The Museum of Modern Art examines the 20th Century transformation of the kitchen

On September 15th, 2010, the Museum of Modern Art in New York will open an exhibition called Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen. The exhibition celebrates MOMA's recent acquisition of an intact "Frankfurt Kitchen." The Frankfort Kitchen was designed from 1926-27 by architect Greta Schütte-Lihotzky. The Frankfort Kitchen is the earliest example of a design executed by a female architect in the museum's collection.

It's difficult to describe adequately the social upheaval that accompanied and followed World War I. Never before in human history had so many world powers been engaged in full-on conflict and no conflict before it brought the level of destruction as did the Great War.

Germany surrendered effectively when it signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The German Empire ceased to exist at that point and in its place arose the Wiemar Republic. The Wiemar Republic was a parliamentary republic as opposed to the imperial system that had guided Germany up until that point. Imperial Germany was a totalitarian state and as such it censored the arts and controlled most aspects of German life. The Wiemar Republic promised a new way of doing things and the German Constitution that ran Wiemar Germany granted a free press and the right to free association, among other things.

All was not well for Wiemar Germany though. Germany was essentially blamed for the Great War and was compelled to pay enormous retributions as a condition of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany's economy was shackled and the Wiemar Republic ruled uneasily from the center as extremists to the left and to the right (along with their paramilitaries) jockeyed for power and influence. Against terrific odds, Wiemar Germany enjoyed a few years of economic and political stability in the mid-20s.

It was in those few years of stability that German culture blossomed. The German educated classes were determined to bring Germany into the 20th Century and out from under the shadow of the Great War. In 1926 and 1927, blocks of modern housing units were built to house impoverished workers in Frankfort. It was into these housing units that Greta Schütte-Lihotzky's modernist kitchens were placed.

As I was pointing out in the post about Christopher Dresser last week, Modernism's roots run back to the 1880s and it promised a new way of looking at things. The modernist impulse was a rejection of European tribalism and the wars that nationalist movements spawn. The sentiment seems to have been that business as usual brought about death and destruction so let's try something new.

Alas, Greta Schütte-Lihotzky's kitchen designs could only do so much and within seven years Adolf Hitler would be chancellor.

Still, her legacy and the legacies of her contemporaries live on. The Alessi kettle I love so much and my Bialetti espresso maker owe their very existence to their lives and their work. Everything I touch and see as I go about making dinner is the just the latest iteration of an art and design movement that wanted to remake how people live. As fascinating as it is to see where it's headed, it's equally fascinating to look back and see where it began.

MOMA's exhibit, Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen starts with Greta Schütte-Lihotzky and follows the evolution of the kitchen through the present day. The design collections at MOMA are as broad as they are deep and Counter Space will make extensive use of those collections. Everyday life is worth preserving and to see the evolution of the objects that are my stock and trade will be a unique thrill.

Here are some of the objects in the exhibit.

Fold out kitchen by Snaidero, 1968

Braun Multipurpose Kitchen Machine, 1952

Chemex Coffee Maker, 1941

Corning Glass Frying Pan, 1941

Still Life #30 by Tom Wesselmann, 1963

MOMA's examination of the 20th Century transformation of the kitchen runs from September 15th 2010 through March 14th 2011.

New patterns in glass from New Ravenna

Since yesterday was a run through of some New Ravenna Mosaic patterns in stone, today's going to be all about their new work in glass. Sara Baldwin and the rest of the gang at New Ravenna have been pushing the envelope so far as glass mosaics go in recent years and their use of a water jet is as revolutionary as it is exquisite. The following are some of my favorites from the patterns they debuted at Coverings this year.

Exmore, VA-based New Ravenna Mosaic and Stone designs and builds some of the most exquisite mosaics available. The work in catalog and custom orders and will everything in their power to make your project as stunning as it's possible to be. New Ravenna's artisans turn the ordinary to the extraordinary. You can see the rest of their new patterns on their website.

New patterns in stone from New Ravenna

The amazing new patterns from New Ravenna Mosaics I saw at Coverings a couple of months ago have been photographed officially and they are ready to go. New Ravenna works in natural stone and in art glass and what follow are some of my favorites from their new offerings in stone.

Exmore, VA-based New Ravenna Mosaic and Stone designs and manufactures some of the most beautiful mosaics available. They work with both catalog and custom orders, and as these new patterns in stone show, they are ready to make your project as unique and beautiful as it's possible to be.

Happy birthday to the United States of America

In mid September, 1814; lawyer and sometimes poet Francis Scott Key watched the battle of Fort McHenry while on the deck of a boat moored in Baltimore Harbor. In the days following the battle, he composed a poem he called Defence of Fort McHenry. Key gave his poem to his brother-in-law who noticed that the words fit the melody of To Anacreon in Heaven, a popular pub song at the time. Keys' brother-in-law was a judge named Joseph Nickelson. Nickelson took the poem to a printer and printed up broadsheets of the lyrics and music. On its second printing, the name changed from Defence of Fort McHenry to The Star-Spangled Banner.

This is a copy of Francis Scott Key's original poem

This is a copy of the original broadsheet.

The song grew in popularity and quickly became one of a number of patriotic songs that were used officially and unofficially by the United States. Different functions called for different patriotic songs but there was no national anthem. In the years after the First World War a movement arose to name a single, official song. Out of a number of popular anthem-like songs, The Star-Spangled Banner won and it was named the official anthem of the United States in a law signed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1931.

It's a stirring song and here's one of the best renditions of it I've ever heard.





Disclosure time. Francis Scott Key was one of my ancestors, something I learned when I was in college. Every time I hear our national anthem I'm reminded that I am glad to be a citizen of this great country and I'm also reminded of the sacrifices made by my immediate ancestors. I'm proud of that song and it's pretty cool to be a descendant of the man who wrote it. Lovely though it is, there's another song I think sums up the promise and potential of the United States better than The Star-Spangled Banner does. That song of course is America The Beautiful.

America The Beautiful was written by Katherine Lee Bates in 1895 as a poem called Pike's Peak. It was set to music by Samuel A. Ward in 1910. Here's as stirring a version of it as I could find.





Regardless of the songs you sing today, happy Fourth of July and remember the people whose shoulders you stand on.

Why I'm glad I'm not five; one more reason to hate AT&T

It's a holiday weekend and I'm taking advantage of the lull in my web traffic to throw it wide open and write about some things other than design.

I may be alone in this opinion, but I really hate this commercial for AT&T.





I can't stand its assumption that I wish I were five again and I resent this ad's use of one of my favorite songs of all time. It not only gloms onto the Gene Wilder original recording from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, it misses the point of the whole song. Here's the song in context.





Willy Wonka is not being nostalgic for his childhood. He's very accurately describing his adulthood.

Being five means you can imagine anything you want to. The other side of it though, is that even if you can imagine something, you're also powerless to do anything with that vision. Nostalgia relies on a selective recollection of the past, and that's why it's worthless as a past time and downright destructive as a cultural force. I remember imagining I could fly when I was five and it was lovely. However, I also imagined that there were monsters under the cellar stairs and they scared the living day lights out of me. The joy of adulthood is that I know that not only can I not fly, I also know that there are no monsters under the stairs. Why is it that this ad and the ideas behind it want me to pine for the days when I believed I could fly but forget that I also believed in the monsters under the cellar stairs?

Here are the lyrics to Pure Imagination:

(Spoken)
Hold your breath
Make a wish
Count to three

(Sung)
Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin with a spin
Trav'ling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy
Explanation

(Refrain)
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be

(Refrain)

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be

That song was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the great film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The movie was based on the Roald Dahl story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It and its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator were two of my favorite books as a kid. I swear my dark sense of humor comes from reading Roald Dahl. My childhood was idyllic by the way.

I'm not one to collect pithy quotes but the refrain from that song hangs next to my sink in my bathroom. I have to look at it every time I brush my teeth. The refrain is the whole point of the song and the whole point of that movie. Here it is again,

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it

Willy's not telling the people on the tour that they are in paradise as they walk around the product of his imagination, he's telling them that they already live in paradise. So do I and so do you. It's why that lyric hangs in my bathroom. Paradise in the context of this song and in the greater context of life is not describing a place, it's describing a state of mind. I live in paradise because I say it's paradise and I treat my life as such. That Willy Wonka refrain keeps me centered and it keeps me grateful. When things start to look less than paradisaical around here, it's always because I'm making bad choices or settling for something because it's easy instead of accomplishing something because it's right. Paradise, like happiness, is an internal state. Staying happy and staying imaginative are functions of will. No amount of nostalgia can make up for a lack of will. To quote Willy Wonka again, Anything you want to, do it.

The imagination of a child is an amazing thing but like all childhood skills and aptitudes, it's under construction. Feats of great imagination recognize the limitations of a given situation and work within that framework. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a masterpiece because Michelangelo imagined how a ceiling could look. The Claire de Lune is so sublime because Claude Debussey imagined how a piano could sound. Great works of literature and art and music and film are created by adults not because there's a dark conspiracy to discredit the imaginations of five-year-old kids. Rather it's that adults understand limitations, sensible ones at any rate.

Imagination doesn't get squashed sometime between the ages of five and 35 automatically. Either it gets refined and made useful or it gets discarded. That's how life goes. Keeping it alive takes a bit of work and quite a bit of discipline. Implying that people reach their creative peak at the age of five is ludicrous.

I'm thrilled that I'm 45 and not five, thrilled. And this ad gives me yet another reason to resent AT&T beyond the usual reasons, dropped calls and spotty coverage.

OK gang, pounce.