Category: Presentation

Value, Values, Ethics, Consumption

DISCUSSIONS:

Value What’s your definition of value?

It could be recognised in one of the traditional senses: the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.

“your support is of great value”

Or:

Estimate the monetary worth of.

“his estate was valued at £45,000”

Value-based price = sets prices primarily, according to the perceived or estimated value of a product or service to the customer rather than according to the cost of the product or historical prices. Example? 

A sale of Frank Sinatra’s Gold toilet for $4250. No one would typically pay this for a toilet but the fact that it’s owner was famous gave it additional perceived value.

https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/frank-sinatra-auction-gold-toilet-36711568

Jana Želibská
Kandarya-Mahadeva (1969/2010–2012)

According to the book: Postwar Italian Art History Today: Untying ‘the Knot’ by Sharon Hecker, Marin Sullivan Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 28 Jun 2018, Želibská’s work is a rejection of the worshiping of idols and mass consumption. The connection here to consumerism could be the use of the female form, that is often used to sell a product or an idea. Use of mirrors obscures the implied genitals and indicates the symbol of self-reflection. Aside from the obvious agenda of using beauty to engage a consumer, there is a similarity in the repeated behaviour of worship which is habitual and the addiction of making a purchase. The same feelings associated with behavioural addiction are tapped into: repetition=familiarity and safety, and feeling good from endorphins from the rush of something new.

Eugène Atget

The French photographer’s focus is on ‘Old Paris’ of which he famously said that he has captured all of it. The artist draws a comparison to the user experience of consuming from the past to the present. A photograph of a clothing store plays with the ambiguous nature of shopping through windows. The glass serves as a division for the consumer and the product but also offers a reflection, placing yourself within the space before you move to do so. The similarity between the old way of shopping remains, particularly with the process of entering a different environment that has been designed specifically to make you want to enter and then keep you there to buy something. Window displays today are more elaborate, but they have developed strategically from the original organic notion of creating an invitation that grabs your attention.

MODERNIST BUILDING IN LONDON

Isokon Building

Today we are talking about the principles of Modernism through concept and buildings realised in the period. Modernism flourished between the two world wars. It was a philosophical movement, a life style for the new modern era. It didn’t stop to art, design and architecture but it also expanded into psychology, political theory and science. We found modernist influence all over the globe. We’ll focus on the main principles on which architecture has based its revolution.  These are: form follows function, the interior, relation between public and private space and the modernist utopia. Talking about “form follows function” we took as example the Isokon building in Hampstead, here in London. Built between 1933-34 it was designed by Wells Wintemute Coates. How you can see the outside of the building is very clear and it doesn’t leave space to any decoration. The windows and the balcony create clear and crisp line that repeat from the ground to the roof, almost as to create an aseptic place but still leaving space to harmony. The balcony follows the shape of the building and connects the opposite staircases to make easier to access the apartments from both sides.  The staircases have been designed outside the main structure to allow more volume to the private space.

Every area of the unit and in the building has been imagined to host a specific function. Every piece of furniture is customised to fit with the space which it’s collocated in.  In a certain way the resident is not allowed to personalise it according to its own taste. 

Modernist architecture in London

Alexandra Road Estate – Neave Brown – 1972
This is a beautiful example of modernist architecture. We are in the London Bourogh of Camden. The Alexandra Road Estate is one of the most recognised housing block of the entire England. Construction works started in 1972 and were completed only in 1978 after many delays. It’s a complex of three blocks, four to eight floors tall. They were built next to the national railway. To avoid the vibration from the trains running just a few meters away the entire structure seats on rubber pads. With over 520 apartments, the Estate also includes a school, a community center and many other facilities. 
Walking through the blocks you can see how the sharp concrete edges predominate all over. The green on the balcony though makes everything smoother and lighter. 
There is no better way to really feel the style of the ’70s than visiting this symbolic piece of architecture.