MTmodern

The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is hosting a wonderful exhibition of Chicago design. The U.I.M.A. is a great place to visit,  but if you can't, the exhibition catalog is definitely worth purchasing.

http://uima-chicago.org/

We were happy to see Leonard Farb's work included in the show. A lesser known name from the schools early days but a person we had the good fortune to meet. 

Farb was getting ready to move from the modest, modernist house he had designed and told us about his housewarming party. "Bucky (Buckminster Fuller) said, I wish you had let me design a house for you", Farb replied "I think the neighbors would put up a stink, trucking in the materials and watching a dymaxion home being built here". "No" Fuller replied "we build it off-site and bring it in by helicopter".

Farb was friends with most of the schools luminaries and Martha and I sat in awe as he recalled his time there. Throughout his life he was designing and creating in all mediums. We commented on a striking copper repousse sculpture on his living room wall. "That's an exhaust hood from an oven, somebody threw it away and I thought I could do something with it".

Below are curtains Farb designed and made. Showing the coach house he and his wife lived in while attending school and their profiles.

One of a series of thin line tables he designed and made as a student project.

One of a series of brass sculptures.

In interviews, James Prestini acknowledged that his woodwork was not well suited for everyday household use. In the 1930's when he began turning wood it was an exercise in precision and mastery of material. His thin walled vessels would not hold up to practical usage.

Having emigrated from Italy, his father, a trained stonecutter taught his son the value of patience and precision. Prestini exercised those values in his work and as a teacher tried to pass along those ideas to his students.  

In todays parlance his work became viral. A revival and modern interpretation of a longstanding form of craft.  By the 1950's Prestini stopped turning wood and moved on to other materials but his influence has been unmistakable in the field. It is also good example of object design, little practical usage but wonderful to look at. The concept of form over function plagues modern design but never stops me from buying something pretty to look at.

Fun Find of the Week -  1950's club My-O-My promotional brochure. (Perhaps a bit of good timing with this weekends Pride Parade.)

The history of the club began with the Wonder Bar, which opened at 125 Decatur Street in the French Quarter shortly after Prohibition ended. In 1936 that bar's owner, Emile Morlet, asked for an injunction against police raids on his club, where he employed male entertainers to "impersonate various people in the theatrical world." The court refused his request after the city attorney alleged the club attracted young people and posed "a menace to their morals." Afterwards Morlet relocated his bar, renamed the Wonder Club, on pilings out on the lake at the Jefferson-Orleans parish line, to get as far away from the police as possible.

In the late 1940s the My-O-My Club took over the business. An earlier fire on May 4, 1948, destroyed the new club, which rebuilt at the same location. Unfortunately another fire in 1972 fire proved the death knell for drag shows on the lakefront, ending a tradition that lasted over 40 years. 

It's hard to believe these fires were caused by an outside source, cause it looked awful hot inside..... rimshot please.

Hotel stationary from the 1920's

3360 South State Street-

If you appreciate Chicago's modern architecture, you know this address as Crown Hall, the Mies Van der Rohe masterpiece completed in 1956. 

If you appreciate Chicago's African-American and immigrant history, you know this address as The Mecca, a local 1940's hot spot for poets, writers and musicians. 

If you appreciate Chicago history, you know this address as The Mecca Hotel. Designed by one of Chicago's most important architects, Daniel Burnham, in 1890. 

So what was there before? There has to be a good story. 

Lee Bey' s recent article of Sears stores closing in Chicago started me on journey through my early years. The yearly "back to school" shopping trip was a dreaded but exciting event. Later on, the tool department was my candy store. One of my first jobs was working at Sears, my snappy wardrobe, my first appliance and still the tools.

Even with todays unabashed self promotion, "Where America Shops" probably wouldn't play for any contemporary business. It seems to me Sears, while being a bit boastful, wasn't just blowing smoke. I'm sure there were people who couldn't afford to shop there, and people who were too wealthy to shop there but I would bet, at least, 1 in 3 people of my generation spent more than a few hours shopping at Sears.

Fun Find of the Week - A moveable pin-back button. We're always picking up buttons at sales and have amassed a fun collection. I've never seen a mechanical button before, I'm sure it's old hat to collectors.

Having recently celebrated it's 116th birthday, the pin-back button is still a most effective form of non-verbal communication. Whether your expressing political or social views, or just letting your freak flag fly. Say it with a button.

The "Rolmonica"

Even in 1925 when the Rolmonica was produced, the hectic, modern lifestyle left few people with enough time to actually learn to play the harmonica.

Loosely based on the Player Piano, the Rolmonica uses punch cut paper rolls to avoid the annoyance of learning, similar to early computer punch cards.

So when the 5 minute novelty wears off you're just some person cranking an appliance stuck in your mouth, similar to all the thumb punchers today.

Designing the Dwell

In 1944 it was predicted that 800,000 to 1,000,000 homes would be built each year, for ten years after the war ended. Chicago designer Henry Glass saw this as an opportunity to redesign how we think about housing. American mass production became so streamlined in WW2 Glass foresaw a possible transition to prefabrication in housing. His design was based on smaller, sectional units that could be easily transported and assembled. Electricity, plumbing, heating and cooling are incorporated into each section and designed to attach to the next. Plastic bonded plywood, used in the manufacture of airplane fuselages would be used to make pull-out storage cabinets and a dining table that would easily move from the kitchen to dining room sections. According to his plan six people could assemble a five unit house in one afternoon at a cost of $6000.00. 

In the late 1950's Glass was asked to participate in Alcoa's Design Forecast program. Design Forecast was created to promote the use of aluminum throughout all industries and probably boasts one of the best list of designers as participants for any single company. Garrett Eckbo, Harvey Earl, Charles Eames, Lester Beal, Greta Grossman, Marianne Strengell, Isamu Noguchi, Elliot Noyes and Paul McCobb  to name a few. Henry Glass' entry for Alcoa was a folding trailer. Pictured are his working model and the final product. A portable, easy to assemble shelter that just looks like a party waiting to happen. 

Fun Find of the Week - Armour and Company properties and the surrounding area drawn by The American Appraisal Company, 1941. Included is Armour, Swift, Libby, Darling, Hine Bros. and the Northwestern Glue Works. All navigable by an arterial rail system by The Union Stockyard Transit Company.

Chicago's title as 'hog butcher to the world' was well earned. It's impact on modern industry is best exemplified by Henry Ford whose first assembly line was inspired by the methods of the slaughterhouse. The stockyards produced materials that would go into hundreds of products. 

Childs chair - Bowditch School, 1945

In the early 1940's the Bowditch School in Salem , Mass. began an experiment in modernizing the design of schools. 

Lighting, colors and furniture deign were rethought to make the environment more conducive to learning.

The chair from the project boasts a bentwood slat back with lumbar support. The formed seat is independently mounted on a steel spring. A three legged base allows freedom of movement. A combo desk/chair from this series was included in MOMA's "Century of the Child" show last year.