The website “Freunde von Freunden” portrays people who are influential in art, design, fashion or cooking or say influence urban lifestyle of our generation. Usually there is a homestory with plenty of photos. When I browsed through the appartments of e.g. Cynthia Barcomi or Bruno Pieters, one is flabbergasted that not only they live actually in a retro style, but also it all references back to one iconic picture we all have at least seen in a Vitra catalogue – the house of Charles and Ray Eames (see below). It must be engraved in our collective consumer brain, you can easily quote it, it still looks fresh. Fresh from the Vitra desk, fuck, all is staged, all is a new campaign. Barcomi, Pieters, all these cunts are just whores for money. Nobody is a friend, they just want some money and Vitra wants yours.
The mixture of woods, the classic rugs and some design icons as the Lounge Chair – we have all seen that before. The only contemporary piece of design is an iphone on the kitchen table. What a cheap code, Friends!
I certainly like the style, my first flat as a student contained some Sansevieria for which I build a walnut shelf, so that they could stand on glass bricks. This visual idea was copied from “Lost Highway” by David Lynch, which massively influenced my visual eye. It copied back from the 60s, from new Modernism architecture in California. But is there nothing new, nothing afterwards? A lounge chair is an icon, but certainly it is not a super good relax chair, build for small people after the war, it is no longer functional. Not only because of our stature – we are simply much bigger people and the lounge chair supports our back, but not our big heads. There is no adjustment, no fixing – for 7600,-€ this promise of happyness in design heaven is just idiotic.
All the other shelves and details may have been chosen from a different reason: They look good and you can find them for little money on flew markets. And claim easily: We have limited financials, but when the money pours in, the Eames is the first thing I buy!
The generation who influences urban lifestyle today is the one which had long delays and several internships behind them, when they became financially viable. You are simply financially dried-up and this influences are what you choose. This even more applies to architecture – we have the money when we are 40 or older and then we may lack the time to deal with it. What when then come up with is some 50s-60s modernism, which is already revolutionary for us. What a pitty, what a waste of time to evolve further. We are coming from Altbauten, our parents build brick houses in the province. We are noway close to contemporary design or architecture, we are just dried up. And we are Europeans. Poor us! The wars brought not enough broken dreams, we have still tried for too long to create a better past.
