RESTORATIVE SpAcE - the International Academy of Design and ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

were meant to feel like soft, mostly female, bodies. They told stories of mother and child – touching the heart of everyone who uses them both emotionally and spiritually. She used to marvel with pleasure whenever she received letters and emails from fans telling her how much they loved her work. Eva’s designs inspire love. In Leningrad’s Butyrka Prison she was also contrarian. When her daily interrogation and emotional battering were over, she wrote poetry using a small stick of wood wrapped in thread from her clothes. Using burnt sugar and cigarette ash as ink, she wrote on the backs of labels from cans she received infrequently in “care packages” from her mother. Castleton, and later her best known set, Hallcraft, were the first allwhite dinnerware sets introduced to the American market – a best seller for years. When the head of a major US glass factory was about to select one of six glassware designs “because the public will like them,” she convinced him to produce a more beautiful and eventually highly successful version by asking him “but which do you like best?” She pointed out that just because the public were not as well to do or successful as this industrialist, they still had impeccable taste. Beauty – her vision of beauty – won out every time. Eva’s “economical and expressive” painting of a teenage John Zeisel I am told by someone who worked in the Eames’ studio that Charles and Ray Eames had a simple shapely white vase of Eva’s on one of their desks with a flower to inspire them. For her, design was health. I believe her passion for design kept her alive over a century; but it was more than design. It was beautiful design; it was beauty itself. Her playful search for beauty didn’t stop with objects. She designed houses, store interiors, a shelving system, chairs and tables, candlesticks, tableware, glasses, Christmas decorations, rugs, a pen and pencil set, a burial urn, and even turned her hand to playwriting. Her portrait sketches are economical and expressive. One of Leó Szilárd, the co-holder (with Fermi) of the patent for the atomic bomb’s chain reaction, was published in the Atlantic Monthly. One of me as a child along with a painting by her of me as a teenager hangs in my home. At the age of 19, one of her drawings won honorable mention in the Hungarian exposition at the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. And she never forgot the people who would experience her work. She called her work “gifts” to them. Her playful search for beauty included all the final users of her designs – those whose lives she influenced through her designs – but not only that. There were also all those she influenced through her sage advice, counsel and vision. Finally, in my work I have met many female professionals whose lives she changed by just being a role model for successful women designers. Eva at work on her Lemonosov coffee pot (2002) Eva and grandsons Evan & Adam at her 94th birthday (left); Eva with granddaughter Talisman (right) 10 January 2012 | WORLD HEALTH DESIGN www.worldhealthdesign.com
Design for Humanity Eva’s tubular steel chair at the Museum of Modern Art Humanity in design: Dinnerware families – shmoos and birds Eva’s racetrack coffee table A creative balance of life and work More than once, when asked if she had a highlight in her long life, she answered, as one blogger reported: “Let us separate my work and my life… the high point in my life was having my two children. The high point of my work was the Museum Ware by Castleton China. This is my favourite set. I had a show there you know, in 1946.” She knew no boundaries and thus her creative urges spilled out everywhere – into objects and events and into people, among them her children and grandchildren. Inspired by Eva’s independent spirit and belief in her own creativity, Jean Richards, her daughter, is an actress and writer. Eva’s grandchildren – Jean’s daughter and my sons – were each inspired by Eva to rely on their own creativity and embark on the same playful search for beauty. Each works for themselves and each follows their art: Evan Bass Zeisel is a New York filmmaker, actor and improviser. Talisman Brolin is a successful photographer in New York as well. Adam Zeisel lives in Boston and is a creative web entrepreneur of Eva’s “recent” works – those since she was about 90 years old – bringing to others Eva’s work through beauty – carrying on the family tradition. I take care of people living with dementia using design of the physical environment, and the arts and culture to give people with dementia a life worth living. Eva lives on in all those who learned from her and loved her… in person and through her work. Dr John Zeisel is chair of the International Academy for Design & Health’s Scientific Committee References • Eva Zeisel, TED Talk, On the Playful Search for Beauty (2001) (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/eva_zeisel_on_the_ playful_search_for_beauty.html • Eva Zeisel: A Soviet Prison Memoir, compiled by Jean Richards & Brent C. Brolin. An e-book available at www. evamemoir.com • The Eva Zeisel collectors’ and fan club: www.evazeisel.com • www.evazeiseloriginals.com – Adam Zeisel’s website • Google “Eva Zeisel” to see more of her work Product Photography: Brent C. Brolin www.evazeiseloriginals.com www.worldhealthdesign.com WORLD HEALTH DESIGN | January 2012 11
Page 1: January 2012 | WORLD HEALTH DESIGN
Page 4 and 5: Contents Editorial Director Marc Sa
Page 6 and 7: Briefing Take part in the CARE Chal
Page 8 and 9: Design for Humanity Brigitte Lacomb
Page 12 and 13: www.designandhealth.com info@design
Page 14 and 15: Dialogue Clean city, healthy city A
Page 16 and 17: 30 June 2012 Kuala Lumpur Internati
Page 18 and 19: Placemaker Restorative space Photog
Page 20 and 21: Placemaker Curve Confounding stereo
Page 22 and 23: Ngonyama1_AD.indd 1 13/01/2010 16:3
Page 24 and 25: Market Report: Africa Emerging hope
Page 26 and 27: When making design decisions, every
Page 29: Kenya Women & Children’s Wellness
Page 32 and 33: Market report: Africa The tools to
Page 34 and 35: Design & Health Australasia 2012 Ea
Page 36 and 37: Project Report: Australasia Across
Page 38 and 39: Allen Lau/Danielle Benson Backlit c
Page 40 and 41: Australian excellence in regional a
Page 43 and 44: Project Report: Australasia Murray
Page 45 and 46: Chris Barrett Elderly care is seen
Page 47: Project Report: Elderly Care People
Page 51 and 52: Project Report: Elderly Care Snowde
Page 53: Nightingale in Wales The largest ne
Page 56 and 57: Technology The high quality of Amer
Page 59 and 60: Design &Health International Academ
Page 61 and 62:
Post-occupancy Evaluation the physi
Page 63 and 64:
Post-occupancy Evaluation thermal c
Page 65:
Post-occupancy Evaluation interior
Page 69 and 70:
Design & Health Scientific Review P
Page 71 and 72:
Accident & Emergency Design need sy
Page 73 and 74:
Accident & Emergency Design of how
Page 75:
Accident & Emergency Design Current
Page 78:
Arts and culture Religious painting
show all

RESTORATIVE SpAcE - the International Academy of Design and ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?