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Hooked on a Feeling — 2x4

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We designers love to fashion ourselves as “problem solvers,” but let’s face it: the line between solving problems and creating them is blurry at best. What problem is being solved by a $1,500 pair of heels, or a $150,000 car, or a $150,000,000 architectural extravaganza in the Bois de Boulogne? The truth is, no matter what designers say, we have never simply answered problems. The act of design vacillates between the functional and the beguiling, often performing one while claiming the other. Le Corbusier dismissed the architecture of his beaux-arts contemporaries as cloying, while he looked longingly to the brutal utility of the grain elevators and factories devised by American engineers. A half century later, Rem Koolhaas jettisoned function in favor of performance: “functionality is boring; performance is about what role the building plays and what kind of scene it triggers.” There has long been an ideological divide between the utilitarian and the emotional, between rational design

Raf Simmons 2015, Dior Esprit Tokyo Raf Simons, 2015 We designers love to fashion ourselves as “problem solvers,” but let’s face it: the line between solving problems and creating them is blurry at best. What problem is being solved by a $1,500 pair of heels, or a $150,000 car, or a $150,000,000 architectural extravaganza in the Bois de Boulogne? The truth is, no matter what designers say, we have never simply answered problems. The act of design vacillates between the functional and the beguiling, often performing one while claiming the other. Le Corbusier dismissed the architecture of his be

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