Reference Page

Maritime History
The beloved ship-shaped museum featured here is one of the few arms of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park that sits permanently in its berth. The park’s other watery extensions include a fleet of ships—among them, the Balclutha, the Hercules, and the Eureka (www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/historic-vessels.htm —and the USS Pampanito, a U.S. Navy submarine that now sits above water. Originally built as a bathhouse in 1939, the WPA-era structure has a historical counterpart in Los Angeles’s 1941 Municipal Ferry Building, whose boatlike form has been used for a similar function: it’s now home to that city’s own Maritime Museum (www.lamaritimemuseum.org).

A Touch of Panton
Verner Panton was best known for groovy systems furniture, sensual curves, and, most of all, vibrant colors. (He once said, “Most people spend their lives living in dreary, beige conformity, mortally afraid of using color.) So it’s especially amusing to find blog buzz on a recent Panton reinterpretation that’s not only devoid of color but chopped from a hunk of wood. A crude abstraction of the S chair’s iconic form, Peter Jakubik’s Panton DIY Chair (www.peter-jakubik.com/2011/01/panton-s-homemade-arbor-chair.html) comes with an instructional video that encourages users to create their own “original fake.” We’re not sure it’s a collectible, but the irreverent homage recalls Panton’s enfant terrible legacy in a way that’s fittingly, shall we say, tongue-in-teak.

Best Seat in the House

Since its launch 30 years ago, Toto’s Washlet has become the most popular toilet in Japan. It turns out this rise to ubiquity is not only a reflection of cultural attitudes on hygiene but superstition as well. In 2007, Reuters reported on the somewhat bizarre book Cleaning the Toilet to Attract Good Luck (http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/03/01/us-japan-luck-idUST27109220070301), which inexplicably had taken the country by storm. “Don’t just wipe the floor,” the tome advises. “It’s important to maintain a positive mood while cleaning. Toto tries to help its customers do just that. The manufacturer also produces a popular line of Warmlets. This sublime piece of industrial design eliminates, once and for all, the scourge of the cold toilet seat.