Cleaning a George Nelson Bubble Lamp

Looking at the search queries in our blog stats, it seems that there are many people out there searching for cleaning instructions for the George Nelson Bubble Lamps, so here’s how.

 

 

The ones in our home/showroom don’t require much cleaning at all, to be perfectly honest, but you can give them an occasional dusting just to keep them radiant.

Because they’re made of a polymer, and not of paper, you can use a lightly damp cloth and mild soap to clean them, but we’ve found that those static cling sheets used for Kao Magic Mops  (“Swiffer” sheets for US readers) do a fantastic job.

If you can’t get your hands on those, a gentle vacuuming using the LOWEST setting and the brush attachment works too, especially if your lamps are hanging slightly out of reach.

Modernica has the care instructions buried in their website, but you can download it here.

Happy cleaning!

Emeco “Nine-0” Chair by Ettore Sottsass

Emeco, unveiled the “Nine-0”, a new collection of chairs and stools by the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass on 16 April, at the 2008 Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

I love how the arms on the armchair are formed by the extension of  the leg piece. A simple, elegant solution.

Three versions of the chair/stool are available. (From left to right) 3-Bar Back (shown without arms), Open Back, and Soft Back.

From the press release:

Gregg Buchbinder, Emeco’s Chariman, met Mr. Sotsass eight years ago at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. “The minute we met, Ettore told me he was an admirer of the Navy chair and in fact wished he had designed it. And we agreed, why not re-design it,” remembers Mr. Buchbinder. “I had seen Sottsass’ projects in which he had used our chair. Ettore was the first designer who took our chairs out of their typical environments—navy ships prisons, hospitals—and to use them in contemporary interior design projects. Through him Sir Terence Conran, Frank Gehry and Philippe Starck discovered the Emeco chair creating resurgence in the 1990’s.”

“A chair must be really important as an object, because my mother always told me to offer my chair to a lady,” Mr. Sottsass told the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 1976.

Chris Redfern, the British architect who worked alongside Mr. Sottsass for the past 12 years recalls, “Ettore always had orange cushions fixed onto his navy chairs at home in Milan and our idea started there. We wanted to make the new chair soft, friendly and of course colorful.” Mixing Emeco’s expertise in aluminium construction with European technologies in polyurethane sculpting, the new designs feature a soft polyurethane seat and a wider base for a “growing population.”

A bit on Mr Sottsass:

Ettore Sottsass was born in 1917 in Innsbruck. Like his father, Mr. Sottsass studied architecture. He served in the Italian army, and after the war, established a practice in Turin, designing interiors, and domestic objects. He later moved to Milan as Italy embarked on post war reconstruction and collaborated with his father on social housing projects, as well as designing small craftsman-made domestic objects.

Mr. Sottsass spent a brief period in America, working for George Nelson, which gave his work a transatlantic dimension unusual in Italy.

In 1981, he helped establish the Memphis movement with a group of like minded designers who questioned the comfortable definitions of contemporary design. Memphis represented the most coherent attempt to apply post modernism to design. It created an alternative to the aesthetic of functionalism by exploring the emotional potential of design. 

At the same time that Memphis exploded, Mr. Sottsass’ partnership, Sottsass Associati expanded rapidly to become Italy’s best-known design consultancy, working in architecture, graphics, interiors, products, and furniture all around the world.

These are the last chairs designed by Mr. Sottsass, who died on December 31, 2007 at the age of 90.

 

“LA BELLEZZA CI SALVERRÀ.” (BEAUTY WILL SAVE US.)

ETTORE SOTTSASS

 

Seats: Integrally-coloured, soft polyurethane seat and back.

Colours available: green, blue, yellow, orange, red, and grey.

We have a winner…

After 40 weeks of anticipation, our little guy decided to make an appearance at 3:43p.m. on April 15. Weighing in at 3.86kg (8.5lbs) and 53cm long (20.86″), he was the heaviest and longest baby born at the hospital that day.

And he finally has a name! We received over a hundred entries to our little contest, from as far away as Orlando, Florida and Ireland. Many thanks to everyone who entered, and for all your kind wishes.

Some of the more unique and interesting names include “Sjalrome” (pronounced ‘shalom,’ I believe) and “Yassin” (of Moroccan origin), but as things would have it, we came across his English name on the internet one day. So, please say “selamat datang*” to:

Xander Quah Jinn Kye

His Chinese name is (surprise, surprise) 柯 敬 凯, the original Chinese characters we liked—I guess we did a Malcolm Gladwell on it, and went with our first instincts. Jinn Kye, or ”Jing Kai” means “honourable victory” or “respected victory”.

The clincher, I think was the ‘X’. It’s a letter that’s unique, memorable, and visually outstanding. Plus, anything with an ‘X’ in it makes it instantly cool. XBox, X-Men, X Games. (‘Xander’ is an abbreviated version of ‘Alexander’ which means ‘defender’ or ‘warrior.’)

We’re actually kind of glad we didn’t name him before he was born, because in the one week we’ve spent with him, his personality just didn’t fit many of the names on the final list.

And here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Congratulations to Vanessa, who on May 6, suggested the name “Quah Jin Khai” and coming closest to the final name, wins the Blu Dot Couchoid Sofa!

Here’s his birth announcement:

(If you’re a non-Singaporean reader, and the above image makes no sense whatsoever, enlightenment available here.)

Once again, many heartfelt ‘thank-you’s to everyone!

Since this is supposed to be a blog about “food and furniture” I guess I should get back to that soon. Perhaps a post on confinement cuisine and baby cots.

*Selamat Datang = “Welcome” in the Malay language 

Daddy, how did I get my name?

We’re expecting our first child in mid-April, and we’re thrilled as pomeranians with new Hello Kitty chew toys. But six weeks until the bun is baked, and we’re struggling with names.

Our shortlist consists of exactly ONE English name, and ONE character for his Chinese name. Oh, yeah, it’s a boy!

Some people have no such problems. Angelina and Brad are great at naming kids: Maddox, Pax Thien, Shiloh, Zahara! But they probably have eight full-time staff coming up with them.

So, we’re enlisting the help of you, our friends, family, and readers to help us choose a name. Imagine, you get to name our son! But even better than bragging rights, if the name you propose is picked, we’ll give you a brand-new, Blu Dot Couchoid Studio sofa. (Download a pdf spec sheet here.)

(If this sounds like some thinly-veiled publicity stunt for our store, that exploits an innocent, unborn child, I say to you, “Yes, it is!” But at least it’s better than naming your child “Brooklyn” just to get free pizza.)

Seriously, though, we just figured it might be nice if others could share in our big event. You know, the wisdom of crowds and all that. So here goes:

Our surname is “Quah” (“柯” in Mandarin). The one English name we like is “Kyle”.

The Chinese name we like is a lot “King” (“敬”) which means “respect”. Preferably, it would be used as the second name, i.e. “Quah King Something.” “King Kong” has already been thought of and rejected, thank you very much.

We also like “Khai” (“凯”) which means “triumphant” or “victorious.” But the problem with “Kyle Quah King Khai” is the alliteration—it’s just too much of a tongue-twister.

Some guidelines:

• You can offer a Chinese name, or an alternate English name, or both.
• One to five carefully considered names is plenty. We prefer not having to read a list of 300 names lifted off the internet.
• We don’t mind if the name’s uncommon. We’re not keen on Michael, John, David or Andrew. (Apologies to readers with those names.) I personally like cowboy names. Cody, Jake, Wyatt, but the wife will have none of it, as according to her, they’re “too American.”
• Chinese names can be in any dialect. Hokkien if at all possible, otherwise we’re not too fussed about it. The Chinese character should, naturally, be something meaningful.

Send your entry to:pomelobaby (at) gmail (dot) com

Good luck!

Raymond & Karina

The fine print: Contest closing date: 15 April 2008. Please include your name and a contact number in your entry. Prize eligible for readers residing in Singapore only, sorry. Sofa is not exchangeable for cash, currypuffs or anything else. If more than one person suggests the same name, the first person who emailed it in, wins. In the event that we go with a completely different name than any suggested, we will award the sofa to one person chosen at random. Winner will be announced on this blog soon after the delivery date.

Glacier Berthillon, Paris

One thing I REALLY need to learn to do, is to write short posts. Which will give me no excuse to write so infrequently.

Anyway, the wife and I were in Paris last week, and we managed to have some really fabulous food. One of the things we had the pleasure of tasting, was Berthillon ice cream.

On Ile Saint Louis, down a small street about five minutes’ walk from Notre Dame, three generations of ice cream artisans have been making ice cream and fruit sorbets since 1954. (Isn’t it strangely appropriate that “artisanal” has the word “anal” in it?)

They serve/sell Berthillon at numerous cafés and bistros, but this is where it’s made, and where they have all the flavours, including special seasonal ones. Everything’s made from scratch with all-natural ingredients, and nothing contains preservatives. At 2€ a scoop, this is definitely one of the best bargains in Paris.

I’m usually not a huge fan of ice cream (my biggest complaint that it’s always too sweet). And the only other time I absolutely LOVED it was when we had “Fifty Bean Vanilla Ice Cream” at Spago in Beverly Hills, made with—no prizes for guessing, FIFTY vanilla beans. I have not tasted ice cream—in any flavour—like it since. Nor am I likely to.

But Berthillon comes pretty darn close. Especially my scoop of “Caramel au beurre salé” or Caramel with Salted Butter. I can’t tell you how delicious it was. If ever you needed proof that the human palate enjoys the taste of fat, this is it.

Had the queue not been so long, I would’ve gone right to the back of the line to get another scoop. Or gone inside for one of these:

Flickr photo by MomentstoShare

The scoop of “Framboise à la rose” (Pink Raspberry?) that Karina had was delicious too, or so she said. I was too busy enjoying the sweet, smoky, creamy, salty taste of cold, liquid butter.

Berthillon Glacier
Address: 31, Rue St. Louis en L’Ile, 75004 Paris
Phone: 01 43 54 31 61
http://www.berthillon-glacier.fr

Moooi Carbon Chair

I went to Amsterdam last week for work, and managed to spend some time exploring the city.The Netherlands is home to a large number of world-class designers, running the entire gamut of fields—from furniture to architecture, textile making to ceramics, fashion to graphic design. Some Dutch design heavyweights that immediately come to mind are Hella Jongerius, Marcel Wanders, Viktor & Rolf and Rem Koolhaas.The Dutch design collective, Droog, alone has worked with over a hundred different designers. I dropped by their store, and saw this unbelievable table by Miriam van der Lubbe.Scenes from an Indonesian fairy tale about a Frog Prince were cut by laser into the walnut surface, then four Balinese craftsmen worked for two weeks, carving out half the tabletop into a spectacular relief of lily pads, tadpoles and frogs—in all stages of its life cycle.The table has to be seen to be believed. One half is precision-etched, with incisions barely a millimeter wide, and the other half is insanely hand-crafted. This juxtaposition was part of the artist’s intent; where countries would normally use cheap Indonesian labour to manufacture mass consumer goods, she used skilled artisans to produce a one-off masterpiece. (Ironically, perhaps, the labour cost was still probably fifty times cheaper than it would have cost to make in say, Italy.)I digress… more Amsterdam posts to come soon.One chair of Dutch design that I really love is Bertjan Pot’s Carbon Chair, designed in cooperation with Marcel Wanders, and produced by Moooi.It’s made from 100% carbon fibre, with no metal frame, and weighs an incredible, I don’t know, 3 micrograms, or some other ridiculously light weight. You can lift it with your little finger; it’s so light and feels really fragile, but yet, incredibly strong.The Carbon Chair was inspired by an experimental chair Pot created as an homage to Charles Eames’s DSR side chair with Eiffel base. Using carbon fiber and epoxy resin to “trace” the chair, the result was the “Carbon Copy”. (This chair was never produced, and remains only a prototype. Image from Bertjan Pot’s website.)Pot also designed the Random Light, which was his previous experiment with epoxy-soaked fibreglass strands. (He says on his website, “people who know me, know I like random.”) Originally hand-coiled around a large balloon, it took three years to perfect the mechanical process which allows it to retain its random, non-machine-made look. It’s now available in three sizes, the largest one slightly over a metre in diameter.Carbon ChairMaterial: Epoxy and carbon fibreColour: BlackDimensions: 75 x 46 x 50cm (H x W x D)Seating height: 45cmLIMITED AVAILABILITY DUE TO SHORTAGE OF CARBON FIBRE