DWR: Tools for Living SoHo Artist Window Series, No. 4.

September brings forth the fourth installment of Tools for Living’s Artist Window Series. We invited Alex Merto to illustrate thee windows in his unique style. Alex chose a beautiful illustrated cross-stitch pattern with “Home” as his theme. I asked him why he chose it: He said he wanted to make an image composed of tiny little pieces, every piece contributing to the overall. 

All a twitter about Russel Wright.

I paid $289 for admission to a Russel Wright exhibition in San Francisco. That price didn’t include a docent, but it did include a one-way flight from SFO to New York. You have to be a ticketed passenger to see many of the exhibits presented by San Francisco Airport Museums (SFAM), which have been treating the traveling public to a bit of culture to soften the feeling of cattle herding since 1980.

Through October in Terminal 3 is Wright at Home: Modern Lifestyle Design 1930–1965, an exhibit of dinnerware, furniture and accessories by the American industrial designer. Russel Wright is considered the first brand name or “celebrity” in home furnishings – the Martha Stewart of his time – largely in part to the brilliant marketing skills of his wife, Mary Small Einstein.

American Modern pitchers (left) in the SFO exhibit, and an American Modern pitcher (right) in Wright’s New York home.

It was Mary who encouraged Russel to put his signature on his work – a wise decision considering that 250 million pieces of his American Modern dinnerware were sold between 1939 and 1959. But the pair was interested in more than just giving people the tools for easier living; they also wanted to teach people how to live in more efficient, less formal ways, and in 1950 they published their manifesto Guide to Easier Living.

Speaking of Wright’s signature, it’s worth noting that he spells his first name with one “l” which isn’t a ploy to make him seem more unique (like the Wendy who spells her name “Wendi” with a heart over the “i”), but rather the missing “l” is the result of a typo. In the 1920s, a stationer who is certainly not a household name (except for @*%#$ typesetter!) produced letterhead with Wright’s name misspelled. Always the practical (cheap?) industrial designer, he decided to go with it, and Russell became Russel.

And it’s a good thing too, because if you want to learn more about Wright, and you accidentally google Russell (two l’s), you’ll stumble upon the Twitter account of a Wyoming-based musician who beautifully demonstrates why I think Twitter is a craptacular (thank you NPR for adding a word to my vocabulary last Sunday) use of time:

“Get Joel some wedding cake.”
“What the…”
“He, he”

However, Russell the Wyoming musician did tweet, “Wow, Frank is all that!” which made me wonder what Russel the iconic industrial designer would tweet about Frank Lloyd Wright. Unlike Wright and Wright, Wright has access to new technologies that Wright and Wright could never even imagine. And I’d bet you a potluck dinner that mid-century designers like Eames, Wright (you can pick which one I’m referring to), Bertoia, Panton and others would’ve used Twitter in smart, relevant, compelling and useful ways.

Russel Wright sent the plans for his Hudson River valley home (above) and studio (below) to Frank Lloyd Wright for review. The two met when FLLW was in New York working on the Guggenheim, but there’s no evidence that Frank visited (or tweeted about) Russel’s property.

I don’t tweet because things like, “Everyone in the IT department appears to be wearing the same shirt today,” are better left in my head than expressed to others. Instead, I offer you “tweets” by Russel Wright, taken from the pages of Guide to Easier Living, along with images of his work and Hudson River valley home:

Spun Aluminum designs by Russel Wright. In the 1930s, Wright discovered that this affordable metal was easy to work with and could be made to look like pewter.

The dining area in Russel Wright’s home is next to a wall of boulders and the trunk of a cedar tree, which serves as the building’s primary vertical support post.

Wright built his fireplace to accommodate logs stacked vertically because he believed they burned more efficiently this way.

The bathtub in Russel Wright’s studio overlooks the quarry and has a view of the pond.

Low-maintenance steps in Wright’s home.

The plate-like “Ceramic” clock that Wright designed for General Electric in 1951 is on display at SFO (left) and hangs in the kitchen (right) of his New York home. (Drat! If I’d taken the photo at Wright’s house a half-hour earlier, it would’ve accurately reflected the time difference.)

It’s unclear how the plate-clock is the ticket to easier living (perhaps in a pinch you can serve on it, if you don’t mind that pesky second hand sweeping through your food), but it’s a fun item to troll for on eBay. The original retail of $9 translates to about $75 today, which is close to the final hammer prices I’ve seen online.

Check out the Russel Wright exhibit if you’re traveling through SFO, and if you’re on the East Coast, be sure to visit the Russel Wright Design Center (pay attention to the doors and doorknobs) and if you’ve seen either one, let me know what you think.

Gwendolyn Horton

From the CEO: What is of value to you?

I have had a lot of discussions lately regarding “value” versus price. Probably stimulated by an earlier blog post by moi. It really is an interesting subject, and it varies by person and topic. What is of value to one is, well, not so much of value to someone else. Or as my mother used to say, “one man’s garbage is another’s treasure.” 

But I have been giving this subject a lot of thought and would like to know what you all think on the subject. In the times we are living in, it seems very relevant to me. We are faced with green washing, organic everything, and so many claims that it is hard to tell fact from fiction and really understand the impact on our lives that some of these decisions may make. 

Is the organic avocado that was flown in from Peru really a good thing? Is the hybrid luxury SUV that gets all of 19 miles per gallon really a good thing? Or in our case: Is an authentic reproduction of an Eames chair that is three times the price of an unauthorized one really worth the difference? 

DWR celebrates (fashion) design.

Tribeca recently hosted an event to kick off NYC Fashion Week. Part of NYC Fashion’s Night Out, this fun soiree was filled with beautiful people, great music and amazing designs. Preston Lee and Yotam Solomon exhibited three presentations of haute interior design with haute fashion using DWR products. You may remember Lee from Bravo’s Top Design, season two. He creates spaces with an old Hollywood aura and a modern twist. Yotam Solomon is the youngest designer ever to show at Los Angeles Fashion Week. This Israeli-born prodigy is already an editorial favorite and has been featured in Women’s Wear Daily and British Vogue for his beautiful ready-to-wear collections as well as his amazingly cutting-edge, high-fashion shoe designs. 

This weekend: tables, chairs, sofas, desks…oh my.

We’re having  three Warehouse Sales at our Annex locations, this Saturday and Sunday. The Annexes – in Palm Springs, Cleveland and Secaucus, New Jersey – are receiving large shipments of seconds and customer returns. You’ll find sofas and lounge chairs up to 50% off, workspace and bedroom furniture at up to 60% off and dining tables as much as 70% off. This time though, we’re making things a little more interesting: For the serious bargain hunters out there, we’ve added a “deeper discount” section that will include the same great stuff, but for a lot less (potentially with a few more dings and dents). Plus, each location will be holding raffles for free merchandise. Click here to learn more and find a DWR Warehouse Sale near you.

Optimism is the new black.

Here at the Philadelphia Studio, we’re definitely in agreement with Adam Garcia of 160over90, our local winner of the Paulistano Uncovered Design Competition, that “happiness is where you find it.” His design for a new cover for the classic Brazilian sling chair, called Optimism Script (below), gave us something to smile about. Local designers filled the Studio last week to celebrate DWR’s newest design competition, which was started to celebrate innovative emerging designers and held at five Studios nationally. 

Swinging left and right, north and south.

“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door,” said Coco Chanel. And yet, Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that “every wall is a door.” As the fashion designer and the transcendentalist agree to disagree, may I present a few doors (and windows) that caught my eye on a recent trip.

The birch-bark door shown below is at the Russel Wright Design Center in Garrison, New York. Wright created this for his own studio, which is next to his Dragon Rock home and surrounded by 75 acres known as Manitoga.

A birch-bark veneered door at Russel Wright’s studio where no two doorknobs are the same.

I applaud Wright for not making the door convex, as a literal tree-door was not what he was after. Both indulgent and playful, Wright used the birch bark to make a connection to the surrounding landscape and show the contrast between it and the few man-made materials used at the property.

It surprised me that this is the door to a bedroom rather than an exterior space, but the latter would have been impractical. Imagine herbalists stealing bits of bark to put in their tea, and woodpeckers tricking you into thinking there is someone at the door. 

Being an interior door also forces you to interact with it, and thereby with nature, each time you enter or exit the room. By snagging your sweater on its curlicues that grab softly at anything that passes by, Wright’s door makes it impossible to forget the source of this door’s (and many doors’) natural material.

Wright’s home is an hour north of New York City, where it was 95 degrees and news reports warned that wearing flip-flops could be fatal. (I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that things percolate on sidewalks when it’s scorching in New York.) Seeking air conditioning, I strolled through the chaotic Chelsea Market at Ninth Avenue and West 16th Street where I was drawn to the gouged and scratched doors (below).

New York’s Chelsea Market.

Looking like an idea that began with a mistake, I discovered that there is an intentional “theme of industrial archaeology that runs through the space” and a desire to showcase damage, not conceal it (lucky break for the construction crew). The door was locked and I wondered what secret it held. Is it a utility closet, conference room or a practice stage for U2? If you know, post a comment below.

Rich in visual texture, it’s easy to imagine these doors having acoustic qualities as well. The look of the New York door reminds me of chains dragging on concrete, whereas the door at the Hatch Cottage (below) elicits auditory mirages of clicking ice in summer cocktails.

The Hatch Cottage in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Speaking of chains, the Hopkins House (below left) by Charlie Zehnder was disparaged in a recent Boston Globe blog for looking like a prison. To which I reply, “Lock me up.” These windows edit the view and accent how light and foliage change with time. And because another house is nearby, the small openings ensure privacy (or maybe the peek-a-boo view teases the heck out of whoever lives next door).

The work of Charlie Zehnder: the Hopkins House (left) and the Kugel-Gips House (right) are in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Also by Zehnder is the Kugel-Gips house, which has two elevations that are bunker-like in their use of concrete blocks and oblique windows. Facing south and west, however, are ribbons of glass (above right) running the length of each wall, and butt-glazed corner windows that project the living space into the landscape.

The last windows I’ll share with you are in honor of the new school year.

In 1965, Louis Kahn was commissioned by Phillips Exeter Academy to build a library. Described by the American Institute of Architects as a “modern architectural masterpiece,” I’ll tell you more about this library in an upcoming Design Notes. Until then, I offer a preview of its windows, which showcase Kahn’s ability to pull the sky into his buildings, creating fields of blue on the exterior while filling the interior with natural light. 

Gwendolyn Horton

Still classy, but no longer fiberglassy.

Back in production and available first at Design Within Reach, we’re proud to reintroduce the Eames® Molded Plastic Chairs with wooden dowel legs. Working closely with the Eames Office to create these fully licensed chairs, the Michigan-based Herman Miller, Inc., reengineered the dowel base for improved strength while staying true to the Eameses’ original design.

Charles and Ray Eames created the DAW (dining armchair with wood base) and DSW (dining side chair with wood base) as a later version of the shell chair designs they created for MoMA’s 1948 International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design. At that time, the Eameses stamped the shells out of metal. Later they moved to fiberglass, and today the chairs are made of a more ecologically supportable material, recyclable polypropylene. While the materials have evolved, the comfort of these chairs has not changed. The molded shells have high, flexible backs, deep seat pockets and waterfall seat edges that reduce pressure on the backs of thighs. These originals are authentic, fully licensed products of Herman Miller, Inc., and until November 23, they're available only at DWR. Eames is a licensed trademark of Herman Miller.