and very entertained by this from Duncan's blog
= design archaeology…?
(the kidney-shaped table)
Some German book I read about 50s design had a sentence saying that 'the kidney shaped table was the Gothic Arch of the 1950s'.
This book started when I bought, in a retro shop in Nottingham, a plate (designed 1957) which has transfer prints of kidney-shaped tables as part of its design. I have an idea of the 50s and it's this. But really the precise emotion is an artefact. It’s my feeling of life before I became conscious, and when I was occupied with the details of tables, carpets and kitchenware because for me as a young child those were the immediate objects of consciousness. (The set was called ‘Homemaker’ and was designed by Edna Seeley. The Potteries Museum in Stoke on Trent has one of the plates on show, with details.)
My mother bought a set of three wooden tables by Ercol, graded so that one fitted below the other. I remember them arriving in what must have been circa 1962. They weren't classically kidney shaped but a sort of long oval.
On 23/06/2012, at 7:40 PM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> Andrew Duncan's latest book from Shearsman, 'The Long 1950s', has been
> recommended to me. I haven't yet read it myself, but you can find a taster
> or order it at:
>
>
> http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2012/duncan50s.html
>
>
> while his blog contains material that has gone into the making of the book.
> See:
>
>
> http://angelexhaust.blogspot.co.uk/
>
> I certainly enjoyed the, er, panoramic sweep of the taster
>
>
>
> --
> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> "We are shallow, mababaw ang kaligayahan."
> -* F. Sionil José*
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
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