'Looking for Work'
Dwell on Design at the LA Convention Center Friday through Sunday
By Joanna Beresford 06/25/2009
Some things are so bad that they’re good. Like this morning’s horrible sludge-like coffee with which I keep myself alert at the keyboard after a sleepless night with a sick child. Some things, however, are good without being bad at all. Among those purely pleasant things are this weekend’s Los Angeles design events.
Dwell on Design ’09, the West Coast’s largest modern design event, will be held at the LA Convention Center Friday through Sunday. This is a colossal enterprise that also includes home tours on both the east and west sides of the city. Featured speakers include Yves Behar of fuseproject, New York Times bestselling author Daniel Pink and Peter Jon Pierce, product designer and Eames collaborator.
Exhibitors range from established institutions like the American Institute of Architects to well-known retailers like CB2 and Benjamin Moore Paints to more unique tile, woodwork and landscape designers. The focus of the conference is on sustainability, livability and innovation.
The California Boom Design Show and Sale has relocated this year to the mid-century Robinson’s department store in Beverly Hills. The Boom show features a lot of designer debuts and panel discussions on such topics as mobile, prefab and hospitality design and should be accessible to everyone. Boom also offers several house tours, including excursions to the Stahl House, Pierre Koenig’s famous Case Study House No. 22, an icon of modern, West Coast design. Ticket prices vary.
For a more conventional design experience you can head to IKEA. Their summer sale lasts through July Fifth. At the outlet in Burbank you can find a pretty cool Antnas table and 4 chairs for $100 (normally $200), lots of end tables, rugs, candles and picture frames are also discounted.
Personally I’m crazy about the “Looking for Work” exhibit at Fifth Floor, in the heart of Chinatown. Owner Robert Apodaca calls Fifth Floor a hybrid art/design gallery, and the recent exhibit embodies that eclectic but inevitable intersection of architecture and design.
“I’m interested in the relationship between conceptual art and design,” says Apodaca, who opened the space in 2008.
“There’s a definite mix of worlds and of people who utilize Chinatown,” he explains. “I’m hoping people will come to know Chinatown for more than one thing, as more than a place for cool clothes, or great food, or trinkets, or design shops — but for all of that and more.”
Apodaca’s background is in architecture and environmental design, and the three artists represented in the “Looking for Work” exhibit share his multiple interests. Ali Jeevanjee, for example, earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture at Cornell University, and a Master’s in Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. Jeevanjee’s work evolved out of a fascination for laminated plywood, and he uses the material to create flexible, multifunctional furniture. A sleek plywood barstool, for example, that’s hollow from floor to seat, provides an ideal storage space for books or magazines. In my opinion, there’s nothing more convenient than a bookshelf/barstool.
Gimme that and a pitcher of mai tais and I could be happily engaged all summer.
Earl Parsons grew up in rural Indiana and his work has been referred to as “Farmer Modern.” While Parsons was earning his Master’s in architecture, he focused on making things, working with his hands, and developing skills with materials directly in a shop. His chairs and functional objects are created from reclaimed remnants of industrial steel beams. The spare lines and light colors of the furniture form a contrast to the actual heft of the pieces.
Aimee Less’ chairs form a fusion between furniture and fashion. They’re sexy, colorful, deliciously comfortable and stackable — that is, both fun and functional. Less has worked as a fine artist, craftswoman and Web designer practically all over the world. She completed her environmental design degree at Art Center College of Design and was recently awarded first place in the DWR M+D+F design competition.
“With the pace of construction slowing, many architectural designers have turned their attention to smaller objects to satisfy the impulse to design as well as cope with economic downturn,” says Apodaca. Hence the name of the exhibit — “Looking for Work.” But somehow I don’t expect any of these talented designers to be lingering around the unemployment office, unless maybe to retrofit a desk or filing cabinet.
Joanna Dehn Beresford can be reached at truewrite@yahoo.com.
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