Formal solutions based on geometry have a long tradition in the history of design. From the proto-rationalism of the Red and Blue chair by Rietveld, to the totemic furniture of Sottsass, compositions based on geometric solids have provided the logical key for the for­mal container of the object or for its dispersal in space. Today, the grouping of cones, cubes and cylinders takes on an approach in line with our times, marked by the digital repositioning of tech­nique and aesthetics.

So in the Keystone seat by Os & Oos for Please Wait to be Seated, as in the No. 70 vase of the New York-based studio Kelly Behun, the conception of the object as a sum of geometric blocks is positioned at the intersection of two of the main languages of contemporary design: that of the ‘obvious con­struction’ (see Interni no. 630), and that of graphics used as ‘sol­id’ material in the composition of ob­jects (Interni no. 644).

More specifi­cally, today’s geomet­ric language shares, with the language of obvious construc­tion, the concept of the object as a ‘sum of parts without a whole,’ as in the Italic lamp by Flip Sellin and Philipp Brosche of the Berlin-based studio Coordination. While with the thread of ‘solid’ graphics it shares the definition of the product through the algebraic addition of compact chromatic blocks, as in the Pick ‘n’ Mix table by Daniel To e Emma Aiston for Tait.

A fundamental role is played not just by form, but also by color. Characterized by chromatic manage­ment similar to that of the icons of a smartphone or tablet, projects like the Ora mirror and the Cache cabinet by Zoë Mowat, or the 3 Legs tables by Studio Nomad, encourage a furnishing scenario that has the same visual layout as a graphic interface: genteel, radiated, rigorous.

As can also be seen in certain cases that pay closer atten­tion to market needs, like the Pampa kitchen by Alfredo Häberli for Schiffini and the Rift radiator by Ludovica + Roberto Palomba with Matteo Fiorini for Tubes.

The discontinuity these aesthetics of digi­tal origin introduce with respect to previous design history is not just a surface effect. Instead, it has to do with the deepest rifts of design culture. With the advent of electronics products have en­tered a process of genetic mutation that makes the display of the technical structure increasingly less definitive on a semantic plane.

This process has been taken to fulfillment by the digital evolution of technique, as it becomes totally disembodied and therefore lack­ing in its own ‘natural’ aesthetic (hence the need for the interface as a specific design level).

So while the 20th century witnessed the aesthetic ‘transubstantiation’ of technique as a decisive moment in the formal definition of the modern object, today this transubstantiation is no longer possible, and therefore no longer semanti­cally relevant.

Digital users, in fact, are ac­customed to interacting with devices that are perceived as reliable even if we cannot see the technical body, which has become a total phantom. And if this is the fate of the technical core in the digital age, the aesthet­ic core is no longer rooted in the traditional metaphysics of the object – impenetrable because it is saturated with ‘existential iner­tia,’ like a hard-boiled egg – but in a new digital metaphysics generated by the fluidifi­cation of the object into scraps of form and function, like a beaten egg.

The language of geometric blocks, in this sense, constitutes a new ‘postmodern,’ heir to the Italian design of the same label from the 1980s, and posi­tioned, in its wake, beyond the formal terri­tory of the Modern, in a world where the digital has interrupted any correspondence between form and function.

by Stefano Caggiano

Tables from the 3 Legs series designed by David Tarcali of Studio Nomad in Budapest. Each piece, based on geometric volumes and architectural forms, is obtained by bending a single sheet of 3mm steel.

Rift, designed by Ludovica + Roberto Palomba with Matteo Fiorini for Tubes, is a modular radiator with high-tech content, composed of two modules in extruded aluminium that can be positioned horizontally or vertically, aligned or not, in a symmetrical or asymmetrical arrangement.

“Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?” This is the question behind the upholstered seating Keystone by Os & Oos for Please Wait to be Seated, as an investigation of the relationships of balance established in the assembly of separate elements. Photo: Henrik Jauert, Casper Sejersen Studio. Styling: Stine Langvad.

Zoë Mowat, a young designer who lives and works in Montreal, Quebec, makes pieces composed of ‘tiles’ of color assembled with orderly geometric taste, as in the circular mirrors of the Ora series (photo: Julie Langenegger Lachance).

Zoë Mowat, a young designer who lives and works in Montreal, Quebec, makes pieces composed of ‘tiles’ of color assembled with orderly geometric taste, as in the elegant but fresh Cache Tall cabinet (photo: Coey Kerr).

Besides the lively ‘geometric’ colors, what makes the Pampa kitchen designed by Alfredo Häberli for Schiffini stand out is the pocket handle created in the structure of the doors.

The Pick ‘n’ Mix table designed by Daniel To and Emma Aiston for the Australian brand Tait is an open, colorful system that exploits the principle of geometric blocks as the key to compositional freedom for the object.

The Italic lamp designed by Flip Sellin and Philipp Brosche of the Berlin-based studio Coordination transforms geometric blocks into true ‘solid instructions’ for the use of the object, like the apps on the screen of a smartphone. The user interface, aesthetic language and functional structure are combined in one single thing. Photo: Fabian Vaccaro and Patricia Haas.

Vase No. 70 by Kelly Behun, of the studio of the same name in New York, is made with MDF and makes clear reference to the Italian postmodern design of the 1980s. Photo: Sherry Griffin.