It’s the story that won’t die: Michael Cannell’s January article for the Times, titled “Design Loves a Depression”, has become the Cuisinart to the apricot fondue of design discourse, and it’s stirring up debate once more with Allsion Arieff’s latest dispatch for the Times’ By Design blog.

Allison’s first maneuver is to rip off, however unknowing, our blanket coverage of l’affaire Cannell, recapping the whole business with only somewhat less flair and wit. To review: Cannell’s original piece put a lit match to “frivolous” design and called for architects to rally around the flag of social responsibility, as (he claimed) they inevitably must following an economic crisis as severe as the present Pigfu*!k. Design-monger Murray Moss struck back in Design Observer, to the effect that he would always lurve him some white gold lobster forks and all y’all haters should go back to Cuba. And then Pilar Viladas and Philippe Starck weighed in for (PV) and against (PS) Moss’ argument; feelings were hurt, lives were destroyed, and the whole thing ended in a hail of bullets.

So what could Allison Arieff possibly have to add to this discussion?

We were, as “a leader like you,” invited to Michael Arad’s partner Gary Handel’s Tenement Museum Gala, where the project architect for Ben van Berkel’s New Amsterdam Plein and Pavilion and Herzog & de Meuron’s 40 Bond will be honored—along with Official Edifical mascot Enrique Norten and Not-Pitt Brad Perkins—for his “impact on the organization.” We were, as a set of persons in today’s economy, unwilling to shell out the undisclosed (if you have to ask, you can’t afford it) amount required for tickets to the Capitale event.

And then we were, this very morning, admonished by Mr. Handel himself, who took it upon his casually-clad shoulders to inform us, via the subject line, that he would be “taking attendance,” news-you-can-use led off with this benitoite of a Bob Hope quote: “If you haven’t got any kind of charity in your heart, you’ve got the worst kind of heart trouble.”

Dear Friends,

Supporting a worthwhile cultural institution is very rewarding.
But having an opportunity to brag about supporting a worthwhile cultural institution is pretty great, too.

If you reserve a table at the Tenement Museum Gala by Friday, March 27, your name will appear in the Gala Journal. So reserve a big table today. If money is tight, or you can’t think of nine people you want to eat dinner with, individual tickets are also available.

The Tenement Museum Gala will be held on Tuesday, April 21 at Capitale.
Contact Leslie Milton, Director of Major Gifts, LES Tenement Museum at 212.431.0233 x228 or
lmilton@tenement.org to reserve your table today.
I hope to see you there, among the empty purses and healthy hearts.

Sincerely,
Gary Handel

Nothing like the combination of bullying and Bob to get us ship-shape down to the Penny Arcade.

Getting a Handel on the LES [Edificial]
Benny van Berkel Comes to New York, Again, For the First Time [Edificial]
Lower East Side Tenement Museum Honors Architecture Notables Gary Handel, Brad Perkins, Enrique Norten [Building Design and Construction]

Earlier this morning, as we peregrinated about the internet in search of lovely little tidbits to perk up each others’ ears with, we found a delightful Guardian interview with Ms. Hadid. Illustrated with a shot of The Zaha smiling unusually docilely, flanked by her typically large-scale drawings, the interview asked all the questions people tend to ask of the Iraqi architect. Hannah Pool covered the London 2012 Aquatic Center’s building concept (“a wave”), its budget concerns (“contingencies”), Hadid’s relationship with The Bulldog (“no, not yet”), her seeming penchant for controversy as seen through her architecture (“it’s not familiar”), the intimidation factor (“there is nothing I can do about that”), the notoriety (“it’s fun”), designing a tap (“it’s just fun”), and the missing of Baghdad (“this river has flown here for thousands of years”).

Having once experienced the tremendous nervewrack that was a casual sit-down q&a with Zaha, we couldn’t help but hear her warmly gravelly voice in our shared ear as we read through the brusquely outlined answers, remember the friendliness with which she answered our questions, recall the peal of laughter that erupted at a mention of boarding school. So we were sort of feeling it for her.

And then, of course, enter reality. Building Design announced firm-wide redundancies (layoffs to we stateside louts). Official word is they are cutting assistant positions in an effort to, erm, “rebalance the composition of its staff.”

We’re all for the famed British reticence, but that kind of lingeringly confusing corporate-y language—we count a “continue,” an “explore,” and an “alternative” in the last sentence alone—just doesn’t suit The Zaha’s clear-spoken and punctuative style. Nothing in the way of numbers, so we turn to you. Anyone got the inside swoop? Tips(at)edificial(dot)com.

Question Time: Architect Zaha Hadid [The Guardian]
Zaha Hadid Architects to cut jobs [Building Design]

You’d think things couldn’t get any worse for poor Jan Kaplicky. Back in October, the Czech-born visionary architect split with his longtime special lady, Amanda Levete, dividing between them their shared Future Systems practice. Meanwhile, the London firm’s most prominent project, the Czech National Library, was facing serious opposition from assorted mayors and ministers for its globby, blobby irreverence. And then came the unkindest cut of all: Kaplicky died.

Tough break—but it ain’t over yet. Yesterday it was announced that Levete, who’s commandeered what remained of Kaplicky’s half of the office, has laid off a good portion of its remaining staff. The three dismissed studio hands were working on the library scheme, which would appear to indicate that so far as Levete’s concerned, the project is perma-junked. Levete claims that she and Jan had agreed prior to his death to see the staffers off; Kaplicky’s Czech supporters ain’t buying it.

Oh, and there’s one remaining complication: the Future Systems brand is still owned by Kaplicky’s widow. “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones…”

Levete Confirms Kaplicky Job Cuts [Building Design]

Oh, no, she di’in’t! Oh, yes, she di’id! There’s more than mud being slung around Coventry University’s design program—there’s words. Angry, hurtful words. Legally actionable words. A group of former students in the UK school’s Transport and Automotive Design course have launched a “web-site” criticizing their alma mater for, well, being a second-tier, marginally distinguished cash-cow degree factory at a provincial British university. It stands to reason, of course: That’s why we’d never heard of Coventry University’s Transport and Automotive Design Program to begin with. Though apparently you can get a Fulbright to go there, so how bad could it be? Apparently, pretty bad.

ID Alumni Uprising [Core77]

The natives are restless. It’s only natural that a raft of kvetching, griping, and general sour grapes should attend the announcement late last month that New Haven/Cambridge architects MOS had won this year’s MoMA Young Architects competition with their “Afterparty” proposal for P.S. 1’s front yard. As we reported last week, even taciturn runner-up Martin Cox happened to mention in the Yale Daily News how (cough! cough!) easy his proposal, “PSi”, would have been to (cough!) install. Other, more candidly snide remarks have coursed through the internet’s various tubes, most of them glancing blows at the quality of the winning design made by capable but spurned young architects from all over.

But a tipster pointed us to one comment in particular which takes up a rumor that we understand has been whispered from workstation to workstation for some time: that since MOS had submitted proposals in previous years, they should have been disqualified, as only first-time contestants are eligible according to the rules of the Summer Warm Up competition.

While the first half is true—MOS was in the running in 2004 and 2007—we have now received word from on high that the second, more damaging point, is false. There is no limit on the number of submissions a firm can make. The ways of MoMA’s panel of judges are strange, and there is no fixed set of criteria that’s been made public—but such is life, kids. MOS won fair and square. No take-backs.

Cameron Sinclair, boy-about-world, National Design Award winner, and all-around architect/humanitarian who just makes us want to [redacted] like we give a damn, has, dearests, a Dopplr. We’re just catching onto the whole existence of Flickr and Twittr and Bloggr and Readr and, ok, we’re done with the run, but Dopplr, which tracks where people are and where they’re going (life is a journey, man), is new and therefore news to us. And Cameron’s is just killer. Looks like he’s in Long Beach for the next three days, then Bergen, then Venice, then Miami, then Montevideo, then New Haven, and then finally home to glorious San Francisco. As the tipster who sent it in (gold star to you, Anonymous! which is a hint to the rest of you) said, “and if the man doesn’t have a woman in every city I’ll eat my shoe.” Never two to point fingers, we can hardly get behind that, but we’re curious. So what’s it gonna be for Mr. Tipster, Mr. Sinclair? Springbok? Or Reebok?

As promised, the delivery of a little claw-tooth into House & Home’s totally weirdo headline “Iraqi Architect Designs Futuristic Faucet.” Our first thought, of course, was that it must be Zaha. And then we kicked ourselves for that being our immediate go-to response, for what we suddenly saw as our lack of imagination, or inspiration, or, frankly, knowledge of another Iraqi architect. And so we spiraled down into ignorance and its non-bliss, until we clicked on the story and saw that, in fact, the prolific and generally wonderful Stephen Milioti was writing about Hadid. So why the fritzy headline? Her name’s a much bigger draw than “Iraqi architect.” We’re not blaming Stephen—writers never do their own headlines, after all—but we’re curious. Tom? Noel? Any insight? We’re dying to know. Because, really, what’s next? Californian Titanium-Slinger? British Title-Loser? What’s going on with our reality train??

Signed,
New York Blogger

Design Observer, the must-read almost-blog launched by Pentagrammer Michael Bierut and his Winterhouse pals Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel, just announced that they’ve co-opted the work-life couple of I.D. editor Julie Lasky and freelance design and architecture writer Ernest Beck to launch Change Observer this summer. Officially, then, they’ll be doing this:

Change Observer will monitor and report on developments in the burgeoning area of design and social change — people and projects, ideas and initiatives. The goal is to professionally report on this topic, covering successes and failures, new models, places for engagement by NGOs and design firms, inspirational stories and critical appraisals, as well as summaries and guides to resources, tools and related news across the web.

Unofficially, we hope this means more unedited Lasky and Beck. She’s gotten bunches of crunches of awards during her tenures at Interiors and Print, and Beck is one of those people who knows about more than one thing and can therefore connect previously unseen dots between subjects like money and buildings, the city and the universe. Having read some of their co-bylined work, we’re curious to see more. Keep us posted, you crazy guys!

Julie Lasky & Ernest Beck Join Design Observer[Design Observer]

Ah, Thursday. Sweet day of succor, morning of relief. House & Home is here again. This week, Tom and Noel et al give us a piece on two single women who live semi-together in friendly companionship and co-art-making; a story on concrete logs that look sort of like real logs, maybe if you know nothing about Montana and can’t tell real wood from Architecture 101; an investigation into the possibilities of moving with plastic rather than cardboard boxes (stop us before we thrill again!); and, most notably as Currents is usually our least-favorite, two hidden kicks. One, Seattle-based artist Roy McMakin’s Things Change/Change Things glasses are now Stuff You Can Buy. Two, tucked into a few lines of text, looks like Murray “Design is Gonna Be Just Fiiiiiiine” Moss is having a warehouse sale. Interesting. Very. Interesting.

As expected, the scores, in order of story:
Eva: 5.1, 3.6, 4.8, 6.0, 6.0
Ian: 5.2, 3.8, 3.2, 5.7, 5.8

To Each Her Own [New York Times]
The Logless Log Home [New York Times]
Movers Find Eco-Friendly Options [New York Times]
A Little Perspective With Your Breakfast [New York Times]
Deep Discounts, From Floor to Ceiling [New York Times]

And now, for a little levity, a report of some totally awesome awkwardness, just in from the calisthenics-doing (help us out!) tipline.

A little note on urban visionaries’ occasional need to wear corrective lenses when driving a point, from a cocktail chat last night:

SCENE: A schwa-schwa bar on a Grand Central Terminal terrace.
CAST: A policy analyst (PA) for a leading local civic group, munching snack mix and charcuterie. Yours truly, Urbanist Journalist (UJ), hungry for employment and weary of glib pronouncements about keeping the city “vibrant” without regard to helping working-class people stay in it.

DIALOGUE:
UJ: …yeah, I grew up in New York, so I remember the bad old days…
PA: What was that like? I mean, it seems like nobody lived in Brooklyn… UJ (smiling): Hundreds of thousands of people lived in Brooklyn. Millions of people lived in Brooklyn.
PA: Yeah, but not people who….
UJ: (smiles again)
PA dives back into the snack mix.

Keep ‘em coming, people.

Last week we saw Mike Cannell and Murray Moss get into it a bit (largely centered around Hella Jongerius’ Polder sofa, above). This week, the Times Magazine’s Design Editor Pilar Viladas jumps into the fray, with an actually incredibly sensible and reasonable approach. Viladas is one of our favorite architecture writers out there: she describes buildings (shocker 1), gives them life (shocker 2), and makes jokes (shocker 3). Essentially, her argument is against a baby-and-bathwater-and-Jongerius-and-Royal-C throwout.

The design art movement has produced some inspired objects of great beauty. And while mass-market retailers have enabled people of modest means to buy well-designed products, they have also fueled people’s lust for disposability, producing a lot of shoddy stuff that’s straining our already groaning landfills. Yes, we need designers to come up with innovative, functional goods at reasonable prices; no, we do not need to sentence ourselves to living with hair-shirt design. Just because something is beautiful and expensive doesn’t make it frivolous and evil.

Truer words were never blogged.

Don’t Hate Them Because They’re Beautiful [The Moment/New York Times]

So, OMG, check it out: last week Mike (Cannell) wrote this story about design, and how it loves a depression. And then Murray (Moss) wrote this response about how Mike not only had this whole parochial-school-matron thing going on in terms of tone and voice and style but also it was basically really dumb to argue that design loves a depression because, really, does anyone love a depression? No. Depressions suck. Being poor sucks. Not being able to afford a $10,615 Hella Jongerius couch really sucks.

We like Michael Cannell. We also like Murray Moss. And much as we’d like to, we can’t play King Solomon — design doesn’t work if it’s cut in half, removed from itself — so we’re going to parse this baby down, and, in keeping with what we love most, judge.

Round 1
Mike: Design was batshit crazy, the market fell apart, design can stop being batshit crazy.

Murray: Batshit crazy is what it’s all about! Batshit crazy is *awesome!*

Round 2
Mike: Design that’s affordable and lasts long is great.

Murray: Fuck that. Design that’s great is great.

Round 3
Mike: Difficulty leads to thinking really hard, which leads to awesomeness.

Murray: Having tons of money leads to resources, which leads to having the time and money to think really hard, which leads to awesomeness.

Endgame
We disagree with Murray on Mike’s tone — it strikes us less as Calvinist and finger-wagging as hopeful-from-the-trenches — but we do agree with Murray that it is pretty much not cool or fun to be broke and that much better things happen when more people are paying attention to design, buying design, etc. The overarching problem seems to be one of kind, not type. The kind of design that Cannell is talking about is design-as-design: a visual and physical solution to a problem. (So Marcel Wanders’ girlfriend hanging from a chandelier is overkill.) The kind of design that Moss is talking about is design-as-design-and-plus: a visual and physical solution to a problem, and an object that changes how we engage with the world. (So Marcel Wanders’ girlfriend hanging from a chandelier is just right.)

Defining design is a tricky tricky business. Everything from the pen you write with to the socks you put on is a design decision. So, as much as we wish we could run to one side of the lunchroom and throw baloney at the wrong guy, our wavering moral compass tells us that they’re both right. Design does need to be available to everyone, but it doesn’t need to come back to earth. It does need to expand its reach, but it doesn’t need to be made by people who can’t afford rent.

Trade jobs for a day, guys, and write down what happens. That we’d want to see.

Design Loves a Depression [New York Times]
Murray Moss: Design Hates a Depression [Design Observer]