Art: Designing Man

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Unlike the homes of people who insist on modernity at all costs, the house as a whole is sportingly open to new and old, Eastern and Western ideas. His garden walk is made of railroad ties, his decorations range from a Japanese "Standing Room Only'' sign through African folk sculpture to abstract paintings to Mexican tin candlesticks and flowers on the floor. "Why not?" asks Eames, with the bright, calm, questioning and iconoclastic spirit that has made his fame.

Just what good design is remains a mystery. It might be defined as design that one likes with good reasons, but those reasons are subjective and infinitely various. A chair should be judged by the seat of one's pants, a jewel by the light in a lady's eyes, a typewriter by the hovering fingers. In all likelihood, future designs will be no better than the art of the past. Nobody has surpassed Chippendale, or Cellini either. Yet they will be different; e.g., privacy and comfort may come a little more into fashion. Eames and his house point that way.

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