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04.04.24

Current Obsession

Gaetano Pesce Influenced the Current Generation of Designers More Than Anyone We Know

Earlier this week, I had the occasion to look back at an article we'd published in 2016, where I referred to Donald Judd as the patron saint of Sight Unseen. I was puzzled, even as I reread my own words: "As our tastes and interests have shifted over the years, we could often point to different historical figures — Ettore Sottsass during our heavy Memphis phase; Bruno Munari during our Shape Shop days." I suppose I felt uneasy in my nearly decade-old declaration because in my mind, as we've watched the design landscape mutate and come together over the past few years, there's been one designer who has remained at the top, inspiring more of the current crop of young designers than anyone else we know: Gaetano Pesce, who the world lost today at the age of 84.
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07.31.23

Current Obsession

Design is Undead — How the Seance Aesthetic Came to Possess Our Homes

There is a great and growing interest in not-new furniture (as well as a zillion excellent sellers finding the best things and dusting them off for modern relevance). But there is another way to talk about reviving dead design — and that is reviving the dead through design. Today’s subject and current obsession by For Scale's David Michon: the SÉANCE AESTHETIC.
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04.11.23

Current Obsession

Meet the 1980s-Era Designer Whose Chair Went Semi-Viral During the Pandemic

The impulse to reassess design from the late '70s and '80s — and to place it in a current context — has clearly been in the air, most notably at last year’s Return to Downtown group show from Superhouse and Magen H Gallery and at the more recent Blurring the Timeline show, also at Superhouse. Standout pieces from both exhibitions included chairs by a designer whose name you might not be familiar with: Howard Meister, part of the core group of designer-artists at Art et Industrie, a now-legendary New York gallery that opened in 1977 and closed in the late '90s. Here, we caught up with Meister from his home in Western Massachusetts. In a roving, entertaining interview, he shared with us how he got his largely accidental start and went from being “a dope in a suit” to an artist, his belief in the importance of craft and his desire not to be “survived by crap."
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04.05.23

Current Obsession

On the Great Pine Resurgence of 2023 — AKA For Pine Nuts Who Love It Knotty

Have you been reading For Scale? It's the new furniture-focused Substack that seemingly everyone is already turned onto, and we get it — it's an absolute joy to read, with favorite topics so far including but not being limited to: plastic, children's furniture, the "twink aesthetic," and Psycho-Decorating 101 (a favorite Sight Unseen tome). So, we did what any editor with half a brain would do: We hired For Scale's excellent and very fun writer, David Michon, to pen what we hope is the first of many columns! Today's subject: a paean to PINE.
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03.27.23

Current Obsession

Revisiting the Poetic Work of Japanese-Born, Italian-By-Choice Designer Kazuhide Takahama

If there's one chair most design enthusiasts know by Kazuhide Takahama, it’s the Tulu. You’re likely familiar with its sled base composed of slim, welded-steel rods and its square upholstered backrest that seems to be floating independently in the center of a metal frame. It’s popping up more and more — from eBay listings to frescoed palazzos in Italy — and it’s no wonder. It’s a beautiful piece — subtle, minimal, and formally innovative for the late 1960s when it was designed — but despite the Tulu’s popularity, the rest of Takahama’s work is not nearly as recognizable. But as the casual collector becomes more and more aware of his work, we’ve decided it’s high time to take a deep dive into the work of Kazuhide Takahama.
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11.22.22

Current Obsession

Body Parts Are Trending in Design, and Our New Book Proves It

In the last five years — somewhere between the giant nose vase German duo BNAG produced for Felix Burrichter's dollhouse exhibition at Friedman Benda and the butt bookends Marco Braunschweiler made for Marta's In Support of Books — body parts in design became a full-fledged thing. That's why we weren't a bit surprised when we noticed, visiting the 16 homes we photographed for How to Live With Objects, that body parts were popping up seemingly everywhere — from the Nicola L eye lamp in Yoram Heller and Eleanor Wells's living room, to the giant hand sitting at the base of Jonathan Pessin's object-filled bookshelves, to the nose relief on display in the London home of Sadie Perry.
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10.25.22

Current Obsession

Adam Stech on Italian Futurism, Part II: The 1930s Ceramics of Mazzotti and Nikolay Diulgheroff

Like many of the best art movements of the early 1900s, the radical Italian Futurist movement was most-known for two-dimensional works, but encompassed the applied arts as well. One of its more interesting — yet largely forgotten — practitioners was the late designer and artist Nikolay Diulgheroff, for whom ceramics became a medium of dynamic expression for his and the Futurists’ ideas.
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10.24.22

Current Obsession

Adam Stech on Italian Futurism, Part I: Tour Four of Italy’s Most Avant-Garde Interiors

In the 1909 manifesto for one of the most controversial avant-garde art movements of the 20th century — Italian Futurism — founder Filippo Tommaso Marinetti confessed his admiration for the modern age and its inventions, for speed, the roar of engines, and the rage of war weapons. The group’s paintings and sculptures attempted to depict the speed and dynamism of the industrial age, but Futurism’s reach also extended to a practice in architecture and interior design, and in the past few years I toured Italy to uncover few of its best spaces.
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07.26.22

Current Obsession

This Is One 1980s Trend Revival We Didn’t See Coming

We're not sure if it's a comfort thing or a style thing, and we're not sure if it reminds anyone else of the La-Z-Boys of yore, but if you've been watching carefully the past few years, you may have noticed that furniture designers — most particularly when it comes to beds and sofas — have been embracing a very specific aesthetic with roots in the 1980s.
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Borek Sipek chair
08.30.21

Current Obsession

Revisiting the Czech Postmodernist Whose Unusual Chairs Are Suddenly Everywhere

The Czech designer Bořek Šípek was one of the heavyweights of design in the late 1980s and 1990s, creating postmodern furniture and objects that enchanted the international scene. But he failed to become a household name, and his work ultimately fell into oblivion. That, however, is suddenly changing: A new generation of designers, curators, and tastemakers is rediscovering Šípek’s designs and bringing his tribal and highly eclectic aesthetic to the forefront again.
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Vit Cimbura postmodern clocks
07.15.21

Current Obsession

These Playful Postmodern Clocks and Their Late Designer, Vit Cimbura, Are Finally Getting Their Due

Earlier this year, a somewhat forgotten Postmodern designer named Vít Cimbura died. A member of the iconic Postmodern group Atika, Cimbura decided at the end of the 1980s to channel his criticism of Communism through a series of experimental Postmodern creations that balanced on the edge of kitsch. The Prague-based gallery, Okolo, pays tribute to Cimbura’s work this month in an exhibition of clocks, which formed an important part of his life's work.
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