Objects

126. Sugar cubes

2009-09-07T05:10:00.002-04:00

A BBC article a few days ago was entitled South Asia hit by sugar shortages. I learned that India is the largest consumer of sugar in the world, and that people in India and Pakistan were seriously outraged by the shortages of sugar in the days previous to the beginning of Ramadan: don’t mess with my sugar! I didn’t think that some people would be compelled to rebel because there isn’t enough sugar to go around. It seems that sugar cubes were invented around mid 19th century in Moravia as a matter of convenience. Early domestic sugar was formed into loafs that one had to cut to get a small amount of crystals, and that was messy and inconvenient. Sugar cubes were easy to store and count, and provided the right amount of sugar in an easy way. It interests me to think about this as an objectification of a raw material; sugar crystals are formless and need to be contained. Forming them into cubes, puzzle pieces or fancy chocolate-shaped units is a process of forming the amorphous. This improves handling, hygiene and quantity control. But, does the shape matter? Is the cube the best form for a sugar cube? The examples in the image above have to do with marketing rather than design. An interesting design competition would be: finding the right form for the sugar cube, the main problem being the relationship between form and volume (amount of sugar per serving).

125. Sugar stirring stick

2009-09-01T08:44:00.002-04:00

I don’t remember exactly when I first saw a sugar stirring stick but I remember thinking the object was as ingenious as it was superfluous. A web site that commercializes these things suggests: why just add sugar when you can make a fashion statement with these fun and memorable swizzle sticks? I am still trying to understand what kind of a fashion statement do these crystallized sugar-encrusted wooden sticks make. I am also wondering in which way are they fun and memorable. A good question would be: what is the cultural territory for these things? Are they only available in elegant New York restaurants, or could they also be an interesting object for middle-class households, or hospitals, for example? Although wasteful and superfluous, the real novelty this object holds for me is the premise of a new category of partly edible objects, products that change form and function after a part of them is eaten. The chupa-chups (lollipop) would be in that category, as would the ice cream on a stick, although the problem with those semi-edible objects is that the non-edible part is useless and disposable. What if it were not but, instead, it would have a function? You put your sugar stirring stick in your coffee and after the sugar melts, the life of a new, fully functional object begins. That is, of course, if we accept the premise that adding the sugar with a spoon is not fashionable enough.

124. In-flight stirrer

2009-08-26T03:41:00.002-04:00

In-flight service has always intrigued me. At present, it is slowly disappearing not because airlines realized that having uniformed people serving you in your seat is closer to a distant past than to the fast-changing present, but because they need to reduce costs and they think a good way to do it is making passengers pay even for their water. Perhaps the solution would be to equip airplanes with snack machines so that whoever wants to eat or drink can do it on demand, without the need to call the flight attendant and be served. I kept a coffee stirrer from my last transatlantic flight –the only flights where you get a meal nowadays- mainly because I wonder if its aerodynamic shape had to do with its context rather than its function: no doubt it is a poor stirrer; but it does suggest the formal vocabulary that goes with the idea of flying, a mixture of aerodynamics and ephemeral comfort. I must be one of the few who enjoys in-flight meals not because of their quality –needless to say- but because they are a ritual attached to my personal history. I have also noticed that they are very wasteful –everything is disposable, including the small stirrer I kept as a souvenir. At the same time, the fact that airplanes need to reduce weight, and their tools and objects are designed for lightness, gives this small injection-molded plastic utensil a whole new meaning.

123. Bread clip

2009-08-11T12:47:00.002-04:00

A bread clip is a low-tech device used to hold plastic bags closed. It is one of those objects with a form somewhat foreign to its function: it looks more like a piece of a table game than something designed to keep the bread fresh longer. Perhaps its shape is too sophisticated, geometrically speaking, or too abstract, for what it does. Perhaps it is the fact that its shape shows how it was manufactured, using a die-cutting process. There is something about the rigidity of the clip and the organic, non-structural nature of the plastic bag it keeps closed that is worth thinking about. All this in the small size of 7/8” x 7/8” (2.2 x 2.2 cm.), although there are some bread clip variations, for example a rectangular version featuring a larger gripping surface that eases the opening and closing process. I have always found low-tech objects reassuring in their unambiguous relationship between form, function and user interaction, specifically the fact that the majority of them explain with their form not only what their function is but also how they are used. The fact that the bread clip does not fully adhere to that principle, with its intriguing shape, explains that I found a number of objects that took that shape literally for their own purposes, creating formal clones with different functions and meaning; is that plagiarism, or just a legitimate way to reuse a really cool shape for aesthetic reasons?

122. Twist tie

2009-07-28T23:00:00.001-04:00

Twist ties are locking mechanisms we are used to losing or misplacing, usually without even noticing or minding, because we consider them rather valueless. Even if we use them daily, in multiple different ways, most would agree that they are disposable, irrelevant objects with extremely mundane functions. In other words, no twist tie will ever make it to MOMA’s permanent collection, despite the fact that anybody thinking about twist ties enough would agree that they are extremely versatile, user-friendly everyday objects. They are abundant and inexpensive, in many ways examples of good anonymous design: a simple piece of wire or the right gauge coated with plastic or even paper so that the user won’t hurt her/his hands. Their uses are numerous: we find them in the bags of potatoes we purchase at the supermarket; neatly holding cables in a bundle or in the garden; or securing tomato plants to bamboo stakes, to name a few. They are often visible on top of the kitchen counter, when the loaf of bread has been used up and there is no need to tie the bag anymore, and quickly thrown away, as we do with many other anonymous, well-designed, inexpensive everyday objects. A twist tie is not something we could not live without; but it adds value, convenience and comfort to our everyday situations. It is unfailing, reliable and intuitive to use: and it has the gift of variable form every time it is reused.

121. Necktie

2009-07-21T16:29:00.002-04:00

In David Mamet’s delicious comedy State and Main (2000), Michael Higgins, who plays the small town doctor Wilson, has a brief conversation with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays scriptwriter White. It is about neckties: “the truth is you should never trust anybody wearing a bow tie” says Doc Wilson, who is wearing one; “a cravat (necktie) is supposed to point down, to accentuate the genitals; why do you want to trust somebody whose tie points out to accentuate his ears?” Mamet’s gift for comedy reflects on the shrinking symbolism of neckties in Western society. Times are changing quickly and so is everyday attire: a 2007 Gallup poll found that 67% of men never wear ties to work and I would assume that figure has increased today. In the United States, data shows that necktie sales have declined since the 1990s, even if some voices still contend that necktie wearing has not declined as much as people thinks. The question is whether wearing suit and tie today is still meaningful, necessary or sensible, even to reflect a certain economic or social status. One could look back to those black and white films from the 50s –Sterling Hayden, Bogart, Edward G. Robinson- where even the most miserable con man would perpetrate horrendous crimes perfectly dressed in his suit and tie, to realize how much we have changed. Next step is to convince our politicians not to take themselves so seriously and rethink their everyday attire.

12> Accessories

2009-07-12T20:06:00.001-04:00

By definition, an accessory is an object with a secondary, supplementary or subordinate function. There are accessories for our cars and houses; accessories for pets, gardens and activities, such as going back to school or going on vacation. There are accessories for us, like a tie strap or a pin-back button. And those are relatively inexpensive, if we compare them with the close to 150 billion dollars generated by jewelry sales back in 2006 (probably closer to 200 bil today). Our capitalist society is hyper-accessorized: what does that mean? How to justify this obsession with objects of secondary function? Is it that we are all set with necessary objects, objects of primary function, and that is why we set our eyes and open our wallets to objects of secondary function? How to differentiate between both categories, though? Is a Panama hat in the tropics an accessory or a primary object? Will Mandela consider his Makorotlo an accessory? I am sure that a person with 50 pairs of shoes in her closet does not consider them accessories either (I once met someone who claimed she had 250+ pairs). The question is one of necessity versus excess, that is: buy it; use it a few times; give it away or throw it away. Accessories may be prized possessions and that is dandy; the problem is when they are mere disposable, momentary possessions. Excess is so integrated in our lives, we can’t detect it anymore.

120. Tie strap

2009-07-03T22:01:00.002-04:00

An invisible contraption: the tie strap -also known as tie down. As a kid I had to wear uniform to school, beige tie included. I learned to do my Windsor and half Windsor knots early on, and I practiced them every morning for many years. But I had never heard about tie straps until today. My question: is human civilization better off with tie straps than without? While I wonder what could possibly be the profile of your typical tie strap user, I learn that this rather insignificant object fulfils the function of keeping one’s tie close to one’s shirt. I have not worn a tie since my school days but, back then, the least of my problems was that my tie would separate from my shirt in a windy day. The tie strap is made of leather or plastic and connects tie and shirt by bridging the gap between two shirt buttons and looping through the tie label in the process. This little object is designed to provide an efficient way of restricting the movement of one’s tie while remaining out-of-sight. A tie strap belongs to the world of accessories, that is, unnecessary stuff that is sold to us to minimally improve our lives or, at least, to give us the impression that our lives are greatly improved and we are truly sophisticated individuals. Who could possibly think that inventing something to keep your tie under control could significantly improve anyone’s life?

119. Zipper

2009-06-21T21:23:00.003-04:00

It seems that it was Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, who received the first patent for an “automatic, continuous clothing closure” in 1851 (although it is Whitcomb Judson who is officially credited as the inventor of the zipper, with his 1893 patent). A zipper, like a button, is an unlikely object in its own right; so much so, that probably not everybody has seen zippers before being sewn into clothing, particularly in these wasteful times in which mending clothing is a rarity. The object we all know has a narrow fabric part (tape) with a protruding set of meshed hardware in the middle (chain) formed by small teeth and operated by a metal piece (slider). When installed in a garment, the zipper gives up its objectuality to become a silent mechanism that provides full functionality to the piece of clothing where it is installed. In a very basic way, the duality of the zipper -move one way, zip, move the opposite way, unzip- is comforting in its simplicity and allows for great symbolism and mental associations in regards to the human need for dressing and undressing, a ritual that we repeat several times every day, a ritual with different meanings and intentions, often made possible by the smart mechanism we so take for granted. Never such a “dumb” mechanism generated such complexity of thoughts, such a variety of uses, from the sinful to the pure, from the luxurious to the everyday.

118. Button

2009-06-12T14:16:00.002-04:00

Buttons are nested objects. They are a functioning part of a larger object –a piece of garment- for which they fulfill a function that they could not fulfill on their own: a button does not have a reason to exist on its own other than as a collectible item or, perhaps, a decorative accessory. It seems that this was the case back in the Bronze Age when, according to some sources, buttons were first used not to fasten but as wearable decoration. This was 3,000 years ago. The button as a fastening device arrived into Europe 1,200 years ago, as the returning Crusaders appropriated the idea from the Turks and Mongols they had fought. Despite its fascinating, centuries-old history, the system of button and buttonhole is still prevalent and has not been put out of use by a better solution for fastening clothing. No big surprise. This fastening system is very clever in its low-tech simplicity: a vertical cut of a length slightly larger than the button’s diameter allows not only good fastening but also slight flexibility of movement, as the thread that secures the button to the fabric can slide up and down the vertical cut as needed. In the 16th century they were such a status symbol that the king of France’s garment exhibited 13,000 buttons. This is anecdotal, perhaps an exaggeration; but the everyday importance of this anonymous invention is unquestionable even if, as an object, nobody thinks about a button twice.

117. Pin-back button

2009-05-25T16:47:00.001-04:00

The invention of celluloid in 1869 made possible the development of the first pin-back buttons: thin sheets of celluloid were used to cover printed paper and give the effect of the traditional enamel badge at a significantly lower cost. The new process used less metal and avoided the need for soldering or screwing. The first pin-back buttons were 1 inch in diameter and quickly became a low-cost vehicle for personal and political expression and national pride. Since the early 20th century, pin-back buttons quickly evolved into universally accepted personal accessories, wearable signs of identity that allowed individuals to display their cultural or political preferences in public in a non-confrontational way. In the United States, the pin-back political button, as we know it, first appeared in the 1896 presidential race, between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. Since then, buttons have been present in every political campaign. They have been embraced by icon artists - John Lennon’s peace buttons- and full social subgroups -the punks in the mid seventies. There is something reassuring about having to display a message in such a small surface, having to wear it as an addition to one’s clothing. Wearable content is steadily implanted in our society and has been a mass consumer trend for decades. Buttons are an interesting hybrid half way between content and accessory. That’s why 150 years after they were first developed they are still around filling a void that high technology is unable to fill.

116. Bottle cap soccer

2009-05-17T07:55:00.002-04:00

The advent of aluminum cans as containers for carbonated drinks epitomizes our current wasteful society. Before cans, glass bottles with steel caps were the norm. They still are for most beers, while sodas slowly evolved from aluminum can to plastic bottle with plastic cap, an equally wasteful choice compared with the glass bottle option. Glass bottles are recyclable and fully reusable, and as far as I remember the days when they were the only option, everyone recycled them as a matter of habit. Steel bottle caps are also reusable. In Spain, one of the favorite options for kids not too long ago was using bottle caps to assemble soccer teams and play miniature soccer matches on improvised surfaces (a small rug, a smooth floor surface, a table, etc.). It was as easy as cutting a round picture of your favorite soccer player and inserting it in the cap. Full teams could be assembled quickly, carried in the pockets of your trousers and deployed instantly for a match. The ball was a garbanzo bean or a rounded sphere made of aluminum paper. Looking back it seems an amazingly creative, resourceful, intelligent way of inventing games and making a lot from a little, probably something seriously foreign to today’s kids. In Spain there is a revival of this pastime. It is called Futbol Chapas and has clubs, a 16-page official book of game rules and regulations and, since 2005, an official national championship.

115. Baseball cap

2009-05-03T20:53:00.001-04:00

According to a recent article from the BBC baseball caps, as we know them today, originated in 1954. The style is called 59Fifty and remains the official cap for baseball players. It is a mystery how 59Fiftys have become an almost universal must wear item for an array of social subgroups: from urbanites to politicians, from movie directors to cool wannabes. There are two prevailing variations of the baseball cap: the rather tall, boxy version, the one grandpas and farmers wear –envision the John Deere logo; and the snug version made out of a soft crown of six or eight triangular sections of solid-color wool fabric, usually the truly fashionable item. Cap visors are reinforced with an insert of a stiffening material such as buckram or plastic. The functionality of the cap is rather parabolic: while the rim of a hat –a Panama hat, for instance- goes around to protect the full head from the sun, the visor of a cap only protects the face of the wearer: while hats are spatial, caps are eminently frontal, with the visor acting as a pedestal for the message sewn in the front of the cap, be it the emblem of a sports team or a corporate name. This communication aspect of the caps has taken over any other design consideration: caps are what they communicate –just like printed T-shirts are a moving advertisement before they are a garment- and their functionality is minimal. Still cool?

114. Panama hat

2009-04-18T20:43:00.003-04:00

The famous New York Times photo of Theodore Roosevelt waving his hat after returning to the United States from a visit to the Panama Canal popularized the use of Panama hats. The misconception is that these hats originated in Panama: they originated in Ecuador’s coastal town of Montecristi. In 1835, a Spanish businessman called Manuel Alfaro started producing the first “Montecristis” or “sombreros de paja toquilla,” later called Panama hats. They were made from toquilla straw hand-split into strands not much thicker than thread, and finely woven. Panama hats are bleached with sulphur or dyed: browns are usually for men's hats, pastels for women's hats, white and cream are universal. After weaving, the hat body is washed, pummeled to provide regularity, and dried. The sides and crown are carefully beaten to even them out. Initial ironing of the brim through a cloth is necessary to remove undulations. At last, before blocking, the raw edges of fibers are trimmed from the brim and back woven to prevent fraying. Hand blocking with steam and iron or with the use of a steam press produces the familiar pattern styles. In 1909 Roosevelt returned to the United States wearing a hat made in Ecuador, but things have change since then: can anyone imagine president Obama returning to the United States wearing an Afghan Karakul after a visit to Afghanistan, or a Pakol after visiting Pakistan? Would the New York Times publish the photo?

113. Makorotlo

2009-03-30T06:14:00.004-04:00

The image of Nelson Mandela wearing a mokorotlo (the traditional Basotho hat) and kobo (Bashoto blanket) is timeless: the image of the great man wearing the supreme symbol of Lesotho, the handwoven and ubiquitous straw Basotho hat, speaks of the power of objects to be both functional extensions of our body and collective symbols. Mokorotlo and kobe are important everyday objects in Lesotho because the weather conditions change from blazing sun during the day to chilly breeze after sunset. But the handwoven conical hat trascended its intended function to become a national symbol, so powerful that in the past was part of the blue, white and green Lesotho flag: how powerful and socially accepted must the shape of an object be to become the symbol depicted in the national flag? The form of this object was also directly translated into a mokorotlong -in Masaru, a handicraft center. This translations from object to building, from utilitarian thing to symbolic cultural icon, from hand-woven to team-built, pose the question of the multiple facets of form and the social value of accepted form as a signifier and an element of cohesion and national identity. It is hard to infer that sort of reach from the humble shape of the mokorotlo hat, a shape that is similar in other parts of the world, other cultures that also adapted the cone to create hand-woven hats. But a hand-crafted object becoming a national symbol speaks volumes of the local priorities.

112. Ukhamba

2009-03-25T09:22:00.001-04:00

Ukhamba baskets are specifically designed to hold low-alcohol, fermented sorghum or millet beer on ceremonial occasions. The offering of a communal basket of beer is customary when guests visit a Zulu household. Ukhambas are usually bulb-shaped, rigid, and watertight. This last feature is a combination of the tightness of the special coil weaving and the material used, ilala palm. Ilala palm fronds are collected, pulled into strips, naturally dyed and hung to dry to manufacture the fibers for basket weaving. Even if the palm fronds have a waxy coating that makes them ideal for the crafting of watertight baskets, the baskets require that their pores be sealed from the inside with a paste of coarsely-ground corn, prior to their first use. It can take up to one month to produce a medium-size ukhamba that will be unique in size, shape and pattern. Weaving is a female craft, usually passed from grandmother to granddaughter. Girls begin weaving at early age and are usually able to support themselves on the proceeds of their basket sales. The design of ukhamba baskets is so advanced, that when filled with beer and kept in the shade, there is a natural process of water condensation on their outside surfaces. As outside temperatures are extremely hot and water evaporates, the liquid inside remains cool. The basket in the picture is approximately 12.5 in. (31.7 cm.) in diameter, 18.75 in. (47.6 cm.) in height, with a 5 in. (12.7 cm.) mouth opening.

111. Imbenges

2009-03-22T09:16:00.000-04:00

Two fine examples from my friend’s personal collection of Zulu imbenges. Imbenge is the Zulu name for small bowl or saucer, an object that used to have the specific function of covering clay and palm Ukhambas (beer baskets) to keep the liquid insect and dust free. Indigenous to Zululand, these telephone wire bowls started to appear in the 1960s, when discarded plastic-coated copper telephone wire became more abundant than ilala palm baskets, the staple weaving material until then. The examples in the image (about 4 inches –10 cm.- in diameter) have a thick copper wire ring and are woven from that outside edge toward the center. Even if they are too porous to hold liquids, they are quite sturdy and stable, in terms of form, to hold anything else. My friend tells me that the bowls were crafted by Zulu men who became weavers after being injured in the gold and diamond mines of South Africa. A cooperative teaches them the weaving techniques and employs them thereafter. At some point, Zulus used to down telephone poles to get wire for their weaving, when the availability of recycled material was scarce. Today there is a more stable structure to cover the cost of the raw material: the coop foots 25%, the South African Government another 25% and the telephone company the remaining 50%. Over 800 full time weavers and their families are supported, with a fair living wage, by this innovative and well-established cottage industry.

11> The JNT life

2009-03-13T21:15:00.001-04:00

Technology is increasingly embedded in our everyday objects and it is difficult to imagine our lives without it. It is impossible to conceive our society without unlimited access to electricity and gasoline. Technology equips objects with an animated interface that responds to our orders, like inputting information in our laptop or turning on our car. I spent six weeks in the small town of Puerto Viejo -in the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica- just to realize that the local culture is very much based on the JNT life (Just the Necessary Technology). This does not mean that they don’t have electricity or computers; it means that they are not interested in spiraling technologization of their everyday lives. It was clear that consuming less electricity, moving around by bicycle rather than car, or barely using the cell phone were incredibly therapeutic habits that not only affected the way time unfolded, much more slowly and intensely, but also brought me closer and closer to Nature and natural habits. This sounds romantic, perhaps, and I will not deny it was difficult at first, like breaking an addictive habit. But it proved to be cathartic at many levels. The majority of the last ten objects are a sampling of the JNT life I learned to understand in Puerto Viejo. Some of them show great intelligence, even if it is not battery operated. They also show a deep cultural attachment and a longing for permanence.

110. Bug zapper

2009-03-07T06:58:00.001-05:00

Two unnamed Denver men devised a flytrap in 1911. It was a tabletop object with a small oak drawer and base, and a system of 5 incandescent lamps that would attract mosquitoes to their electrocution. The image caption read: “The flies are supposed to be attracted by bait within the cage and be electrocuted when they attempt to get at it.” The bait within was meat, so flies were caught almost in the same way one tries to catch a white shark. This is considered the precursor of the bug zapper, an ever-present garden gadget necessary in summer outdoor dinner parties. The flytrap is the antithesis of the insect collector, a killing machine that attempts the quixotic task of getting rid of mosquitoes. In Costa Rica, locals told me not to worry about mosquitoes, because getting rid of them is impossible, and one might as well forget about them. I tried and they kept biting me although after weeks of being there, the bites were less and less (perhaps I just did not pay that much attention). The point is this: the bug zapper is one of those objects that are specific to a consumerist society like ours that has always tried to fully control nature and believes comfort is a constant struggle that may only be won by inventing ever more superfluous gadgets. Nobody really likes mosquito bites, but putting your best wits to inventing something like the device above seems irrational.

109. Insect collector

2009-02-27T06:23:00.003-05:00

Researchers at La Selva designed and built an insect collector. It is installed in the middle of their campus, which is the middle of the Costarrican rain forest. It is as simple an object as it seems: a white canvass surface with a linear black light on top and a small sheltering surface to keep it all dry. It is about 7 feet high by 7 feet long (2,15 x 2,15 m.) and from the distance it looks like one of those bulletin boards one may find in urban areas (see object 59). Although barely visible in the images, insects do populate the white canvass, a mini community of small and large bugs, spiders and things I never saw before. Collecting insects is usually a way to eliminate them and black, ultraviolet light is generally used for that purpose. In this case, collecting is a positive thing, an open door to new knowledge. This object has the rudimentary appeal of all things unusual or uncommon. It is not well designed and it is not intentional in its materiality; it is just put together and put to work. “But it does work,” people at the station told me, and that is good enough. I have always wondered if that is really good enough, if a world simplified by ad-hoc objects that “just work” is what we should aspire to. Ad-hoc objects that work seem a better option than over-designed objects that don’t work.

108. Boot-cleaning station

2009-02-19T07:09:00.002-05:00

Another public use object at La Selva: a boot-cleaning station we could call it, although when I asked around what was its proper name I was told it does not have one. An object without a name but with a clear function and a material presence that asserts its importance in the everyday life of this community. This is an object that few visitors to the station would notice, their minds probably tuned to discovering the exuberant flora and fauna of the place and not the local infrastructure. Yet, despite its anonymity, I realized on site that it is an important community object, frequently used by researchers to wash off the mud and dirt from their boots. It has the additional function of a lively meeting point and while washing off their boots, researchers inevitably engage in conversations that always last longer than the cleaning task. This object has a rather monolithic look, one that clearly highlights its status as artifact. Its materiality shouts that it does not want to integrate with the natural landscape, but assert its tectonic presence and function as a distinctive alternative to the natural landscape. In fact, researchers could easily wash off their boots in the nearby river, as much as they could sleep or relieve themselves in the forest. The existence of dormitories, toilets and boot-cleaning stations at La Selva defines design in its broadest possible sense, as the procurement of preferred ways of satisfying human needs.

107 Boot rack

2009-02-15T16:51:00.003-05:00

A visit to La Selva Biological Station, in Costa Rica’s Central region, shows a variety of custom-made, one-of-a-kind public use objects. Public use objects are at the service of the community. They are not owned by individuals but by institutions or agencies. They are democratic since they provide a service to all, without distinction: a beggar and a millionaire, a woman and a child, a local and a foreigner sit in the same park bench. Urban furniture is the best example of this category of objects, and this boot rack is the equivalent of an element of urban furniture in a natural environment: a fine example of nature furniture. This object addresses a need and explains how it was designed: biological researchers spend their time collecting data in the rain forest. They all use rubber boots that inevitably get wet and muddy. When they return to the lab building, they need a dry and clean pair of shoes; at first, they probably lined up their rubber boots on the ground until someone realized that was not the best way for them to dry. Also, since most of the boots look the same and their size is stamped in the sole, a logical way to know whose boots were who is to invert them at an angle that allows a quick visual identification and faster draining of excess water. The materialization of the design could have been more refined. But this is true innovation.

106. Hand-carved knickknack

2009-02-10T12:37:00.001-05:00

What is the role of function-less objects? Is there a cultural justification for purely decorative things? Are they designed to provoke an emotional response? Are they designed with a certain idea of beauty in mind? Do they remind us the wealth of local craftsmen and women and their self-taught mastery of the wood chisel and the brush? I noticed this woodcarving adorning a bare tabletop at the Costarrican house where I am staying. There are other figurines similar to it: a cock, a hen and a little mermaid. All of them equally colorful, all carved from blocks of níspero, a local dark hardwood. Níspero wood is used in construction due to its extreme hardness, its resistance to pests and its imperviousness. Níspero wood is not only hard to carve, but also very expensive. So I guess these function-less figures are relatively valuable objects in their own way, both in terms of the material and the manual labor involved. How long would have taken to carve and paint the froggy? Would the carver manufacture these souvenirs as a hobby, or would he/she be a full-time artisan? Would he be able to eke a living out of this? Function-less knick-knacks are in every household of every culture. They are all equally trivial, even offensive in their blatant triviality. Yet they have a role in most domestic (and work) environments; that is still a mystery to anyone interested in the role that objects play in our lives.

105. Caribbean lamp

2009-02-07T11:42:00.001-05:00

I found this lamp in the porch of a small house in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, in Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. It is about 10 in. x 10 in. x 6 in. (25.4 cm. x 25.4 cm. x 15.2 cm.). The two side wooden elements have equally-spaced vertical slots where strips of wood veneer are bent and inserted to create a truncated conical lampshade. As an object it awkwardly resembles 20th century European design precedents such as Louis Poulsen’s collection of lamps with nesting lampshades. I say awkwardly because, in this environment, design as we know it does not exist. Here, design = craft + ad-hoc expediency, usually by means of natural materials (wood, leaves of palm, ceramics, paper, etc.) and simple methods. By ad-hoc expediency I mean a sense of resolving things in the most direct, less costly (labor and money), most expedient way. The way of building and making things here does not contemplate the idea of permanence, possibly because nature is too intense, almost unbeatable, and why bother. That is the Caribbean way and it is evident in objects and buildings, the latter put together with the thinnest, smallest amount of wooden beams and bracing elements (I call it band-aid architecture), the former belonging to two main categories: the totally crafted function-less things (wood carvings, etc.) and the ad-hoc functional objects assembled with found parts, mixed and matched in either surprisingly clever ways, or not-so-interesting ways such as this one.

104. Mimetic garden lamp

2009-02-04T15:31:00.002-05:00

A garden lamp that time and atmospheric conditions have slowly transformed into an object superbly integrated with its surrounding environment. Located in a small garden, its shape, size and material suggest a mimetic relationship with the surrounding natural forms: fruits, flowers, leaves, branches, etc. The electric cable that supports it and feeds the bulb is covered with moss and layered organic matter. It was once white, but it now adopts a complex range of colors and it is seamlessly camouflaged with the thin, drooping surrounding branches. At night the light is soft and the perforations in the ceramic shell emit a subdued and unpredictable glow, particularly if it is windy and the object sways. Did someone design this object for its current state of absolute integration with its context, or was it just a happy, involuntary development? Certain materials develop extraordinary patinas and surface transformations by the mere action of time and atmospheric conditions. But the possibility of objects designed to gradually integrate with their environment –whichever this environment might be- is very appealing: planned mimetism, we could call it, a designed, gradual process of aging; objects that, like people, would change their appearance as they age: perhaps even their end would also be part of the design and at some point they would crack, fall and break, and then slowly dissolve into the ground and leave no trace. This lamp was not intentionally designed that way; but it could have been.