Reference Page: October 2006

Heavyweight Matchup
In the 1980s you may have gotten money for nothing and chicks for free thanks to George Lois, but MTV was only a blip in his career. For a comprehensive look at his magazine-design heydays check out Covering the ‘60s: George Lois—The Esquire Era (Monacelli, 1996). Included in the book is a cover, killed before press time, of a nude Jack Nicholson—a feast for the eyes, to be sure. If you’re not feeling like parting with your pennies, you can also see a bunch of the famous covers accompanied by entertaining and insightful Lois prose on his site, www.georgelois.com. The main page prominently features a photo of the handsome devil himself in 1964, but no naked Jack. Sorry. George’s friend Muhammad Ali, the Greatest of All Time, has his own site too, www.ali.com, and another one for the philanthropic center that bears his name, www.alicenter.org. To support his efforts to spread the Greatness you can click over to alicenterstore.stores.yahoo.net and purchase some Ali merch, though you may wonder—all poetic bombast aside—what silver butterfly earrings and a marcasite-eyed bee pin really have to do with Muhammad Ali.

Our Ailing Communities
Sprawl makes us sick. That much is clear. But it’s fun to look at. If you want a bird’s-eye view of the mess we’ve made, get A Field Guide to Sprawl (Norton, 2004), by Dolores Hayden. It’s a good choice for the MTV generation (speaking of George Lois): it gets to the point quick, with minimal text and graphic photos by Jim Wark. The Landscape Urbanism Reader (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006) explains through longer essays how experts are designing for in-evitable growth. If you’re pro-sprawl, or would like to hear something other than bitching and moaning, PA Press has published a new book that recommends embracing sprawl and its effects, Sprawltown: Looking for the City on Its Edges, by Richard Ingersoll. It may be useful if you want to find out what the other side is talking about. PA Press has a blog (who doesn’t?), and it’s actually somewhat informative. Go to www.papressblog.com to see what they have to say. Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam addresses sprawl in Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster, 2000), a meditation on the disintegration of community in America, which he posits is partly due to sprawl as well as people’s desire to move ever outward, acquire more, and interact less. As a result, he says, we drive more, and the increasing use of cars leads to noise pollution. (So we’re all going to go deaf.) If you can’t take it anymore, go to www.smartgrowthamerica.org to stop the sprawl.

Toward a New Archipelago
Joel Kotkin and Jon Chenier’s essay in this month’s issue highlights some rather frightening statistics about urban sprawl but concludes that with a bit of intelligent planning, there’s no need to panic. You can find the research for many of the statistics they cite at www.demographia.com, a site dedicated to urban-growth issues and put together by the Wendell Cox Consultancy. Not everyone agrees on Kotkin and Chenier’s definition of “intelligent planning,” however; rather than endorse the view that sprawl can be limitless, the Smart Growth Network, www.smartgrowth.org, advocates an environmentally conscious return to older core cities and suburbs. And though village communities in the ’burbs may sound lovely, they do come at a price. The Woodlands, www.thewoodlands.com, had a median income of $85,253 in 2000 and was nearly 90 percent white, according to stats at www.city-data.com/city/the-woodlands-texas.html. Compare that to nearby Houston (type “Houston, TX” in the “Find City” box at www.city-data.com), where in 2000 the median income was $36,616 and 37 percent of the population was white. Is this disparity sustainable?

Craft Bombing
Display your needles proudly—a knitting revolution is at hand. The art is no longer confined to the rocking chair, and the matronly reputation is gone too (not that you care about reputation). Knitta Please takes the trend to the street, using its funky creations to beautify city life. The group’s Web site, www.knittaplease.com, features endearing profiles of group members (click on “Crew”), known by street names such as WoolFool and SonOfaStitch. By selecting “Tag” and following the map link, you can play with an interactive feature that lets you see “Knitta Bombs!” imposed on a world map. Click the tag icons on the map to get close-up pictures of installations. You can also visit the requisite MySpace page at www.myspace.com/knittaplease, where the group keeps a blog along with thousands of friends.

Next Phase: Asymptote 3.0
It is quite evident that some of the very worst sites on the Web are the home pages of designers and architects. These sites are often not intuitive, user-friendly, or even aesthetically pleasing. Take Asymptote ’s site, www.asymptote.net, for example. Whoa, Nelly. It would surely benefit from a streamlined redesign. The comparatively functional Asymptote-designed Alessi flagship store, in New York, includes a cafe that offers the same coffee that David Letterman deploys for his spit-takes. To practice the skill on your own stop by www.joetheartofcoffee.com, a fine Manhattan coffee purveyor, or visit the shops when you’re in town. The shiny $14,000 espresso machines that Joe uses, handmade in Florence, are available from www.lamarzocco.com.

The Art of Layering
Hella Jongerius makes lots of pretty things. Some of them, like her ceramic pots for IKEA, you can probably afford; the rest you can eye-fondle at www.jongeriuslab.com. Click on “Products” to see a dazzling array of objects, including a tray of chocolates with classic Dutch designs on top. Jongerius also discusses her working methods for her online visitors in a dialogue with Louise Schouwenberg, the author of a 2003 book on the designer, titled simply Hella Jongerius (Phaidon). Click on “Working Methods” to read the transcript but note that an addendum at the bottom of the dialogue slyly describes it as “a conversation that may have taken place.” Mysterious!

IDEO’s Urban Preplanning
It’s hard not to like IDEO after a visit to its Web site, www.ideo.com. The New Agey prose (“We identify opportunities for growth by revealing people’s latent needs, behaviors, and desires…”) is even better than your post-yoga lull at making you feel more Zen. For information on IDEO and Jane Fulton Suri’s Thoughtless Acts, a book in which IDEO examines photographs of everyday life to inspire better design, try www.thoughtlessacts.com. You can see sample pictures and recommendations by selecting “Preview the Book,” but even better is “What do you See?”—a composite of pictures and observations sent in by random online visitors. A man using a bottle as a headrest on the beach and disposed coffee cups become fodder for profound insights about human behavior. IDEO also publishes The Ten Faces of Innovation, www.tenfacesofinnovation.com, a self-help book for businesses that suggests assigning labels like Anthropologist or Cross-Pollinator to all the different suits in the successful office. It compels us to ask: At Enron, was Ken Lay the Director, or just the Storyteller?

Sculpting Infinity
Since you’re unlikely to commission an Erwin Hauer screen, his book may have to suffice; Erwin Hauer: Continua: Architectural Screens and Walls (Princeton Architectural Press, 2004) is a well-illustrated volume on his work and its revival. Go to www.erwinhauerstudio.com for a list of Hauer screens currently in production. For some worthy substitutes, you might also try www.velocityartanddesign.com, or www.2modern.com, which carries the striking Curva Screen, by Moxbox, as well as Spazia’s Modular Light Screen—especially good for those afraid of knocking over room dividers when getting up in the middle of the night for a bathroom break.