Enter to win a design classic from All Modern

So even though my Bertoia stools aren't going to happen, my pals at All Modern still like me. So much so that they want to do a give away with Kitchen and Residential Design. Here it is:

This is Michael Graves' 9093 Kettle (the big one) and this is what we're giving away.

Michael Graves' New Americana collection for Alessi from 1985 grew out of his dissatisfaction with Modernist expression. In a series of experiments to help him find a newer design vocabulary, he turned a Postmodernist eye to every day objects. His New Americana collection was an over night sensation and it brought the work of an already-famous architect and product designer into the homes of people worldwide.

Graves' pairing his iconographic sensibilities with Alessi is a perfect match. Alessi's entire raison d’être is to re-imagine every day objects. Graves' career is marked by his embrace of a studied whimsy and I love him for it. That same studied whimsy is at the root of my passion for all things Alessi too. I'm pretty thrilled to have the chance to bring some of the serious fun into someone else's life through this give away.

All Modern carries most of Alessi's collections by the way, so give them a look-see. Alessi proves that Modern design can be both a serious art form and a whole lot of fun.

So it's pretty simple. All you need to do is leave a comment after this post and I'll draw a winner at random next Sunday, 14 June. There aren't any magic words to repeat or assignments to complete for this one. All I'm looking for is a comment. Good luck!

All modern from All Modern

It's my job to echo and interpret the design sensibilities of my clients. Because of that, I spend a lot of time putting together rooms that aren't really my style. Don't get me wrong, I put together some great rooms but I generally don't work on spaces that would make me happy personally. That's fine and as it should be, people don't pay me to recreate my dream home.

With that said, every once in a while I get to work on a project that does appeal to me personally and I'm working on one right now. The clients in question have a good-humored approach to life and to their home and they appreciate modern design. These people a find and it's an honor to work on their home.

Pretty early into the process, I specified four Bertoia counter stools that were supposed to go with a rather large bar I had in mind for the back of a particularly large island. Here are the Bertoia counter stools I was lobbying for.

These Bertoias are part of a collection of similar seating designed by Italian sculptor Harry Bertoia in 1952. This collection was designed for Knoll originally and Knoll still makes the same collection. The Knoll Company was founded in 1938 by Hans and Florence Knoll and it's still making 20th century originals.

Mies van der Rohe, Florence Knoll, Eero Saarinen, Isamu Noguchi, Frank Gehry, Maya Lin, Marcel Breuer and of course Harry Bertoia had and have collections produced by the modern masters at Knoll. Looking though their catalogs is like a stroll through the 20th century. World War II was a lot more destructive socially than most people think and in the years during and immediately after it, everything was up for grabs. In a lot of ways, Modernism was a reaction to the social upheavals of that terrible conflict.

Modernism came about alongside the rise of the middle class in the West and the two forces fed and sustained one another. Modernist designers were committed to getting designed furnishings into the hands of the masses and the masses could suddenly afford it. Companies like Knoll bridged that gap then and continue to do so now.

So let's get back to my clients. When the time came to order the Bertoia counter stools I had my heart set on, my clients balked. They have kids, young pre-teens, and they didn't want to spend the money on furniture that was going to get kicked around by a room full of 10-year-old boys. They're going for a cheap knock off instead. Ugh. My first impulse is to tell them to get the good stuff and just tell the kids they're not allowed to sit on them until they're older. Can you tell I don't have any kids? Hah! But I let it go. They did however, sign off on this amazing light fixture by Sonneman.

I love this light fixture enough to make up for the missing Bertoias in this finished room. Almost.

So had we gone ahead with the Bertoias, they would have come from Boston-based All Modern. All Modern has the full Knoll Collection and they offer free, same day shipping on select Knoll items. All Modern carries all of the greats who make up the entire Modernist movement. Herman Miller, Steelcase, Luce Plan, Louis Poulsen, Hansgrohe, George Kovacs, Droog, Artemide, Artecnica, Kartell and my beloved Alessi swell that website to the point of near bursting. Got an ache for some modernism? Scratch it at All Modern.

Artifacts from a nuclear past (and present)

The Radon stories I wrote last week were a great deal of fun to work on. I learned so much and I'm forever grateful for my personal physicist and editor Chris. I did a lot of research independently prior to meeting Chris and one of the real finds from my digging around was the Home page of the Health Physics Instrumentation Collection.

Health Physics is a field of study that concerns itself with the proper uses of radioactivity in healthcare, industry and in homes. The HPIC is the project of Dr. Paul Frame, a Health Physicist at the Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

Frame's work is a museum and library of the history of his field and I found him through his collection of Radioactive Quack Cures. It was this collection where I found the Radon Suppositories here.

These quackeries don't come from some dark and gloomy past, they are all 20th century inventions and products. Some are available even now. I'm fascinated by this stuff and these radioactive quack cures share an alarming similarity with the quack cures being peddled today. Whether its detoxing diets, colon cleanses, the anti-vaccination movement, ionizing air filters or homeopathy; all of this quackery takes a scientific idea, turns it on its ear and then sells it to a gullible public. I think these things prey on many peoples' deep-seated fear of death and their wish for a quick fix and an easy answer. As anybody with any sense knows though, there aren't any quick fixes and there are even fewer easy answers.

Anyhow, check out these beauties.

This is the Radium Vitalizer Health Font (ca. 1925-30) and it was intended to be used to add Radium to drinking water. Radium-infused drinking water had all kinds of benefits attributed to it and before you laugh too hard, put down that bottle of anti-oxident-infused water in your hand. Interestingly, the glass this water fountain is made from is vaseline glass, and it got its green color from the addition of Uranium to molten glass. Vaseline glass is no longer manufactured, though you can still find in in antique stores. The Uranium in the glass isn't where the Radium Vitalizer Health Font got its oomph though, it got it from a Radium Emanator which is missing from this example.

Here's a Radium Emanator from the same era. This Emanator is made from cement mixed with Uranium ore. A Radium Emanator was intended to be submerged in drinking water in order to energize it for drinking.

This is a tube of World War II-era radioactive toothpaste. It contains trace amounts of Thorium and promised "Radioactively Bright Teeth!"

This is a Nicotine Alkaloid Control Plate. It's a metal plate with a Uranium ore coating on one . It's about the size of a credit card. It's also from 1990, believe it or not. These NACPs were intended to be inserted into a pack of cigarettes to render them safer. They were never sold in the US, but the amount of radioactivity it cranks out is small enough that it could have been.

This is a refrigerator deodorizer from 1983 and it contains a form of Thorium that will remain radioactive for the next ten billion years. 20,000 of these were sold and distributed in the US until the Nuclear Regulatory Agency shut down the importer behind them.

This is a Radium pillow filled with low-grade Uranium ore. It was made and sold in the US and was still available as 2004.

This is my personal favorite. This machine was called a Shoe Fitting Fluoroscope and was a common fixture in shoe stores in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Believe it or not, this is an x-ray machine used as a gimmick to fit shoes. There was an x-ray tube in the base of the unit. The customer would put his or her foot in the hole at the base shown and then the salesman (or concerned parent) could see the x-rayed bones of the foot through the viewer a the top of the unit. There were 10,000 of these machines sold and used in the US alone.

Thank you Dr. Paul Frame for this collection, and thanks for the chance to see that the past doesn't have a lock on crazy.

Chinese drywall stinks!

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has a new section on their website dedicated to address concerns about Chinese-made drywall used in homes in the years 2006 and 2007. How widespread a problem this is remains to be seen. So far, there have been 365 complaints coming from 18 states and the District of Columbia.

From Consumer Reports:

Tests of the Chinese-made drywall conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency revealed that it contains at least three materials not found in drywall produced in the U.S. The tested drywall contained sulfur, strontium at levels ten times as high as in U.S. drywall and two other organic compounds generally found in acrylic paint that have not been detected in any U.S.-made wallboard.

“We now know there are three things in there that aren’t in other drywall samples,” said Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) who has been working to provide homeowners with relief. “We’ve got the ‘what’ and now we need the ‘why’—and, how do we fix it? In the end, I think all this stuff is going to have to be ripped out.”

People are noticing a rotten egg smell and that their copper plumbing and air conditioning coils are turning black. Clearly, that's from the elevated sulfur levels in the drywall. It's important to remember that this new cry is being raised by personal injury lawyers, so let the exaggerated claims begin.

So remember, there have been 365 complaints from people in 18 different states. But check out this copy from a personal injury attorney who specializes in Chinese drywall litigation:

The Chinese drywall housing crisis is spreading across this country. Tens of thousands of homeowners are suffering from contamination in their homes causing health problems and plunging property values. Defective Chinese drywall wrecks electrical systems, air conditioning systems, and exposed metal throughout your home. The sulfur contamination causes a terrible odor that will not go away, and creates a corrosive atmosphere that requires immediate attention. The members of our legal team are fighting for our clients across the country, including the battleground states of Florida and Virginia. Hidden legal deadlines in the construction or closing documents are shutting off many victims from making any recovery for this catastrophe. Don't let your dream home become a permanent nightmare: contact us for immediate legal assistance. 

I don't doubt for a second that this is a real issue and I'm not questioning that it's going to need to be fixed. But can we please proceed calmly? The sulfur is behind the rotten egg smell, but sulfur won't kill you. The potential problem here is the strontium levels, but strontium exposure doesn't have any glamorous symptoms. I'd be curious to know how it got there in the first place. It sounds like our great trading partners to the east are using fly ash to make drywall.

I know it's a lot to ask, but since I've already asked for calm, can we please learn a lesson from this too? First, it was lead in the toys. Then it was melamine in the dog food and baby formula. Cheap stuff from China has proven itself yet again, to be no bargain. Now, what steps can we take to avoid a repeat of this situation. Anyone? Anyone?

Jamie Drake, the King of Color

My great friend Kelly from Design Ties, had a sit down and interview with Jamie Drake this week. Jamie Drake is a Designer of Record, somebody other designers look to for inspiration and direction. He's also a pretty good interview subject.

This is Drake's Cabochon powder room for Kohler

Kelly's giving away an inscribed copy of his new book, New American Glamour. All you have to do is go to Design Ties and leave a comment after her interview. She's drawing the winner next Thursday, so get in while the getting's good.