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Carlton Room Divider

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At the Art Institute of Chicago, there is a postmodern design show called the “Design Episodes: Form, Style, and Language”. There were three exhibits in one room included in this show. On one side of the room there was an exhibit that featured works and materials about graphic design. Another side of the room was an exhibit was about the evolution of the ‘modern’ chair, and the last side of the room was about an architectural design exhibit. I chose to write about the architectural design exhibit for this exhibit review. This particular exhibit features seventeen works done by the radical Italian group called ‘Memphis’ and the architectural firm Coop Himmelblau. It features works of postmodern furniture, ceramics, and glass and metal objects. …show more content…

This room divider is made from multicolored plastic laminates over wood and designed in a postmodern style. It features bold color combinations of a stack of horizontal and angled pieces with two red drawers near the bottom. Form is the main element of this piece, following the style and the language. The ‘Carlton Room Divider’ was one of the most memorable pieces of this exhibit. This piece was placed front and center in the top row, as it represents the star of the show. While it represents the features of a room divider or cabinet, it has a playful style of its own. This piece represents a tiered, anthropomorphic form that seems to recall the head and arms of an ancient idol or totem. The arrangement of the geometric figures seems to resemble a human stick figure. I can picture this room divider in my living room or even in a modern library. The Carlton room diver is a fantastic piece of …show more content…

It is manufactured by Ing. C. Olivetti and C. S.P.A. This piece is made from ABS plastic and other materials. The portable typewriter is bright red with the word ‘valentine’ carved in the front of it. This piece has a pop art feel to it with its bright red lipstick type of color and two yellow buttons on the ribbon spools. The Valentine Portable Typewriter is more than the function of being a plain typewriter used in an office. It has a playful and younger feel to it with its bright red color. It was made, Ettore said, “for the use any place except in an office, so as not to remind anyone of monotonous working hours, but rather to keep amateur poets company on quiet Sundays in the countryside or to provide a highly colored object on a table in a studio apartment. An anti-machine, built around the commonest mass-produced mechanism, the works inside any typewriter, it may also seem to be an unpretentious toy” (Hiesinger). This typewriter should be appreciated less for its function and more for its

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