Hasta La Ideas

If you aren’t living in Chicago at the moment, there’s a good chance you might have missed the city’s first major design scandal of the year. First, the City Clerk’s office announced a winner for the annual contest, open only to students, to design the next year’s city sticker (a “city sticker,” for those outside of Chicago, is a sticker you have to buy every year for $75, on top of your registration, that allows you to park on city streets, even at meters, without getting a ticket). The 2012-2013 sticker seemed like those before it: an innocuous, hand-drawn, rough-around-the-edges affair. However, worries started circulating that maybe there were hidden gang signs being flashed therein. So the City Clerk, Susana Mendoza, decided to pull the win away from the 15-year-old who designed it, promising to
“>pay the $1000 bond prize money herself to lessen the blow, and bumped the runner-up to first place. Then, of course, the runner-up decided she didn’t want to win like that, and asked that her illustration not be used. So here we are today, with the City Clerk’s office announcing that it “has decided to design the 2012-2013 vehicle registration sticker in house.” All of that explained, it seems to us that this perfect storm is why crowd sourced, open invitation design competitions, no matter how adorable and child-enlightening they might seem, have the potential of backfiring in a very public way. And how much of the city’s money could have been spared if they’d just gone in-house or hired-out in the first place? Of course, the whole thing could have been worse, like in Vermont.

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Over the years, we’ve occasionally poked fun at designers who create a product that’s perhaps just a bit out of the realm of nearly the whole out of humanity. We’re thinking things like Phillippe Starck‘s mega-eco-yacht or Yves Behar‘s $60,000 cell phones. However, both those examples seem to pale in comparison to the joint collaboration between designer Jean-Paul Gaultier and the Dallas-based Dillon Gage Metals: a one-ounce hunk of gold, stamped with a Gaultier design. Granted, yes, an ounce of gold is significantly less expensive than a yacht or a $60,000 cell phone (as of yesterday, an ounce was selling in the $1600-$1700 range), and people with means certainly have been known to spend plenty more on other logo-emblazoned jewelry, clothing and cars, but perhaps we’re most taken aback by this product wearing its idea on its sleeve. At least with clothes or cars or mega-yachts, there is some function there. Other than perhaps an investment, this purely exists for you to show someone that you not only have a big chunk of gold…you have a big chunk of designer gold. But do with this information as you please (including sending us one in thanks for telling you about it). Here’s a description:

One side of the gold bar is engraved with a heart – with Gaultier’s trademark sailor stripe – amid radiating rays, and above that is a banner displaying the name Jean-Paul Gaultier.

And here’s the really fun quote, from the president of the company:

“Never before has a fashion icon designed a gold ingot. The Gaultier bar is a one-of-a-kind, limited-quantity collector’s piece that not only is a great investment but it will also become a a piece of history. The price of gold has risen more than fivefold in the last 10 years, outperforming almost every other investment,” says Terry Hanlon, president of Dillon Gage Metals. “The Gaultier one-ounce bar is the perfect Valentines, birthday or graduation gift for someone special, he adds.

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There are plenty of interesting bits and pieces going on outside of architecture as well so far this week, so let’s commence:

After four months of a lockout of unionized art handlers at Sotheby’s, things still don’t seem to be progressing toward stability. According to a report by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the lockout has now cost the auction house $2.4 million in fees ranging from temporary employees to extra security. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that the company just gave its CEO, William Ruprecht, a $3 million raise. Union representatives for the art handlers are quick to point out that their entire contract dispute totals $3.3 million.

In Washington DC, the Smithsonian has reportedly hired Wolff Olins to help in a major rebranding. The main thrust of that effort is set to be the roll out of a new tagline next year: “Seriously Amazing.” The Washington Post reports that the organization has thus far paid $1 million “for research and creation of the slogan.”

Speaking of rebranding efforts, the always great Brand New blog has filed its own year end list, starting with their picks for the very worst identity changes in 2011. Unfortunately, it seems to have been written before State Farm unveiled their new logo.

And finally: so much for the potential of the Tate possible eschewing corporate sponsorship from British Petroleum following a full year of protests (and now likely more to come in 2012). The museum has renewed their contract with BP, telling the BBC, “The fact that they had one major incident in 2010 does not mean we should not be taking support from them.”

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What’s in a name? If you’re a publicly funded museum, plenty it seems. In Miami, now in the tail end of this year’s Art Basel, the controversy du jour is over the Miami Art Museum‘s announcement that it will be renaming itself the Jorge M. Perez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County after the wealthy real estate developer donated $35 million toward the construction of the organization’s new Herzog & de Meuron-designed building. While there’s nothing incredibly unique about this, as you’d be hard pressed to not be able to find a named-cultural institution in any major city anywhere in the world. So why the problem? The Miami Herald offers up this great overview of the issue, ranging from the fact that Perez’s donation will only a portion of the funds needed while the public coffers will be sending over $103 million and that the developer isn’t the most popular in the city right now due to perceptions that he overbuilt luxury buildings during the real estate boom and now many of his towers stand empty. Add to that some general anger against the extremely-wealthy thanks in part to both the economy and groups like the Occupy Wall Street movement and the picture’s starting to get a bit clearer. However, it isn’t just chatter. The paper writes about the fall out from the renaming, including board members resigning and even a full page newspaper ad taken out by the museum’s former president, speaking out against it. On the other side of the debate, the NY Times provides the museum’s side of it, as well as giving some more positive background on Perez himself. And now, of course, we must mention that we would happily change our name to the [Your Name Here] Blog About Design Stuff for just $25 million. Cheap!

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Just because we’ve now passed Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and whatever nonsense names Saturday and Sunday have been given, doesn’t mean that your window to shop has been closed forever. Sure Best Buy and Wal-Mart will still happily take your hard earned scratch, but why not purchase from somewhere a bit more worthwhile. This year, the foundation behind Philip Johnson‘s Glass House will be opening not only a pop-up shop in its native Connecticut on a handful of dates, but has also embraced the internet, now offering a whole slew of great, often Glass House-specific gifts. For the budget shopper, there are things like bookmarks and this great puzzle version of the house’s appearance on a New Yorker cover from 1967. And for those of you shopping for, say, design bloggers whose value you perceive to be unparalleled and should be rewarded as such, there’s items like this signed Julius Shulman photo of the house, or Paula Scher‘s print, Modernism USA, which blends the Glass House with the Farnsworth House (just let us know if you need our addresses). Best thing about shopping there is that proceeds support general operations, educational programs and preservation of the entire property. Here are the details:

To kick off the New Canaan Holiday Stroll weekend, The Glass House Visitor Center + Design Store, located at 199 Elm Street, will open its doors on Thursday, December 1 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Additional shopping hours will also be held on the following days: December 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16 and 17. The Glass House Design Store offers a well-edited selection of products for men, women, children and the home, featuring items that are inspired by the Glass House site and highlight the latest in eco-friendly materials, production techniques, and design concepts from around the world. Holiday shoppers can book advance tour tickets on select dates in 2012 before they are officially released to the public next February – available dates include May 4 – 6; July 4 – 6; and September 1 – 3. Ticket purchases must be made in-person.

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