Exhibitions: Unframed Beauty

The first ax made by the first caveman may have been purely and unesthetically functional. The second probably made some attempt at cleaner line or tidier thong. Since then, artists have gone ever more deeply into producing functional objects of greater grace, of design that encourages use. At the 13th Triennale of industrial design, now on in Milan, designers from all over the world are showing that they can offer mass-made items as commonplace as axes yet beautiful enough to be passed on as heirlooms.

Modern design starts with such 19th century artists as William Morris, the members of the arts and crafts movement in England, and the art nouveauists, who all felt a messianic urge to put art into everyday items. Dada and surrealism came along to mock them—but then the International Style, the architectural rubric of glass-and-steel boxes, came along to mock the mockers. Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames, for example, all set about to design better chairs for man to plop in, and, save a sore sacroiliac or so, they succeeded.

Mostly, designers stuck to the rule of form following function. Tables, chairs, bookcases took a stripped-down, right-angular appearance supposed to defeat the Victorian furbelows that used to defy efficient cleaning. But—perhaps because vacuum cleaners are better than they used to be—the latest in functional form has found new curves to swing by (see color pages).

Laminated Biceps. Modern industrial design has ceased its T-square solemnity and turned capricious. A crash helmet by Bell-Toptex Inc.’s Frank Heacox and Roy Richter becomes a more modern exoskull, whose transparent visor frees, yet protects, nose, eyes and jaw. A single-finned surfboard, made of fiber-glassed balsa, is—above and below its shallow water line—both a platform and a watery missile. A laminated archer’s bow, by Bill Stewart of Bear Archery Co., is the winglike translation of the human biceps, and thus its 35-lb. pull ally.

Often, esthetics enters usefulness by the back door. The late Dr. Peter Schlumbohm used the chemical principle of filtration to make the trim Chemex coffeemaker, then simply placed a disk of filter paper inside a circular housing to make a new kind of fan. Spun by a motor, the rippling paper edges cast air through the rim by centrifugal force. A ban vivant of the first order, Schlumbohm made a rapid, but esthetic, champagne cooler just because he felt bachelors should not be caught short when unexpectedly entertaining women.

Sculptural Typewriters. The Olivetti Corp. of Italy has made beautiful typewriters by dumping the portable from its box and embedding the keys like ranks of tiny birds in a nest. Braun Co. of Germany spends money that it otherwise would plunge into advertising on teaching employees the principles of good design. The effect carries on the Bauhaus tradition in toasters, hair dryers, and transistor radio-phonographs that are perfect plastic sculpture.

At the Triennale, whose theme is leisure, the emphasis is on the lighthearted Yet the stocky curves of Finnish target rifles or rowboats, the unbulky, trim-below-the-hips power of an Italian Gilera 250-cc. motorcycle, or the sweep of Italian wicker rocking chairs show amply that much art is not made to hang on walls.