The Monocle Minute
On Design

We’re in a visual frame of mind this week as we test out the new Pentax film camera that’s capturing the hearts of the smartphone generation and dip into the archives to watch the Robin Day-designed CS17 Television. We also stop in at a sleek Guadulajaran cocktail bar in a former funeral home and sit down with Design Biennale Rotterdam co-founder Sarah Schulten. Setting the scene is Monocle’s associate editor, Grace Charlton.

After almost 10 years together, my partner and I have taken an important step in our relationship: we have chosen a sofa for our new home. Following months of deliberation and (sometimes heated) debate, we have decided on a low-slung, cool-toned, brown and chrome-barred Soriana, first designed in 1969 by Afra and Tobia Scarpa for Cassina. Luckily for me, the sofa is still in production to this day (see In the Picture below).

A sofa is arguably the most important piece of furniture in a home. It’s where you unwind after work, watch movies, read books, flip through magazines, relax with a glass of wine and have conversations with friends that sometimes spill into the early hours of the morning. I often hear from designers, architects and manufacturers that good design is for good living but now the significance of that idea strikes me anew.

I must admit that I started reading into what a sofa says about its owner. For example, a pristine cream bouclé number screams, “No children – and white wine only, please!” A floral contender, on the other hand, befits a bohemian in a Cotswolds cottage. After sifting through what felt like the entire catalogue of every couch company in existence, I found myself drawn – perhaps unoriginally – to the designs of 1970s Milan, when sofa legs were stout and corners were well-rounded. There’s an informal, adventurous and relaxed ease about this era that continues to appeal more than 50 years later. Seeing the campaign imagery from the time, featuring chic women with bouffants dressed in pussy-bow blouses and posing elegantly on sofas, was the ultimate clincher.

Our Soriana was delivered to us in one plush piece and now our evenings are spent establishing new routines around this sofa. I feel buoyed to live better, to grow into the type of person who owns a Soriana. Suddenly our movie nights are a little more ambitious (though I confess that we’re still only halfway through Conclave) and I have made the time to read the stack of magazines on my coffee table. It turns out that it’s true what everyone says: good design really is about living well. Now, where did I put that pussy-bow blouse?

Grace Charlton is Monocle’s associate editor. For more news and analysis, subscribe to Monocle today.

After sitting empty for more than 20 years, a former funeral home in Guadalajara has been given a new lease of life as a cultural hub by Tapalpa-based architect Sergio Ortiz.

Now a contemporary art space called Plataforma, the building was originally designed in the 1970s by architect Armando Sube Ibarra and was one of the first functionalist constructions on Avenida Vallarta. On its third floor is Bar de la Cruz, with interiors by local firm Kenya Rodríguez Estudio.

The intimate space features shutter windows, private booths that encourage spontaneous interactions among guests, custom-made glass tables and leather pedestals embroidered with piteado stitching (a subtle reference to the Jalisco region’s equestrian traditions).

“Rather than erase these markers of the past, we sought to embrace them,” says Armando Quintana, curator at Kenya Rodríguez Estudio. “We created a warm, intimate atmosphere that pays homage to Jalisco’s material heritage, while shifting the narrative from one of solemnity to one of connection and conviviality. It is a place where time slows down and the weight of history is met with the energy of contemporary culture. The design becomes an experience in itself.”
kenyarodriguez.com.mx

How do you ensure the longevity of a piece of furniture design? Some creatives seek to keep their work alive by handing over documentation and production rights to research libraries before they retire or pass away. Others, meanwhile, rely on permanent collections of public institutions to archive their achievements. But one man is on a mission to protect design legacies in a more straightforward manner. “Songwriters are entitled to royalties,” says Mark Masiello. “I asked myself, ‘Who is managing design rights in the way that music rights are managed?’”

Rhode Island-based Masiello established Form Portfolios in 2016 to own and license the work of historic and contemporary designers. Today he helps the estates and families of star names and lesser-known talents find new fans. To do so, he uses methods that range from resurrecting furniture that has fallen out of production to developing new pieces from previously unrealised blueprints. For example, in partnership with Danish design brand Karakter, Masiello put Bodil Kjaer’s revered Office Desk back on the market.

Sometimes his best ideas are the simplest. Last year, Form Portfolios held an exhibition in Copenhagen to celebrate the work of Jens Quistgaard. “The family had dreamed of an exhibition for years,” says Masiello. “These are the aspirations that we bring to life.” Other designers and their estates should take note. If they’re looking for a way to safeguard their work for future generations, Masiello and his company might be the solution.
formportfolios.com

For more from Form Portfolios, pick up a copy ofMonocle’s February issue, on newsstands now.

Design and art consultant Sarah Schulten is the co-founder of Design Biennale Rotterdam, a new festival that runs until 2 March. With Liv Vaisberg (pictured, on left, with Schulten), she has curated a citywide festival encouraging creatives across Rotterdam to respond to the theme “What’s Real Is Unfamiliar”. It invites the public into the workspaces of architects and designers to see installations and works in progress.

Why launch a new design event?
I was seeing the work of designers in Milan and slowly realised just how many were based in Rotterdam. Liv and I go to a lot of international biennales and we love to explore cities in different ways. We thought that Rotterdam would be the perfect place for this sort of experience because it’s unexpected. In Amsterdam you know where to go and it’s beautiful everywhere. With this biennale we want to make it easier for people to find these incredible spaces in somewhere less familiar.

Could you tell us about the theme, ‘What’s Real Is Unfamiliar’? Why did you choose this for the biennale’s first edition?
There’s a beautiful line from Rotterdam poet Rien Vroegindeweij that goes, “If everybody comes from somewhere else, then nobody is a stranger.” We wanted to encourage people to venture out of their comfort zones, to capture the idea that nobody is a stranger here and so there’s no need to be afraid about stepping into the unknown. We also wanted the theme to represent what the city is all about: no bullshit.

What are your ambitions for the event’s growth?
I would like it to stay local while still having an international connection because that’s interesting for people in Rotterdam. At the same time we want it to be big in terms of quality. In Milan design is a big deal. We have the opportunity to be niche. The end goal would be to turn Rotterdam into a destination where you can come for really focused design.

For more from Design Biennale Rotterdam, tune in to this week’s episode of‘Monocle on Design’.

To many UK residents, the CS17 evokes memories of the early days of television when sets were often thicker than they were wide and a colour screen was considered a status symbol. Designed in 1956 by Robin Day for Pye, a British company that pioneered at-home broadcasting technology, the CS17 boasted a 17-inch black-and-white screen and probably needed an occasional bang on its side to work properly. Still, at the time it represented the cutting edge of modern, streamlined technology and won accolades from the Council of Industrial Design.

Though there is no question about the superiority of today’s technology, a closer look at Day’s TV might also inspire some nostalgia for the time before high-definition screens. With its modest size, this wooden cabinet ran no risk of sucking the air out of the living room, as a huge flat-screen is prone to do. It wouldn’t be so shocking if old-school televisions go the way of vinyl players, tape recorders and CD-Roms and enjoy a quiet revival.

Echoes: Cassina, 50 Years of iMaestri is an ode to one of the most significant design collections of the past 50 years. Published by Rizzoli, it celebrates Italian manufacturer Cassina’s approach to reissuing 20th-century designs for the modern market. Since 1973, the iMaestri Collection has revitalised designs from the likes of Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand and Carlo Scarpa. With its strikingly bright-red cover, this volume gives deep insights into the works and processes of this decades-long dialogue between history and modernity.

Featuring contributions from Cassina’s CEO, Luca Fuso, the company’s Spanish art director, Patricia Urquiola, and Italian philosopher Emanuele Coccia, the book presents a rich and diverse narrative across five thematic chapters. For design-history enthusiasts, essays also accompany archival material, including sketches, technical drawings and letters. This title is an education in the art of reissuing designs with sensitivity.
cassina.com

“I just remember that everyone seemed to freeze,” Takeo Suzuki tells The Monocle Minute on Design from the Pentax Clubhouse in Tokyo. The camera designer is recalling the first time that he suggested the idea of making a new Pentax film camera to his bosses at Ricoh Imaging. He eventually persuaded them that they would be doing something completely fresh: a film camera for the modern era, aimed primarily at smartphone-literate users who don’t have a clue how to load film, let alone have the patience to wait for photographs to be developed. The resulting Pentax 17 is the company’s first film camera in 21 years.

To make it appealing to younger generations, the camera includes some key design features that set it apart from other products on the market. It takes pictures vertically unless turned on its side, which is good for viewing and sharing on smartphones; it has a simple fixed lens with manual focusing, which offers autonomy without demanding too much technical know-how; and it uses a half-frame film format that doubles the number of photos in a roll of film. “Half-format cameras were big in the 1960s and 1970s when every family had only one camera – they were just more economical,” says Suzuki. “The Pentax 17 has blown open the possibilities for film cameras and shown that this kind of photography can coexist with, and even take inspiration from, smartphone cameras.”
ricoh-imaging.co.jp; pentax.eu