Picture the domestic landscape as Sir Terence Conran once did. Well, you might not have to: perhaps you’re surrounded by a version of it as you read this. If you’re sitting in an open-plan space, there might be a wall of books dotted with plants and ceramics, illuminated by the soft glow of white paper lampshades in various shapes and sizes, some graphic posters on the wall, and a vibrant scheme of hues where patterns are bold and colors are primary.
Read MoreWhat tools and resources do communities need to live apart from the rest of society? How might their crafts manifest their ideals or support their utopian endeavors? In 1516, the philosopher and statesman Sir Thomas More introduced a new word to the English language when he published his book Utopia, describing a fictional ideal society on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. Derived from the Greek words ou (“no” or “not”) and topos (“place”), utopia literally means “not a place.”
Read MoreA few miles northwest of centre city Philadelphia, a 17th century-style Japanese house sits serenely in the landscaped gardens of Fairmount Park. Designed by architect Junzō Yoshimura (1908 – 1997) it was built for an outdoor exhibition, The House in the Museum Garden, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1954 – a gift from the government of Japan to the people of the United States as a gesture of friendship during the fraught postwar period.
Read More“Back to school”—a phrase that evokes fresh school supplies, new backpacks, and delighted parents—sounds a lot different this year, as millions of students across the country start classes from their homes. When the COVID-19 pandemic sent schools into virtual mode back in March, families scrambled to get up to speed on telecommuting technologies, carve out makeshift desk space in their homes, and keep kids and pets from making unplanned cameos in their remote work meetings.
Read MoreFor decades, the American dream kitchen has been covered in gleaming white surfaces, from subway tile to countertops to cabinets. Save for a few historic blips—think pink and turquoise in the post–World War II years, and avocado green and harvest gold in the ’60s and ’70s—white has remained the default choice for kitchen design, most recently embodied by the Pinterest-approved trend of light and bright cooking and dining spaces.
Read MoreThere are so many ways to describe the act of repairing something: to restore, reconstruct, rebuild, fix, mend, darn, patch, conserve, and heal, to name just a few. And there are nearly as many philosophies of repair that guide the professionals who bring objects back to life. The right approach depends on what the object is, where it lives, and who has been tasked with its care.
Read MoreThere are certain Japanese cultural exports that can be found almost anywhere. No corners of the developed world are yet untouched by Sanrio, fewer still by Pokémon; shelf-stable treats like Pocky sticks and arare, that savory and spicy rice cracker mix, are pretty standard fare in American corner delis. But within Japan, certain regional specialties are so beloved, and so hard to find, that big cities like Tokyo have dedicated special emporia just for them. They’re called antenna shops, though the name may be a little misleading: They don't sell old-fashioned TV sets with rabbit ears, or any of the sort of old-fashioned tech gadgets we may associate with them today. Instead, these “antennae” operate as Tokyo’s cultural receivers, and the signals come from all of the country’s 47 prefectures, each one with its own distinct identity and flavor.
Read MoreYou don’t have to be a vexillologist to wonder why the American flag has changed over the years (or why it was designed with stars and stripes in the first place). Questions like that serve as a portal into a fascinating world with deep roots in heraldry and a robust following among collectors. The flag of the United States — particularly its blue field with white stars — has changed quite a bit since it was first used to represent the Thirteen Colonies.
Read MoreThe cover of the July 1952 issue of House Beautiful featured a sunlit wooden table laid with Heath Ceramics dinnerware in earth tones and pale blues, each place setting with its own small covered dish promising something savory under the lid. Waves crashed in the background. It remains an ideal scene of California entertaining, something that Edith Heath was passionate about promoting and shaping throughout her career.
Read MoreBusiness partners Denise Davies and Karri Bowen-Poole initially connected in the digital realm (“it was Instagram love at first sight,” they wrote in an email), but they eventually teamed up last year to bring a more analog endeavor to life: designing custom educational playrooms that mix good design with a smorgasbord of opportunities for play, an endeavor they dubbed Smart D2 Playrooms.
Read MoreIf you tour the design studios of a major car company, you might expect to see lots of glowing screens and high-tech equipment giving shape to the vehicles of tomorrow. What you might not expect, however, is to come across a large curved form with the unmistakable craggy surface of clay being smoothed over by a pair of hands and a smoothing tool. But even in 2020, that’s just what you’ll find: sculptors working on precisely formed life-sized models of new cars – in clay.
Read MoreAmerican homes are hotbeds of creativity, and not just because artists and makers often convert their basements and garages into studios. Reality and educational TV, including streaming content, YouTube, and even social media, offer viewers practical instruction alongside something perhaps even more valuable: a taste of the discourse around different kinds of making from professionals in different fields.
Read MoreHow do we want to live? That’s the question that has driven designers and architects for as long as human beings have been building and customizing their dwellings. A timely new exhibition called “Home Stories: 100 Years, 20 Visionary Interiors,” opening February 8 at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, provides a fascinating look at how designers have tried to answer this question over the past century.
Read MoreThe punch cards that give instructions to the warp threads on a Jacquard loom are almost works of art in their own right. Each is a rectangle, linked to the next by plain white threads to form a long chain. The cards are punched with rows of round holes in rhythmic patterns; each hole is the same size, but the patterns they form vary from card to card. Watching them click past one another as a woven pattern takes shape on a loom is hypnotic.
Read MoreDuring the years that Henry Chapman Mercer was assembling his collection of early American tools and artefacts of material culture, the United States was industrializing at lightning speed. In Mercer’s lifetime (1856–1930), factories, railroads, radio, automobiles and home appliances transformed American cities and farms, as well as the interior spaces in which Americans lived and worked.
Read MoreWhat if you have an idea for an artwork inspired by Wedgwood ceramics, but you want to make it with paper pulp? Or if you know how to sculpt in clay, but want to make a fishbowl in glass? What if you dream of crafting pillows in porcelain? Artist residencies often attract medium-specific makers who want to spend time doing exactly what they do best, perhaps teaching workshops or giving demonstrations. But what about artists who want to explore something they’re not an expert in?
Read MoreThe neighborhood is quintessential South Philadelphia. East of the city’s Italian Market along the Delaware River, Pennsport’s streets are lined with weathered brick row houses and anchored by 19th-century school buildings and grand churches. The clubs that participate in the Mummers Parade, the colorful folk festival held on New Year’s Day every year since 1901, have their workshops along 2nd Street.
Read MoreIn the 1957 romantic comedy Funny Face, Kay Thompson—playing a larger-than-life fashion editor inspired by Diana Vreeland—leads a musical number in which she marshals her staff (and presumably the world at large) to “think pink!” Bolts of Pepto Bismol–colored fabric unfurl across her carpeted office floor as she tells her junior editors to “bury the beige.”
Read MoreWharton Esherick’s name looms large in Philadelphia. The famed sculptor and woodworker (1887 – 1970) was born there and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His studio in nearby Paoli is now the site of the Wharton Esherick Museum, home to what is undoubtedly the most famous spiral staircase in Pennsylvania – a feature that he designed and built himself.
Read MoreWhen Mexican puppeteer Sofía Padilla met Davey T. Steinman, a performance artist who hails from Minnesota, while volunteering at Vermont’s celebrated Bread and Puppet Theater in 2015, they were right in the thick of it, Padilla says, “stomping on clay and doing papier mâché for a 10-foot-long puppet hand.” Perhaps they didn’t realize it then – with glue on their hands and clay on their feet – but that initial collaboration would soon blossom into a romantic partnership and the formation of their own touring puppet theater, Paradox Teatro.
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