INTERIORS + INDUSTRIAL DESIGN. New York: Whitney Publications, November 1953 [Volume 113, no. 4]. The Lina Bo Bardi cover design.

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INTERIORS + INDUSTRIAL DESIGN November 1953
Volume 113, Number 4

Olga Gueft [Editor], Aldo Giurgola [Cover Designer]

Olga Gueft [Editor]: INTERIORS + INDUSTRIAL DESIGN. New York City: Whitney Publications, November 1953 [Volume 113, no. 4]. Original edition. Printed side-stitched wrappers. 172 pp. Illustrated articles and period advertisements. Cover by Aldo Giurgola. Wrappers worn and soiled with spine heel pulled, but a nearly very good copy.

9 x 12 magazine with 172 pages of black and white examples of the best modern American interior and industrial design, circa 1953 -- offering a magnificent snapshot of the blossoming post-WWII modern movement. A very desirable, vintage publication in terms of form and content: high quality printing and clean, functional design and typography and excellent photographic reproduction make this a spectacular addition to a midcentury design collection. Highly recommended.

Contents

  • For your information: Bertha Schaefer; Walter Dorwin Teague; Elsa Hutzler's sculptures; Robert Hose; etc.
  • New Adventures Behind a Murray hill Front: Joseph Aronson
  • Open plan, Open Door: Huson Jackson builds in Alabama and Connecticut
  • Inventions in Furniture:
  • Mass-produced hospital modules by Gerald Luss for Carrom Industries
  • Office case goods from Lehigh by Luss of Designs for Business, Inc.
  • Multiflex modules by Norman Cherner for Konwiser
  • Fixed curtain-wall cases by Arthur Umanoff for the Elton Company
  • Flexible classroom furniture by Dave Chapman for Brunswick
  • Tight packing laminated jigsaws by Marketta Niskala for Oy Stockmann AB
  • Sunflower cones and other chairs by Roberto Mango
  • Cuddle Bowl by Lina Bo Bardi
  • Transparent easy chair by Irena Schawinsky at Janet Rosenblum
  • Padded spring chair by David Rowland
  • Makers of Tradition 18: thomas Hope, Regency's Designing Dilettante by jean Anne Vincent
  • Lighting Review: George Tanier, harry Gitlin, nessen Studios, Lightolier, Paul mayen, Paavo Tynell, Bill Brewer, Koch & Lowy, Philip Johnson & Richard Kelly, Tommi Parzinger, etc.: 8 pages and 76 lamps identified.
  • Erwin-lambeth House: southern hospitality in a manhattan oasis.
  • Merchandise Cues: Robert Kasindorf, Dick Stambaugh, Wilbut henry Adams, Richards Morgenthau, etc.
  • Vintage advertisements for Harvey Probber, Knoll Associates, the Heifetz Company, Jens Risom [photographed by Richard Avedon], Thonet, Paul McCobb for Directional, among others.

“Free-tilting cuddle bowl.” That was the delightful description given to a radical new chair by Lina Bo Bardi in the November 1953 issue of Interiors magazine. The Italian Brazilian modernist architect was pictured on its cover, reading in the hemispherical seat, legs crossed, feet dangling casually over the edge.

And indeed, the plastic shell lounge with foam rubber padding, nestled in (but not attached to) a four-legged steel frame, could easily adapt to a range of positions. That’s what Bo Bardi called “absolutely new” about her design, conceptualized in ’51—“[it] can achieve movement from all sides, with no mechanical means whatsoever.” Suitable for reading, napping, or casual conversation, the chair could be easily adjusted with slight downward pressure from a hand or leg. The magazine article even suggested that, removed from its frame, the bowl portion could serve for sunbathing.

This chair was one of the first furniture pieces Bo Bardi made after four years of collaboration with architect Giancarlo Palanti. In Bo Bardi’s newly independent practice, Professor Renato Anelli, curator of the Instituto Bardi, explains, she was exploring the concept of “sitting in the air—the body suspended by leather or fiber fabrics, structured by thin metallic tubes and bars.” The clever perch that seemed to hover above the floor simulated exactly that sensation.

Bo Bardi’s two original Bowls went into her iconic Casa de Vidro in São Paulo (it is now the location of the Instituto Bardi) and more were created for prominent homes around Brasília in the 1960s. But since the seat was not commercially produced, only a small number were made before 2013, when the Italian company Arper acquired the license to manufacture its own adaptation.

“It’s no surprise it belongs to the collection at MoMA,” says the Brazilian architect Arthur Casas, who placed an early Bowl from his client’s collection in their São Paulo home. “It’s a simple design that was irreverent for its time.”

George Nelson famously served as Editorial contributor to Interiors, where he used the magazine as his bully pulpit for bringing modernism to middle-class America. Interiors was a hard-core interior design publication, as shown by their publishing credo: "Published for the Interior Designers Group which includes: interior designers, architects who do interior work, industrial designers who specialize in interior furnishings, the interior decorating departments of retail stores, and all concerned with the creation and production of interiors -- both residential and commercial."

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