PARIS Day 04

Day 04 started early with the "secret design tour" organized by Electrolux. It's basically a visit to a few studios(stores) in the St.Paul District.



St.Paul District is basically a small community where some designer item stores and art galleries concentrate to create this "central" for design or art related business. Well, during that morning, we were dropped off at the front of the village entrance and we were asked to wait... it was cold, and the ally was narrow, which meant we were standing in the shadows instead of the warm morning sun.





Then our alternative personalities became useful, which is when we displayed our hidden acting talents in preparation for the up coming Cannes Awards. The camera crews started to pull some of us aside for interviews, and have us have conservations that doesn't make sense, but pretend that they are meaningful and engaging.





So we finally got to continue with the tour, which started with STUA, then continued with another company(which I don't remember the name as I left the brochure somewhere else) that makes metal, medical-like chairs. This company were founded by Russian immigrant to France after the WWII. As their facility was beside a crutch factory, they eventually used the rubber leg structure as their chairs' legs. This, not only has created a weird yet interesting aesthetics, produced a very solid and a firm feeling as you rest it on the floor. What's even more interesting to me is, a chair with such rich local culture and origin has found it place in the North American market, where a typical user may look at the chair and will never know about its history unless being told.





BTW, another unique feature about these chairs is that they stack vertically. Usually, as chairs stack, they tend to lean forward, so there is a limit on how tall you can stack them. The metal chairs are more like stools with chair backs, so they can stack vertically without any limit, as long as the bottom chair can hold the load.

Next we visited a gallery with a furniture collection. We are told that each of the wood pieces used to build this collection are well traced, which mean you can find out exactly where it was cut from, how it was handled, by who and so on, claiming that we can use this tracing system to track the material, therefore ensuring its sustainability.



Well, too me, this is nothing but a pile of scrap wood.
Does "traceable" make it sustainable?
I think this is just another "green wash" attempt, that "green design = sustainability"
First of all, the way that these furniture are constructed is simply inefficient. The furnitures itself performs in poor efficiently too. Then it is said that this is a limited edition, an art collection to be exact. So without an user context, how can any be sustainable? Sustainable to do what? Again, either that this is just another native artist trying to say something that isn't valid, or that he's banking on the notion of this "sustainability" fest. Not impressed!

Then as we got done with that tour, we noticed something going on at the end of the corridor. There was an artist wrapping public objects in kneaded wood, as a form of "graffiti" while being interviewed. Hmm..... if it's about justifying graffiti, then where's the police? Where's that fear, excitement, and the spontaneousness of graffiti? From what I see, no one's objecting her actions, and it seems that she prepared the wool things before she even got there! That's not graffiti! And she's not making a mark!







Well, despite all theses exciting things happening, I was more attracted by the laid back lifestyle that are apparent in the area, like old man walking his little doggy companion, as well as the captivating toy store.






Lunch was horrible with under cooked meat and weird salads, but it was fun, because somewhere in the world, this piece of paper is floating around.







That night.... wait, did we have sushi or was it the night before? Nevermind, I am tired as you can probably tell from the lack of details. I will leave the rest of the story to tomorrow and hopefully, I can complete adventures in Paris.