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| M-8442 Project, Hollywood Hills Ca. by Erika Winters Design |
For
an interior design process to work well, you must properly appreciate the
space, free it from all preconceived ideas, and start from zero in order to
imagine the possible worlds that will inhabit it. That is why I like to remove
every object from the space, leaving me alone with the floors, walls, windows, heights
and light. In other words, I like to work from the ground up. In the same way,
I think we must go back to square one in regards what we commonly call a tendency.
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| Escarlata Chair, Circa 1940 Resored by Erika Winters Design |
Let’s go back to basics and remind ourselves that the term tendency, just like
other powerful concepts in the world today, has become oversaturated by the
desire for all kinds of products and exploited for commercial aims.
The Spanish language
dictionary published by the Real Academia Española defines the term “tendencia”
(tendency) to imagine other possible worlds: from the verb to tend, lean
toward, it describes a propensity or inclination among men and things toward
particular ends.
It
is also the force by which a body inclines toward another or something else.
Another
definition describes it as a religious, economic, political, artistic idea of a
certain inclination.
Thus we can see it as a state of a subject or object, an action that can be carried out, as well
as a condition of the substance, of
the circumstances, and even of ideas.
And finally it is
understood as a concept that can
clarify extremely complex thoughts.
That sets us off on a
journey to somewhere, though not on our own. We are accompanied by numerous
other people traveling toward a specific purpose.
For many, something that is “out there” holds the tension of the promise.
How is that tension
structured? In my view, by an enormously powerful need that someone has found
and that is seeking a solution.
I
believe that the underlying basis of the tendency
involves creating the illusory effect of arriving, but one never really reaches
that endpoint because the power of the illusion is built on the idea of
creating a promise of security, of approaching stability and harmony.
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| Nightingale Decor, Beverly Hills Ca. by Erika Winters Design | |
The opportunity of illusion benefits the professional orchestrators of tendency. They know how to perceive the
path, the development, the key moments, the pitfalls, the recoveries and the
imminent destruction. Their profits lie in knowing which way the wind will
blow, which seeds will fall on fertile soil to sprout a new tendency.
That
fertile soil is curious, unique to say the least, because although it’s a large
group that is searching for safety, stability, harmony and even cultural
integration;
Ultimately each member is
looking for individuality, that instant of experience in which we are capable
of feeling unique, unrepeatable, eternal.
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| NeoPal Armchair, Circa 1760. Resored by Erika Winters Design |
Experience
thus becomes the instant of eternity rooted in the matter that exists and which
is put into action because it can be perceived, reflected upon and, of course,
felt.
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| NeoPal Armchair Process |
Experimentation is
essential to access the tendency, because among other things it is not an
individual act but one that can be shared. In short, it’s a creative act of connectivity.
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| Taine Decor, Mexico City by Erika Winters Design |
If we want to create
meaning we must recognize the comparisons and contrasts in all our actions,
even though that may take us down winding paths which we sometimes confuse with
mere frivolity.
The issue is interesting
especially because it’s a game. There is not “NON-TENDENCY” precisely because
that is a tendency.
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| Rejuvenation Project, Los Angeles Ca. by Erika Winters Design |
For example, “vintage” is in
fashion for various reasons, including the reconstruction of a series of
tendencies that we left behind and that now, under the patina of distance,
allow us to have a calmer understanding of materials, techniques, and tools
that were discarded in favor of the “new.”
This is obviously until we
exhaust the topic (only at a sensory level) of innovation, which is none other
than finding a new application, a new solution to the process, materials, and
techniques. Something that will continue happening as long as society exists.
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| Rejuvenation Project, Los Angeles Ca. by Erika Winters Design |
So… I believe that there
are no “non-tendencies” and that precisely what “there is” is the tendency to
continue experimenting with a more handcrafted and interior design-oriented
approach, perhaps applying elements that revive the workshop methods, the
former techniques of working with materials and shapes which were abandoned due
to the overwhelming sense of mass
production in the design world, not only integrating the function and quality
of the assembly process, but the aesthetic factor too.
Nowadays, this is all integrated as part of the
mass production of the interior design style.
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| Rosaleda Decor, Mexico City by Erika Winters Design |
This test has now been passed and was achieved
during the interesting aesthetic development of the 20th century.
This is because there was a demand for housing and therefore furniture in the
post-war period.
For example, in the way
Charles Eames introduces glass fiber. The workshop was in Santa Monica, CA,
giving him opportunity to watch the surfers from time to time.
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| Charles Eames |
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| White Eames Chair |
Charles conceived a chair
model based on the manufacturing process used for of surfboards.
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| Contadero Decor, Mexico City by Erika Winters Design |
New windows of opportunity
are opened, in the world of the very highest-quality design and elegance that
can only be achieved as a whole within a complete space based on mass-produced
and their counterparts;
that it is design that
reformulates (from a potentially ecologist perspective) a more handcrafted
design more in demand to work as
a tailor who creates a unique article for he/her client, possibly unrepeatable due
to the quality and type of objects, materials, restoration techniques and the
aesthetic vision of the designer who assembles each space with a unique
approach.
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| Rosaleda Decor, Mexico City by Erika Winters Design |
It could be proposed that
the designer is working on the level of the contemporary artist, but also the future
artisan, with the proposal of the cultured workshop.
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| Rejuvenation Project, Los Angeles Ca. by Erika Winters Design |
However I believe there is
a tendency that both approaches are being applied and it is the integration of
objects within the larger picture.
It is no longer the
eclectic entirety, where each object shone on its own merit in a combination
that could be harmonious, but which defined itself by the combination of forms
and various styles that also demanded its own attention to be paid by the
user-spectator.
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| Nightingale Decor, Beverly Hills Ca. by Erika Winters Design |
Today everything is
integrated based on a complex combination of colors, forms and textures in
which objects can be exaggerated or taken to unusual dimensions and volumes,
but which conserve the harmony with the chaos, as two diametrically opposed
styles.
In this same way I think
that this means the “definitive” conquest and supremacy of materials and
shapes, making the settings entirely moldable in their elegant exuberance.
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| Rejuvenation Project, Los Angeles Ca. by Erika Winters Design |
Perhaps we are saying farewell to excesses in the
most elegant way possible. Or perhaps the excesses are what refuse to die, in
the knowledge that their days are numbered, but there is a point of equilibrium
between ferocious consumerism and the planet’s capacity to offer so much
exuberance to millions of people.
-Erika Winters-
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| Fischler Cahir, circa 1890. Restored by Erika Winters Design. |
Enjoy
Erika Winters
