E-books or p-books?

    

Amazon announced on Thursday that they are selling more e-books for Kindle than print books (p-books) - hardcover and paperback books combined. Since April 1, 2011, Amazon has sold 105 e-books for every 100 print book. That includes sales of hardcover and paperback books that have no Kindle edition, and not counting free Kindle downloads. This is not even four years since Amazon started the Kindle business in November 2007, and less than one year after they announced that e-book sales surpassed hardcover book sales last July.

This is definitely a significant milestone. But to be honest, I haven't really figured out how I feel about this. I love the physical existence of p-books (hence also known as "real books"). There is the irreplaceable intimacy of feeling it as an object: look, touch, and sometimes smell the fresh ink. But I enjoy my iPad a lot as well. E-books are compact, lightweight - convenient to carry around. They are cheaper and you can get them right away, in the comfort of your own home or on the go. But it's always fun to physically be in bookstores and browse around real books. You can flip through the pages and get a quick idea about the content. It's easier to write notes on the margin of p-books, but e-books are easier to search and the highlight function is really powerful. And the built-in dictionary allows you to check out definitions of words with just one touch.

The most amazing thing about e-books for me is the interactive dimension of the format. Many magazines embed multimedia materials like slideshows, audio and videos in their digital edition, enriching the experience of reading and revolutionizing what we perceive as the publishing industry.

It may look ridiculous nowadays to carry scrolls of papyrus around. But some of them have survived the evolution of technology because they contain valuable original knowledge. Continue this thinking of the basics, both p-books and e-books allow you to do the most important thing - to read a book. The essence is the content. Maybe it doesn't really matter so much what form it takes.
    

We lost a good architect

  
When I saw the recently released winning entry of Comic and Animation Museum by MVRDV, I was very tempted to list it with the other literal buildings I gathered. It's a museum about comics, so let's make it with speech balloons!

Comic and Animation Museum, Hangzhou, China

Again and again, MVRDV's recent projects made me shiver with the thought that they were trapped in the cheap side of today's design culture and becoming less and less relevance. Four major symptoms:

1. Literal reference
The reference to speech balloons is very literal. What's even worse is that the building form is a literal translation of that. I've expressed many times my thoughts on literal design - no need to say more now.

2. Superficial wallpaper
One of the first lessons we learn from school is that architecture is not just about how it looks on the facade. But some architects today are quite satisfied with only dealing with the envelope, and are even trying to make a theory out of that. MVRDV doesn't seem to be immune to this fad. The Teletech call center in Dijon, for example, uses a cheap printed wallpaper facade to communicate "the activities of the company." 2D barcode? Give me a break.

Teletech Call Center, Dijon, France

3. Repeated cliché
The "Future Towers" (Amanora Hills) in India is a chimera of outdated fashion. Apartments mixed with amenities; hexagonal grid plan; raked roofs with balconies; concrete grid facade with punched windows... Is there anything news? We should probably call this project "Past Towers" instead.

Future Towers, Pune, India

4. Careless randomness
At Berlage, Winy Maas is pushing very hard the hyper-rational design process with game theory. At MVRDV, he's producing design with complete randomness: apparent chaos with no underlying logic. The Tirana Lake master plan project from a few years ago is the best example.

I planned to put "ugliness" as the fifth symptom, because it can be seen pretty much in all the projects mentioned above. But on second thought, I left it out. It's more a matter of taste after all. Maybe some people would actually think they are beautiful...

10 years ago, many of us were fascinated by the team of young Dutch architects. It was refreshing to see the dynamic spatial energy of Villa VPRO, the innovative sandwich of the Dutch Pavilion at the Hanover Expo, and the insightful studies on density in FARMAX. But now, I think we've lost them.
    

Bipolar society

  

This is the front page of the latest Weekly Telegraph. The juxtaposition of the two pieces of news makes a compelling example of the status of our culture: the two poles of hard and soft stories, conflicts and fantasies. When you turn on the TV, you see news about Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Then switch the channel, voila! American Idol! Well yeah... Let's go watch Thor.
      

Report Milano 7 - Rising Stars

      
In addition to the well established superstars, the rising young talents have brought in quite some fresh air into the Salone scene. The Bouroullec brothers, for example, are everywhere with brands like Vitra, Mattiazzi, Magis, Flos, and Alessi. I find the balance between delicacy and expressiveness in their work very attractive. Like the Osso chair, the simple assembly of four CNC-milled pieces makes an elegant and modestly expressive object.

Osso chairs by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec for Mattiazzi

Ovale by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec for Alessi

Designs by both former PLOT partners can be seen in Milan. Julien de Smedt is featured in the "Belgium is Design" show at the Pinacoteca di Brera, presenting his New Nordic shelves and Crushed Bowl for Muuto, a plywood stair prototype, and the Bone chair.

New Nordic shelves and Crushed bowls by JDS for Muuto

Bjarke Ingels shows up as part of KiBiSi, a joint venture of Kilo Design, BIG, and Skibsted Ideation. Two lamps are feature at the Danish Design Center show in Zona Tortona, alongside with Danish design legends like Kaare Klint, Verner Panton, and Poul Christiansen. Compared to JDS's operations somehow within architectural languages, KiBiSi's lamps seem to be just intending to shock...

Bunch of Bulbs by KiBiSi

Knot by KiBiSi

There is no national pavilion of Japan, but the force of Japanese design is quite strong. At the Salone, Arketipo features a line designed by Nendo, including Cube magazine storage, Link and Moya coffee tables, Eda coat stand, Hide cabinet, and Target shelves.

Link tables (front) and Eda coat stand (back) by Nendo for Arketipo

Hide cabinet by Nendo for Arketipo

Target bookshelves by Nendo for Arketipo

In their own showroom at the Galleria Jannone, Nendo presents more recent works under the title "Textured Transparencies." Here, we see a cast clear acrylic table top with a strong wood texture, a pendant lamp with a ring of protective film which changes transparency when seen from different angles, a chair of elastic polyurethane film mounted on only a backrest and armrests, and artificial ulexite frames that make the images behind them floating. The general message is that transparency is not about disappearing, but rather the existence in gradations and nuance.

Transparent Table, Transparent Lamp, and Transparent Chair by Nendo

Transparent Chair

Transparent Frame by Nendo

At the Triennale Museum, Nendo designs the exhibition setting for the Taiwanese design brand Yii. A forest of inflatable transparent vinyl tubes are hung from the ceiling. They blur the objects and force you to meander between them to get through. This "non-direct" approach is in a way very Asian.

In the Boffi showroom in Brera, Living Divani puts up a show to present their Junya Ishigami line. Family Chair is a collection of 5 lovely shaped steel wire chairs. Each of them has a slightly different personality (wide, tall, short, normal, and a stool), but they "live" in harmony together like a family. Drop Table is basically a lens on legs, creating intriguing optical effects. And there are also Garden Plates. Well, these things are just adorable!

Family Chairs by Junya Ishigami

Drop Table by Junya Ishigami

Garden Plate by Junya Ishigami

In Zona Tortona, Ishigami appears again with Sou Fujimoto and Akihisa Hirata at Spazio FMG's "Architecture as a Piece of Nature" exhibition. It's almost like a statement that a new generation of Japanese architects has matured and left the shadows of Toyo Ito, Kazuyo Sejima, and Shigaru Ban.

Although neither of the two principals of SO-IL is Japanese, their design for the Arper stand at the Salone clearly reflects the influence of Japanese sensibility they got from their SANAA years. The translucent fabric skin of the cubes produces overlapping and blurred visual effects.

      

Report Milano 6 - Teaming Up

        
It's a tradition that furniture brands would team up with architects to develop product or showroom design. At the Salone del Mobile this year, Olivari reviews its 100 years of collaboration with architects and designers, from Gio Ponti, BBPR to more contemporary big names like Toyo Ito and Steven Holl.

Horm once again manufactures a Steven Holl design. It's a system of hexagonal modulars that can be flanked into various configurations. It can function as a stool or a side table, available in Lecce stone and okoume wood. Jean Nouvel's "Vienna" for Wittmann is also a modular system. It can be arranged into a chaise lounge or sofas of different length.

In its showroom on via Manzoni, Alessi launches the Piana chair by David Chipperfield. Near Porta Volta, Lumina shows the FLO reading lamp by Foster+Partners. I really appreciate the simplicity and elegance of these British designs.

On the other side of the spectrum, Zaha Hadid designs the flamboyant Z-Chair for Sawaya & Moroni. It's probably the only chair in the city that doesn't allow visitors to sit on. I guess it won't look as "attractive" if it has fingerprints all over the polished stainless steel surface after use. In the basement of the S&M showroom, there's also the Daniel Libeskind designed tea set. OK, speechless.

Hermès has hired Shigaru Ban (with his Pompidou-Metz partner Jean de Gastines) to design a temporary pavilion at La Pelota for its new interior collections. It's the first time I've got to see Shigaru Ban's signature cardboard tube structure. Woven with paper and joined by cardboard planes, the tubes form the envelope of a sequence of intimate and calm spaces.

Similarly intimate but with a more substantial material - stone, "Nucleus" by Manuel Aires Mateus for Pibamarmi's bathroom line is featured in a group exhibition of stone design at the Triennale Museum. It seems to be a reduced version of "A Temple for Stone Gods" shown last year.

Bisazza is going artsy this year, with an exhibition at Triennale of Alessandro Mendini's sculptures using Bisazza mosaics.

Corian is famous for teaming up with architects and designers to demonstrate the potentials of this high-tech (and expensive) material in the occasions of the Salone. We've seen Marc Newson's Diode lamps (2003), Ron Arad's Oh-Void chair (2004), Zaha Hadid's Z-Island kitchen (2006), and Jean Nouvel's Lumières back-lit cabinets (2007). This year, Corian has a surprise: a TRON-inspired show with Disney in Zona Tortona. The first room is Flynn's Arcade with brightly lit walls and digital display on the table. The next is dark with the fancy Light Cycle in the spotlight. The highlight of the show is Kevin Flynn's safe house. I don't necessarily like the extravagant design. But no doubt it shows a fascinating life-style. And of course, the Daft Punk soundtracks in the background add a lot to the theatrical effects.