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Since two weeks I swapped the the peaceful verdant valleys of the German Mosel river with the industrial and architectural Rotterdam.
I am blessed with this ridiculously spacious apartment downtown Rotterdam; on top of which it is in a nice neighbourhood not far from the old harbour area, where the Atelier Van Lieshout is located.
More about this and my lovely experiences at the Atelier very soon.
Enjoy the summer!
Ps: My Dutch mobile number is definitely no longer in use!! For urgent matters please ring my UK one. My excuses for any inconveniences.
Being truly positively sensitive to rural furniture, all kinds of analogue tools and other objects I associate with my late grand-parents premises, I am rather excited to share with you some nice images from the good ol' Shakers.
We are overly familiar with their furniture from the US. The objects here make no exception.
For once, however, I find it refreshing to see some colorful pieces from this generally dark portrayed community.
I feel even more attracted to these objects since, as testified by the previous post, I am lucky enough to be spending a few weeks in rural Germany, close to Luxembourg, where it is quite peaceful and very agricultural. Informed by my childhood's influences, these two attributes prominently feature on my rather short checklist encapsulating the perquisites for my conception of a name worthy country side.
Particularly, devices like the apple processor, the cheese press, the spinning wheel and the broom vise bench intrigue me with their trans-medieval mechanical characteristics. Also the light looking but inevitably heavy wood stove gives props to the pleasing philosophy of its makers. Even the contradictory, manually intensive water deeper looks very convincing.
Nearly every object on this site has such a disarming beauty. Naturally, the marketing folk have done their homework, hiring in some adequate photographers for the auction images. Nevertheless, even after a few Design History introductions, the overall logic and consistency of the objects still shake me up, unleashing that compelling urge of running towards workshops and spending hours fabricating stuff. Although I am afraid I can't compete (not merely because of the disciplinary necessity!). I guess them Shakers were the veritable masters of the 'mass production'. They should found a proper design school or something similar! That is, of course, if they still 'exist'?
Greetings from the sunny Deutschland.
