The Origins of Things: Sketches, Models, Prototypes [Hardcover]

Thimo te Duits (Editor), Ettore Sottsass (Photographer), Konstantin Grcic (Author), Marc Newson (Author), Rem Koolhaas (Contributor), Richard Buckminster Fuller (Contributor), Michele De Lucchi (Contributor), Wim Gilles (Contributor), Poul Henningsen (Contributor), Gerard Kiljan (Contributor), Aart Roelandt (Contributor), Dick von Hoff (Contributor), Marcel Wanders (Contributor), Tapio Wirkkala (Contributor), Jasper Morrison (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2, 2003

In an effort to find the origin of all designed things, this exhibition and publication conduct an international survey of the history of design from William Morris's wallpaper to Rem Koolhaas's Prada store. Through examples of 30 completed research projects, The Origin of Things illuminates the process by which designers transform their often groundbreaking ideas into functional, manufacturable products. Drawings, cardboard models stuck together with tape and ultramodern computer animations are more significant here than the finished products, for they illuminate the designer's process in a way that the finished product--unless it is a deconstructive design object!--does not. In addition to the evolution of the paperclip and Gerrit Rietveld's Zigzag Chair, The Origin of Things also reveals the steps that led up to the best kettle ever, to a strikingly snotty vase and to visionary cars, vacuum cleaners and a fold-up scooter. Texts include an introduction that considers different visions of the prototype and interviews with Koolhaas, Jasper Morrison, Marc Newson, James Dyson, Wim Gilles, Wim Crouwel and others. Sketches, models and prototypes come via the drawing boards and studios of such luminaries as R. Buckminster Fuller, Aart Roelandt, Michele De Lucchi, Marcel Wanders, Dick van Hoff, Konstantin Grcic, Gerard Kiljan, Poul Henningsen, Tapio Wirkkala and Ettore Sottsass, with historical examples taken from the oeuvres of P.J.H. Cuypers, H.P. Berlage and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: NAi Publishers (July 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9056623184
• ISBN-13: 978-9056623180
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,560,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a mixed blessing, January 17, 2004

By 

Christina Wodtke "~christina~" (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Origins of Things: Sketches, Models, Prototypes (Hardcover)

Can a book be deeply flawed and still be worth having? The Origin of Things delights and disappoints with every page. The book consists of a collection of design objects across the years, along with the sketches and related items used to achieve their final design, and the images are fascinating. The lowly paperclip gets the same treatment as the Frank Lloyd Wright vase, giving it the warhol treatment and reveal its beauty. The text, however, fails. It's often hasty and incomplete, or obtuse, or dry. The result is a tease that makes you hunger for more, or mystifies leaving you alone to look at the drawings and results. Often one sense a thrilling story behind the design process-- such as with Wim Gilles scooterette project, in which he fought to do a personal project to build a lightweight folding scooter/moped that got to final prototype then was killed preproduction-- but the story doesn't shine through. Not bad, but unsatisfying.

However, I've really enjoyed the book, no matter how disappointed I've been with an incomplete story, because it *is* so neat to look at beautiful, well crafted objects and their creation artifacts: the prototype kettle made of two pans soldered together, the x-rays that informed a silverware set, the raw and elegant drawings that became Lloyd Wright's vases.

Decide for yourself.

4.0 out of 5 stars A companion to the study of design and design philosophy, June 10, 2007

By 

Mr. M. Jurcevic (Sydney, AU) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Origins of Things: Sketches, Models, Prototypes (Hardcover)

This book does not assert itself as a literal translation of history. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate shifts in thinking at the point in time when the proposition was entirely new and profound. Imagine being confronted with the humble paperclip - it is far too obvious to be important but indeed at one time it was very important and by the same logic it gives rise to the competing paperclips.

There are many me-too books showing the same drafts, models and concepts year after year. This is a book about being unique and essential - a point of origin. There is no attempt made here to offer a plagarism source for design school students - it is a mindspring for deeply philosophical elements in the design process and one which is strongly associated with numerous essays in social shaping and the nett-gains of being independently constructive.

It attempts to strike at the heart of great moments in design. It is a notepad / journal / concise-dictionary. If you want to take things further on any given topic there is ample material in any research library to do so. If you expect a literal step-by-step explanation of how everything has become meaningful through design then this book will not write that essay for you.