I N F L U E N C E S A Starting Point by Marianne tragakis In the followIng pages, I would like to share a different viewpoint. I want to share the Introduction to the basics: influences that have formed my ideas in the broad Line picture, the fundamental ideas that continue to Direction influence me and form who I am as a designer. I have been lucky enough to go to the Size Museum of fine arts in Boston many times to Shape discover everythng from the the hidden Chapel of Texture Catalonia to Van gogh and Monet. Visiting the harvard Botanical Museum’s glass flower exhibit Value was astonishing as an elementary student. and at a Rembrant’s, Storm on the Sea of Galilee Color Stolen from the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum sunday piano concert at the Isabella stewart gardner Museum, I found myself mesmerized by the How can I best present the client's product? What do they need to say interior garden courtyard in full bloom in the dead of winter. a few years later I would return to study about it? Who is the audience? All the standard questions. What is my Rembrant's 'storm on the sea of galilee,’ one approach going to be and where do I get the inspiration? of the works which has been stolen from the These are the questions I ask myself when I sit down to design a project gardner. now, I spend a good deal of time at for a client. I must reach for inspiration. I examine all kinds of materials in the peabody essex Museum and take in a wide spectrum of art, from asian art to Contemporay art. this process, even the work of other graphic designers. Now, let’s go further The Glass Flowers collection was commissioned by Harvard Botanical Museum Director George Goodale and so I will share with you some of the influences that financed by Boston residents Elizabeth C. and Mary Lee Ware. have had a lasting impression on me. The Ware Collection of Glass Models of Plants, as it is officially known, consists of 4,400 models that replicate the tiniest details of plant anatomy with astounding precision. This exhibition showcases the Glass Flowers and explores the science and artistry behind this one–of–a–kind collection -The Antiques Journal 2 3 Le C o r b u r s i e r by ethne Clarke Love of the arts, and enthusiasm for the Jura Mountains, were all formative influences on the young Le Corbusierser; Charles L’Eplattenier. The Corbusier Chair is a Bauhaus Classic. It is as contemporary today as the day it was designed. Le Corbusier was In paRIs, In 1929, there were some new busier and the production number are counterfeits”. l’eplattenier, whom le Corbusier called “My Master,” at the end of the war le Corbusier moved to paris. distinct attitude toward the mass-produced “tools” born Charles Ed- concepts on display at the salon d’automne. Charles- The family proudly traced its ancestry to the combined into a national Romanticism many strains there le Corbusier worked on concrete structures of industrial culture, from laboratory flasks to cafe ouard Jeannerct on October 6, 1887, edouard Jeanneret, better known as le Corbusier, Cathars, who fled to the Jura Mountains during the of late-nineteenth-century thought, from Ruskin to under government contracts and ran a chairs, which they called objets-types.the emerg- in LaChaux-de- pierre Jeanneret, and a young woman called Charlotte albigensian wars of the twelfth century, and the hermann Muthesius. he involved his students in his small brick manufacture, but le Corbusier ing spirit of industrialized culture in all its aspects Fonds, Switzerland. perriand were responsible. this furniture has not dat- french huguenots, who migrated to switzerland search for a new kind of ornament expressive of the Jura dedicated most of his efforts to the more influential, and became the theme of the journal I’esprit nouveau, Le Corbusier was ed in the slightest, and even today fits perfectly with following the edict of nantes (1598). la Chaux-de- landscape and able to sustain the local craft industry. lucrative, discipline of painting. first in a book entitled founded in 1919 by le Corbusier, ozenfant, and the second son of the modern home. this is mainly due to le Corbusi- fonds’ tradition of offering refuge includes both Rous- apprenticed at thirteen to a watch engraver, le Cor- Apres le cubisme, and subsequently in an art show at galerie the poet paul Dermee, and published until 1925. Edouard Jeanneret, er’s conviction that the binomial shape/function value seau andBakunin. his family’s Calvinism, love of the arts, busier abandoned watchmaking in part because of his thomas, le Corbusier and amede ozenfant began a dial painter in the town’s renowned must be expressed in the three dimensional manifes- and enthusiasm for the Jura Mountains, were all forma delicate eyesight, and continued his studies in art and a movement called purism, which called for the res- watch industry, and tation of any daily used and useful object. according tive influences on the young le Corbusi- decoration, with the intention of becoming a painter. toration of the integrity of the object in art. as their Madame Jeannerct- to the designer’s heirs “all pieces of furniture which do er. Charles l’eplattenier, a teacher at the l’eplattenier insisted that the young man also study style developed, it drew closer to synthetic Cub- Perrct, a musician not bear the logotype Cassina, the signature of le Cor- local art school, dominated his education. architecture and arranged for his first commissions. ism’s structure of overlapping planes, but retained a and piano teacher. 4 5 T h e V i g n e l l i ’ s by David R. Brown, wylie Davis, Rose Deneve The Vignelli Chair The Vignelli Chairs are offered in threes colors from Wildonhammer Manufacturing. The Vignellis, Massimo and lella, stand at the peak of their profession. During the past 20 years, their the Vignellis were both born and educated in the they were married, eventually grew strong enough “There are three design output has been prodigious in quantity, far-ranging in media and scope and consistent in excellence. industrial, more-european north of Italy, he in Mi- to lure them away from Italy permanently. “there investigations in equally important is the influence they have had and the difference they have made. their work has led by lan and she in Udine, 90 miles away. Massimo’s is diversity here, and energy, and possibility,” recalls design,” says Massimo. example. they have contributed to design as individuals. for their accomplishments, Massimo and lella passion was “2D”—graphic design; lella’s fam- Massimo, “and the need for design.” he cofounded “The first is the search Vignelli have been chosen to receive the aIga gold Medal for 1982—the sixty-second such award in a dis- ily tradition and training were “3D”—architecture. Unimark in 1964, which ballooned and collapsed for structure. Its reward is discipline. tinguished series that began in 1920. they met at an architects’ convention and were as the corporate identification boom of the late The second is the Upon the occasion of the major retrospective of the Vignellis’ work exhibited at parsons in 1980, married in 1957. three years later, they opened 1960s hyperventilated, then ran out of breath. In search for specificity. The New York Times critic paul goldberger characterized them as “total designers.” they and their office have their first “office of design and architecture” in 1972, their present office was formed: Vignelli as- This yields appropri- indeed done it all: industrial and product design, graphic design, book design, magazine and newspaper de- Milan and designed for pirelli, Rank Xer sociates for two-dimensional design, Vignelli De- ateness. Finally, we sign, packaging design, interior and exhibit design, furniture design. Massimo and lella work together in two ox, olivetti and other design-conscious european signs for furniture, objects, exhibitions and interiors. search for fun, and ways: he concentrates on what they call the “2D”; she handles the “3D”. he’s the visionary: “I talk of feelings, firms. But their fascination with the United states, we create ambiguity.” possibilities, what a design could be.” she the realist: “I think of feasibility, planning, what a design can be.” which took root during three years spent here after Copyright 1983 by The American Institute of Graphic Arts. 6 7 C h a r l e s a n d R a y E a m e s by wikipedia Eames motto: ‘The most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least’ Created by the famous design team of Charles and Ray Eames, this exhibit has been a favorite since it opened at the Museum of Science in 1981. The Eames wanted to provide an opportunity for everyone to enjoy the beauty and wonder of mathematics, and they have also provided us with an opportunity to enjoy the beauty of post-modern design. Like in the earlier in The 1950s, The eameses continued the eameses also conceived and designed a num- 901 washington Boulevard in Venice, California, designed for Charles’s friend, film director Billy magnitude by visually zooming away from the earth moulded plywood work, their work in architecture and modern furniture ber of landmark exhibitions. the first of these, included in its staff, at one time or another, a num- wilder, the playful Do-nothing Machine (1957), an to the edge of the universe, and then microscopically the Eameses pioneered design.