-wash with too many zippers: choice. Red flannel shirt, not bomber jacket: choice.
Even the person who tells his or her significant other to purchase something at the store that will fit them--beyond that he or she "doesn't care"--is making a wardrobe choice, the choice being that the other person knows what will look good on them and will get it. "Something that will fit" is yet another choice, as opposed to too tight or too baggy, and plenty of people do both.
I'd like to say to these people: you're still making all the same choices the rest of us are, you still have to do the work making those decisions, why not just make better choices or more interesting ones? It isn't passively "not caring," it's actively presenting the appearance of not caring.
So why do people choose the automobile equivalent of jeans and a t-shirt? The purchase of a car is a much bigger commitment than an outfit, so it can't give the appearance of a thoughtless decision. Do they want to attract as little attention to themselves as they can? Or do they want their car to look as much like everyone else as it can? It's a person who presumably wants their car to say to the world, "I'm just a normal person with a normal car, nothing flashy, nothing distinct, nothing special about it or me." Or maybe they simply have bad taste. Who are these people?
This is not to say that the Mazdas are so other-worldly or loud, especially compared to something like the Spyker Aileron. And I will have to say that their interiors leave plenty to be desired. They really need to get an interior designer who can keep pace with their exterior designers. The insides of them can be quite clunky and mostly unattractive. But for a relatively inexpensive car, I think they have a lot of character. They didn't actually unveil anything new this year, except for a new version of the Mazda2, their minicar, with few, if any, improvements. The MX-5 Miata filled an untapped niche and remains a very sweet little car, but it's more or less looked the same since it came on the market. I never did get around to discussing them last year as I'd planned, and I have more to say on the subject now.
Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Here are some early drawings for the Mazda3:
The first thing to notice here is that, aside from some not unexpected stylization in the drawings and a little bit of an overzealous curvaceousness on the front end, this really doesn't look all that significantly different than what came off of their assembly line. For the ways in which it does, I still don't think they lost much of what made this early design concept interesting. All I can say is that they must have someone up top making decisions who has some guts, because their designs are not being watered down for the lowest common denominator like so many other manufacturers do.
Here's an early computer rendering:
Now those three parallel lines at the back end--window, shoulder, and tail--create a really great moment. But the fantastic thing about this is that the final production model is actually nicer and more interesting than this concept. Obviously in these early stages, they just want to work out the basic profile. It's truly a testament to the talent of their design team that as they start adding more of the necessary details to what will be the final product, they don't screw it up along the way.
Here's the Mazda3, and if I'm not mistaken, I believe this was the one I rented:
Here's their CX-7 wagon/minivan crossover:
It's not the best thing they offer, but for what it is, I think its very well done. I especially like how, although it is clearly higher and bulkier, it very much manages to stand like a bulked-up car, rather than a squashed-down van. I also think using a bit of a sharper prow and a smoothed-over back end was a smart move. It makes it feel sleeker and less cumbersome.
Mazda has always done a sports car well. My teacher in fifth grade had an RX-7. He was the kind of guy you'd imagine didn't realize that Disco had died, or if he did, he wished it hadn't. But I thought that was one seriously cool car. Even looking back now, I still think it was incredibly well designed.
Here's the gorgeous Shinari Concept from a couple years ago:
The one we can own is the RX-8. In my opinion it's one of the best designed cars I saw at the show in this relatively reasonable price range.
Normally I much, much prefer a car without all the spoilers and scoops and ground effects. The Lamborghini Countach, for a great example, is absolutely exquisite without them and with them is a complete mess. Why anyone would buy a car like that and then ruin it with all that extra crap is beyond me. The RX-8, on the other hand, is helped by a few added details. The ground work gives it a more solid stance and gives its contours a little bit of needed sharpness.
It also helps to amplify one of the best things about the design: the contrast between the wide, flat, angular front end and the smooth, tapered, upturned back end. They knew what they were doing, too. The front wheel wells and headlights, as well as the taillights and the back of the roof line all work so well with the overall profile. Granted, it's not a Ferrari, but I think this is a great car.
©2010, Ryan Witte
Terminal 6: The Sundrome (Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners, 1971)
Sundrome is another fairly cool name for a terminal, although I'll admit I don't know exactly what it means. It was a project begun by the Port Authority in 1959 to house a number of different airlines. When it was finally completed over a decade later, it became the home of National Airlines. The latest tenant, of course, was jetBlue, but they've since abandoned the Sundrome for T5.
--All JFK photos ©2010, Ryan Witte, unless otherwise noted.The building was the result of a competition. Wallace Harrison was on the jury, as was Pietro Belluschi, who coincidentally assisted Gropius on the Pan Am Building. Another of the competition entries was by Philip Johnson, the drawings for which I would love to see, if I knew where or how to find them. The winning entry ultimately came from the office of I. M. Pei. Luckily, his John Hancock Tower hadn't started raining broken glass onto the streets of Boston, or Pei might have been more cautious in his use of glass. For the Sundrome, he employed the first use in America of glass mullions between the windows. They give the building brilliant structural and visual clarity. It was evidently a huge influence on airport architecture all over the world.
As Pei explained, since there are no metal mullions, it's very clear that it's the columns supporting the building. There's also nothing to disrupt the total transparency of the facade. The Sundrome's vaguely classical sensibility finds intriguing counterpoint in entirely modern materials and construction methods.
On my first trip out, I had the displeasure of seeing the inside of this building in a shameful state of decrepitude. The thing that struck me most was the sickly color of the windows, which I attributed to decades of cigarette smoke. It was later pointed out to me that the sunlight would stream so blindingly through the windows in the afternoon hours that employees were forced to wear sunglasses. The windows had to be tinted. I think the point remains, however, that if my first guess was a coat of tobacco tar, there's something very wrong there.
We've recently learned that the Port Authority has authorized this building's demolition. I, for one, am appalled. It's a stunningly sleek structure by one of our greatest and most celebrated architects. Something must be done to save this building. I myself wrote a heartfelt op-ed piece that I sent to the New York Times, riding the tail of controversy over NYU's interventions at Pei's Silver Towers. They chose to ignore it.
--Photo courtesy E-Architect.I think it would be a great travesty if it were allowed to be destroyed. The friend of mine with whom I visited JFK the first time and who knows the airport quite well remarked also that due to its size and layout, it would lend itself far better to expansion than some of the other terminals that are not at risk.
The Port Authority wants to tear this down. NYU wants to mess with the Silver Towers site. The Third Church of Christ, Scientist in DC fought long and hard to be rid of their Pei. I just don't get it. It's not like we're talking about Paul Rudolph here. Not that I wouldn't be just as disgusted if it were Rudolph, I just wouldn't be quite so surprised. Almost everything Rudolph has still standing is controversial in some way or another. He's an acquired taste.
Has no one ever even seen the National Gallery of Art building? It's an astonishingly beautiful structure. A coworker of mine recently saw the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston in person (sadly, I never have) and had a similar epiphany about that one (luckily the intervention there, by Rafael Viñoly, is receiving well-deserved accolades). This is the man entrusted with new construction at the Louvre, for crying out loud. I don't know that whole saga, but I can't imagine a project more likely to have to pass through a labyrinthine mire of hopelessly conservative committees and panels and bureaucracy. My point is, I find it difficult to believe that we're even having this conversation about I. M. Pei in the first place. What is the world coming to?
The final chapter.
©2010, Ryan Witte
I can't remember whether I spotted Bobby Silverman at the ICFF or if he approached me, but either way, we ended up having a nice conversation for some time about his work. I definitely think his booth was visually arresting. His Brooklyn company is called Alsio Design, and he's doing some fantastic ceramics.
He told me his work is a lot about experimentation. He's playing around with a process where he fires the tiles twice with two different colors of glaze, to see how they'll interact. In my opinion, he's getting some incredibly beautiful, uncommon results. But he's also an artist, not just an artisan. That is to say, he's doing somewhat conceptual things with his work, as well.
First, here are the tiles labeled with their colors:
Here's the word "Red" translated into bar code:
And the word "Red" translated into Braille:
He's doing a lot of interesting things with Braille, which is thought-provoking on a couple of different levels. The most obvious is that the text is the word for a color, something of which a person blind from birth could have only the most abstract or symbolic understanding. But Braille is a language that invites, even demands touch. I didn't happen to touch the tiles, as far as I can remember, but I believe they do have some bit of a relief texture. So these could potentially be read by someone who reads Braille. It's sort of interesting to think that someone who can't actually see the tiles could be made aware of what color they are, especially if a number of tiles of different colors were used together in some interesting or meaningful pattern.
Most deeply, it's the idea of touching them at all. Tile is not something that typically encourages touch. It's usually a hard, glassy surface without any particularly appealing texture. Radiant flooring is often employed to mitigate its seemingly icy temperatures. To call attention to this in the very design of the tile is ingenious. I suppose this is somehow related to some of the things I was saying about web design in a previous post, but who knows?
Silverman has also done some wonderfully poetic things with this, as well as conceptual. Here's a quote of William Butler Yeats translated into Braille:
Only God, my dear, could love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair.
This is a quote of the artist/ designer Andrea Zittel:
Ambiguity in visual design ultimately leads to a greater variety of functions than designs that are functionally fixed.
This is especially cool because it is ambiguous. That is, perhaps more than the simple Braille "Red" (or perhaps less, I can't quite be sure), it might be obvious to the random observer that this says something...or at least that it's more than just a pattern of abstract marks. But very few people will be able to read it, which would make this a great conversation piece. Here in the detail shot you can see the glazing up close:
Is it just me, or is the tile smiling at me?
My favorite of the contexts he shows for his tiles were these very large ones installed poolside for a house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:
Allowing the ivy to surround them was a fantastic idea, and I think this is so dramatic and beautiful. He did tell me that because the work is so time intensive, the tiles can be somewhat expensive, especially these large ones which can so much more easily crack in the kiln. So I started brainstorming. I wondered if the majority of the wall couldn't be tiled with a much simpler (less expensive), single-glazed matching red tile, with the more artistic double-glazed ones at isolated places. He thought about this and said "yes," and asked me if I'm a designer. I told him I'm a writer, but of course, if I'm going to do this at all properly, I kind of have to think like a designer. And that's easy enough. I'm constantly imagining all the incredible things I'm going to do when I win the lottery...or Architectural Record calls to offer me that ten-year contract. I should be around this afternoon, Architectural Record.
Before we parted ways, Silverman gave me this very cool little tile/ business card.
I think now that this post is finished, I'll find a special place for it in my bathroom.
©2010, Ryan Witte
