From my archive: 2005 printed in 2011
Chemex
From permanent collection to personal, everyday use, your kitchen may share more with MoMA’s collections than you previously imagined.
The museum’s recently opened exhibition “counter space: design and the modern kitchen“, among other things, made me realize how similar my kitchen and living space are to those circa mid century. Take for example the wonderfully simple combination of chemistry and necessity manifested in the Chemex coffee maker, designed by Peter Schlumbohm.
MoMA’s website describes the piece as such:
“The Chemex Coffee Maker is the most successful design by Schlumbohm, an inventor and chemist who immigrated to the United States in 1935. In developing its form he was inspired by the modern spirit of the interwar period and particularly by the Bauhaus school of design in Germany. He explained, “A table must be a table; a chair must be a chair; a bed must be a bed. When, in 1938, the personal desire for coffee came up, my aspect simply was: A coffeemaker must make coffee, and then I applied my knowledge of physics and chemistry.” Schlumbohm was inclined to adapt scientific principles and laboratory equipment, in this case an Erlenmeyer flask, to the design of domestic objects. He obtained over three thousand patents over his distinctive career.”
“Les Pas Libres”
« Quand je suis seul, j’aime les grandes routes; avec moi seul, je m’entretiens. Mes pas libres vont facilement et mon corps laisse alors mon esprit sans entraves; il discute, il raisonne, il me presse d’interrogations.
Mais, avec Dieu, un ami de la nature, je préfère les sentiers embarrassés sous les obstacles d’un …chemin sauvage que nul travail humain n’a touché. Je laisse aller mon pied dans l’herbe humide et m’inspire au contact de la branche que mon visage effleure ; les pierres, les buissons, quoique remplis de ronces, ne m’arrêtent que pour m’entretenir et me parler ; et, meme sous un bois noir, bien sombre, j’aime l’orage, la pluie abondante, le froid, les glaces et la neige ; tous les frimas dont les hommes se plaignent ont pour moi un éloquent langage qui m’attire, me charme et m’a toujours donné de profonds ravissements »
-Odilon Redon’s journal «A soi-même »
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