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A review by mrsthrift
Nomadic Furniture by James Hennessey, Victor Papanek
3.0
This book was published in the 1970s and whoa-doggie does it show. Printed in the classical "handwriting" typeface of so many macrobiotic cook books and "build your own hot tub" books I've seen from the same era, this book manages to impart a sense of a lifestyle that, while fleeting, appears to be circling back into popular consciousness. The furniture in this book is designed to assist proper geometric alignment of the human form, to be stylish or at least to make an aesthetic statement, and to promote the life of one who is on the move, or at least someone who requires that their furniture be ready to pack up at a moment's notice. Some of the ideas are completely insane. The cardboard car seat in the section for children, for example, meets approximately 0% of modern safety requirements, and the "bubble lamp" made from "used styrofoam cups" is the sort of thing that haunts my nightmares. But some of them are quite good - the boxes with lids that can be used as packing crates, and then re-assembled into a stylish ladder-style bookshelf.
Most of the projects don't include specific instructions, tools, specifications, measurements, or anything else that would hinder the creator. They are ideas, not entirely hatched or ready to be executed, but I feel like they are a jumping off point for a better world. While I love drooling over fancy furniture, vintage and designer and whathaveyou, there is something magical in something you make with your own hands and then serve dinner on, store your records in, or sleep on. I'm not the most handy person, so I probably won't make any of these projects, but it gives me ideas as I help design and execute various custom furniture projects around the house.
Point of interest: one concept I have been long interested in is "the cube" -- a mobile piece of furniture that rotates, expands, retracts, compacts, transforms into various types of living space so that you can have cozy and multifunctional rooms in a large, otherwise unfinished space. Examples here and here). There are pages and pages dedicated to this idea in Nomadic Furniture. Entertainment cube. Children's cube. Relaxation cube, etc.
Most of the projects don't include specific instructions, tools, specifications, measurements, or anything else that would hinder the creator. They are ideas, not entirely hatched or ready to be executed, but I feel like they are a jumping off point for a better world. While I love drooling over fancy furniture, vintage and designer and whathaveyou, there is something magical in something you make with your own hands and then serve dinner on, store your records in, or sleep on. I'm not the most handy person, so I probably won't make any of these projects, but it gives me ideas as I help design and execute various custom furniture projects around the house.
Point of interest: one concept I have been long interested in is "the cube" -- a mobile piece of furniture that rotates, expands, retracts, compacts, transforms into various types of living space so that you can have cozy and multifunctional rooms in a large, otherwise unfinished space. Examples here and here). There are pages and pages dedicated to this idea in Nomadic Furniture. Entertainment cube. Children's cube. Relaxation cube, etc.