Jul 24 - Rhinestone i-pods & Digital Grafitti

I went to the Centre Pompidou this weekend. It's Paris' modern arts museum. They had an exposition on design called D.Day: Design of Today that I thought looked interesting.

But it wasn't.

It was a pretty mediocre exposition. I expected stuff like architecture, furniture, maybe graphic design, and surely product design. But it ended up being a mishmash of everything and nothing.

I assumed Philippe Starck would get a mention somewhere, but he didn't as far as I could tell. Wondering who's Philippe Starck? He's a product designer who also creates wicked interiors around the world. Check out http://www.objectsby.com/clift.htm - this is the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, one of the two most memorable interiors I can think of seeing in my life. The photos do it no justice - you can't see the essential details like the blocks of black and white animals set into rich redwood, or the moving art on the walls. It's also hard to see how HUGE that blue chair is in the middle of the lobby. If you ever go to San Francisco stop in to see the real thing.

By the way, the other most memorable interior I've ever seen was the Parkview Square (dubbed Gotham City) in Singapore. Anyone who's even been near this building will know what I mean. It's one of the most surreal modern structures in all the world. That baby's got some design.

Anyway, this expo kind of went in all directions. It took a momentary and noble tack in the direction of sustainable design - things like innovative new solar ovens for folks in regions of Africa and Asia where there is a shortage of fuel for cooking. And it hit items like a new model of Renault car and some rhinestone i-pods. But then it got bogged down in rather muddly stuff like some rubber dolls that someone drew all over, and packages of squishy cooked noodles in stacks. Worst of all there were often no objects, but rather computer terminals where you were supposed to browse files. Gawking at a computer screen, yeah, great.

There were some interesting colored& musical lights and a digital spray can that people could use to "paint" grafitti on a big screen then download immediately to their cell phones (left). But it all seemed techno-gimmicky, like those "household of the future" world expo things back in the 1950s.

The part I liked best was one simple hallway paying homage to graphic design, and in particular typeface and font. One part showed how individual letters could be repeated and rotated to create patterns (see below). I liked it so much that I went home and tried it myself.

The walk on my way to the museum was nice. I left from my house in the 5th, and walked down Mouffetard, across Blvd St. Germain, in front of Notre Dame Cathedral and then in front of the Hotel de Ville (the City Hall). It was raining when I left. There were crowds and a lot of life as always in front of Notre Dame. Today many people had umbrellas which created a colorful patchwork that contrasted against the grey sky. And in front of the Hotel de Ville there were people playing volleyball in sand volleyball courts set up for Paris Plage, an event every summer where the city tries to construct a "beach" atmosphere in the middle of downtown. There was lots of life, lots of energy. These are moments when I like Paris.