Prescience of Nelson

8 CONSTRUCTS YALE ARCHITECTURE Prescience of Nelson On November 9 and 10, 2012, the School of Architecture held the symposium “George Nelson: Design for Living, American Mid-Century Design and Its Legacy Today” in conjunction with the traveling exhibition George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, and Teacher. This could not be a more propitious time to an American naiveté almost unfathom- reprise and re-appraise the contributions able today. For example, house paint was of George Nelson (B.A.1928; B.F.A. 1931). alleged to withstand the heat of a nuclear Designers, and those who study them, blast. Ad copy for a rhinestone pin, styled are increasingly critical of the limitations after the ellipses of the atomic symbol, read, of market imperatives that admit no other “As daring to wear as dropping the atomic values. As a result, we are seeing other bomb.” Mid-fifties promotional materials models of practice, such as those involved celebrated the ease with which radiation in the creative commons or service design, could be wiped from the flat surfaces of gaining a currency of a different order. These Modernist furniture. alternatives owe a debt to Nelson, a miscast While Gordon stopped short of midcentury Modernist. I say “miscast” suggesting that American Modernists because the dominance of celebrity and profited from the bomb, Donald Albrecht, branding in today’s design culture has had independent curator, pointed out that most the effect of reducing Nelson’s contributions Americans would have been introduced to a shorthand of icons: the Ball Clock (1949), to the modern long before the atomic age. the Bubble Lamps (1952), and the Marshmal- Prewar movies equated it with style (luxuri- low Sofa (1956). (No matter that two out of ous fashion and Art Deco glamour), while three, the clock and sofa, were designed by postwar films were more likely to register Irving Harper.) the disquiet of modern life. Movie credits, All the same, Nelson must shoulder just coming into their own, also projected some of the blame for today’s cult of design. the values of Modernism, salutatory and He cultivated brands, most notably Herman otherwise. The Modern had become a matter Miller but also that of the postwar United of sensibility, very often noir. Case in point, States. The government was one of his most The Misfits (1961), the jaded antithesis of the important clients. He relished the public face classic American Western. While noting the of authorship and rarely credited his collabo- Nelson office’s work on that film, Albrecht rators, including the aforementioned Harper. focused primarily on the work of Saul Bass, Nelson was also a vigorous champion of the highlighting the titles for North by Northwest, role of industrial design in increasing corpo- in which a gridded skyscraper becomes a rate profits which, admittedly, were not the cage for the credits. But where Bass used 1 sole prerogative of the one percent, as they style to convey the underlying sense of threat are today. That said, he fully understood the that hung over the atomic era, Nelson would caveat “Be careful what you wish for.” Nelson use language and the new medium of televi- had an uncanny ability to nip at the hands sion to express his ideas. that fed his practice, without sacrificing their Of course, the appearance of the sustain a contrarian stance while collecting the issue of storage in the Modern house. allegiance. He was the paradigm designer– Modern provoked anxiety well before his fees. (One of the most hilarious instances This was particularly problematic because cum–public intellectual. Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Cold War of his remarkable ability to straddle the fence Modernist spaces weren’t meant to accom- Last November, the Yale School of that followed. And, in one sense, those acts between collusion and critique appears in a modate clutter. However, even those Architecture hosted a symposium that took a of annihilation were not unrelated to the form 1956 television ad made for, and commis- philosophically committed to “less is more” major step in assuring that status to George that Modernism took. Both were a product sioned by, Herman Miller. In a parody worthy couldn’t dispense with all their possessions. Nelson. The world that made him, and that he of an ethos of purification. Since the begin- of Monty Python, Nelson shows an energetic So, Nelson organized them in the cavities of in turn shaped, came to life with a full-dress ning of the twentieth century, designers had young woman ineffectually trying to saw the wall. The words that conveyed that idea parade of historians, accompanied by a cadre been working to eliminate ornamental signs through an Eames Lounge Chair and tossing comprised, for all intents and purposes, the of his contemporaries in practice. Organized of class and bring their work in line with the its feathered stuffing into the air to extol its prototype for his groundbreaking Storage by Dietrich Neumann, Rauch Family Profes- zeitgeist of technological change. (Later in strength and comfort.) Wall for Herman Miller. Of the hundreds of sor of History of Art and Architecture at Brown the symposium, Murray Moss would cite the Appraising Nelson’s early career projects that Nelson directed and designed, University, the symposium was timed to era’s refusal of the irrational as the formative and formative travels, Yale professor Kurt none better illustrates Dean Robert Stern’s complement the traveling exhibition George influence on Nelson’s sensibility. In contrast Forster offered further insight into Nelson’s observation that “Nelson was a curator of Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, and to Rob Forbes, of Design Within Reach, who critical yet engaged position within the modern life.” Teacher, curated by Jochen Eisenbrand for all but channels Nelson’s aesthetic, Moss world of design, reaffirming his role as a Nonetheless, it was instructive to be the Vitra Design Museum, with the architec- conceded only one point of sympathy—that paradox. Forster claimed that “Nelson reminded by professor Margaret Maile Petty, ture aspect expanded by Neumann. meaning comes not from isolated objects but translated editorial thinking to the design of of Victoria University, New Zealand, that The logic to the proceedings was from relationships among them.) furniture.” I would argue that, even beyond there were other curators who could carry relatively straightforward, moving from back- Tempering the avant-garde’s ruthless the curation of ideas, it was the iterative that moniker with equal aplomb—in particu- ground to foreground: it unpacked Modern- pruning, progressive American furniture process of revising and editing that condi- lar, Florence Knoll. Petty’s comparison of the ism as a style and ideology, then examined manufacturers offered “livable” Modern- tioned Nelson’s approach to design as a Herman Miller and Knoll showrooms revealed the culture it produced and the responses ism—the subject of Clark University profes- process of questioning. What differentiated differing interpretations of “Modern.” Both that flowed from Nelson’s office. The only sor Kristina Wilson’s paper. Within the loose his critiques is that they extended beyond companies had embraced the idea of situat- cavil was the absence of the kind of trans- category of “livable,” Wilson identified the inner sanctum of the studio, ranging ing their pieces in a mise en scène. Florence disciplinary designer that Nelson would have affinities with the city and the suburb, along from the micro to the macro to the meta, Knoll with Herbert Matter, devised highly recognized, although Yale’s Ned Cooke did with individual and conformist ways of living from products to their social effects and the edited scenarios meant to “liberate the interi- his best to frame Marc Newsom in the experi- epitomized by Gilbert Rohde and Russel ethical nature of design itself. Traversing or,” whereas Nelson staged Herman Miller’s mental mold of Nelson. Wright, respectively. Of the two, Rohde these scales, Nelson developed an integrat- furniture with found objects—in essence, Some of the sixteen featured speakers proved more critical to Nelson. Rohde ed approach to practice and theory at the restoring the everyday edited out of Knoll’s circled around the subject so broadly as to was his predecessor at Herman Miller and beginning of his career. Forster recounted brand of Miesian Modernism. all but leave Nelson out of the frame, while developed modular systems that prepared that Nelson had been educated as an While Nelson’s public profile is others spoke from an intimate perspective as the way for Nelson’s more ebullient work in architect at Yale, yet when awarded a 1932 firmly linked to that of Herman Miller, the veterans of the office and the era. Yet others the same terrain that would prove to be truly fellowship in architecture at the American twenty-seven-year relationship by no means presented prized discoveries that come only non-conformist. Academy in Rome, he directed his energy to made up the total of his practice. He never from highly focused research. A few speak- Museum of Modern Art curator Juliet writing. His interviews with European archi- abandoned architecture, nor did he move to ers offered revelations regarding Nelson’s Kinchin moved the conversation from issues tects for Pencil Points played a seminal role the Herman Miller headquarters in Michigan. achievements as well as fresh insight into the of middle-class norms to Nelson’s outright in introducing Americans to Modernism. In fact, he sustained several practices, all nature of the design itself. It is to these three skepticism about any attempts to codify Moreover, it was Nelson’s prose, not based in New York City. Teasing them apart overlapping paradigms—context, discovery, taste. She noted that design was not, as he his experience as a designer that would would be a disservice, as they formed the and insight—that I’ll address my comments.

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