
des étagères
Couleurs Contemporaines
Les Cahiers
Bernard Chauveau Éditeur
2005
Des Étagères
Christian Schlatter
Shelves. Reduced to the extreme, allure apparent and provocative, the proclamation “ No more drawing ” describes in all its uniqueness the work of designer Martin Szekely over the past ten years. How should we understand this assertion ? It has the boldness of an avant-garde posture, revealing progress over other fabrication concepts declaring deliverance from servitude, from the overlong subjugation of design to drawing. It could be describing a new design practice, explaining reversed role concepts, a displacement of design and its propositions… We don’t have to choose between these interpretations, they are just as correlative as they are indissociable.
The statement “ Not to draw anymore ” is first and foremost the result of Martin Szekely’s experience. Experience that led him to abandon progressively the illusion that design is a matter of drawing, that convinced him (who had drawn so much) that the time had come to free himself of that self-imposed slavery to drawing and its seductive effects, the disguise of design by drawing. It was the abandonment of the ancient assumption that design follows drawing and image that led to the statement at the start of this article.
It had nothing to do with any programme, no connection to some bold decision taken before some production, no blinding flash after such and such a production. On the contrary, no beginning can be ascribed to it, no particular year, no particular object. It found its formulation in the commentary that accompanied the project for the Perrier glass (1996).
It was simply the manifestation of a maturation along the road being followed… the gradual acknowledgement that every design object has its definition, that every design object has its function, and that these parameters are clear long before the first drawing, and that this definition is totally determined by function and use and that these cannot be drawn.
Don’t look for affectations of beauty – not in something designed to be invisible. These shelves do not even have a name. One says “ a shelf ” for one, and “ shelves ” for a whole assembly. Shelves it is then, and shelves therefore. The aesthetic appraising glance has no fixed point of focus. It stops nowhere to dwell on representations that do not exist, not the tiniest anecdote on which it could gloss. The gaze glances, passes through, gives up, and falls inevitably into deception. These shelves are “ design ” but this design itself is a crypted construct. If their visibility is negligible, to talk about it makes us oscillate between the polarities of minimalia and maximalia. Constantly, Martin Szekely brings into play the most sparing use of the tangible. Here, the thinnest plate of metal imported from aeronautics becomes a plane to display on, to store on, yet with the highest load-bearing capacity. It does not bend, does not collapse, does not warp…
it could only be smashed.
Some things are impossible ? Yes
It is impossible to align two shelves on the same plane. A vertical displacement is necessary for the cross bracing, the visible triangle, and there are obligations, structural and otherwise, to maintain the same displacement. This form of bracing is the construction law of the shelf, and this displacement, upward or downward, becomes the construction law for all the shelves. For each set of shelves it is always the position of the lowest shelf, the one closest to the ground, that regulates the height of the others in neighbouring bays.
The locus is precise, the brace, the triangle, the step.
Measures ? Yes
The height of the shelf is imposed by natural limits – the practical reach of man. Outside this one resorts to inconvenient tools, chairs, steps, ladders or worse.
The depth of the shelves is dictated by what they could support – objects, two layers of books – and the width gives stability to these shelves which are not bolted to a wall, but free-standing and accessible from both sides. A unique shelf – a separating wall would be straighter – an architectural element separating off “ an ever rascally space ” (G. Bataille) where the shelf, fulfilling its functions, would tend to disappear, a feature that is recurrent in the works of Szekely.
This vertical plane called shelves encumbers the eye as little as possible, right up to its point of disappearance at the very moment when it completes to the full its function of displaying, arranging, and classifying books and other objects.
The unity of the shelf is in the triangles of forces spread and disseminated throughout via the triangular braces, steps, verticals and horizontals which have become equally invisible within the unit.
This tightening to the extreme is what signifies and unifies at the same time Martin Szekely’s attitude, and each of his propositions. This tightening is adapted to each situation, as here to the limits of the materials used, their physical strength, the need for stability and balance, the construction method and the structure and structural forces involved. Only by getting these right can the object best fulfil its function and use. A tiny bit more here, a tiny bit less there… seeking always the perfect balance. There is no doubt that the most successful objects of these last few years are those that fulfil their role, and then, as their function starts being filled to the full, to saturation, they tend to disappear. “ Invisibility ” comes also from the material used. In the shelves objects seem to arrange themselves in space at points where the zenithal light draws attention to them, definitely a case of “ rascals making scoundrels ” of the piece of furniture which seems to drop out of sight, a phenomenon which only a photograph can reveal (or conceal).
A shelf builds itself, it self-manages, it self-reflects. It always starts from itself, but once a unit is put there it grows and develops. It is in a position of autarchy (principle of construction and commandment) and autonomy (obeying its own law) defying whoever would want the illusory right of drawing it. It can only be that, and nothing else.
This is the essence of it .