10> Sister things

On the celebration of this blog’s first hundred entries (objects) I am thinking about Mexican architect Luís Barragán’s love for the things that defined his living environment, his magnificent house in Tacubaya. He called them “sister things.” This hyperbole was partly a consequence of his tendency to ascetism, partly an acknowledgement of the importance that his everyday objects had in his life. Many of them he had designed and had crafted; others were full of symbolism, or devoid of any practical functionality –like his mirror spheres. Most of them were in sync with the austere architecture of the house where he lived all his life and his personality. Barragán’s lesson is this: the importance of objects is a state of mind, not an account of value or a measure of exclusivity. When I started this blog more than two years ago, I wanted to set the boundaries for an ongoing, shared state of mind that could be expressed through a sequence of things that I considered relevant to their present not because of their “design” value but because of their ability to question established definitions of design and open up a renewed understanding of the role of objects in our lives. Each entry has been a discovery and has suggested a redefinition of what is truly essential both culturally and socially; looking back, I realize how much I like the fact that each entry became an excuse for the following one.