Well said -
watch out though - it's hard to hide from glamour.
maybe that's why some of us are installing solar
panels?
Should we forward our responses to the author?
Toby 2029
--- Bill Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This article by Philip Nobel, is one of the most
> factually incorrect and
> misleading statements I have seen in modern
> newsprint. What he says
> makes very little sense, and it seems as if he is
> writing for the
> artistic and design community, and just interested
> in spouting a bunch
> of words. This is the most misleading article
> about Airstreams I have
> ever read.
>
> Bill Scott
> 61 Bambi, VAC & WBCCI #3221
> 1VP & Membership Chairman , WDCU
> http://www.servintfree.net/wbcci-dc/
>
>
> ATTACHMENT part 2 message/rfc822
> Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 09:36:08 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Toby Folwick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [VAC] NYTimes coverage (full article)
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> An Accidental Icon of American Pop
> By PHILIP NOBEL
>
>
> The Airstream has moved from the popular and
> functional family tool advertised in a 1964
> brochure,
> to a nostalgic Pop accessory.
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Of all the things that roll down American highways,
> few are as strange and perfect as the Airstream, the
> R.V. for the Atomic Age. Produced since 1952 at a
> factory in Jackson Center, Ohio, the cylindrical,
> self-contained Airstream "land yacht" has become a
> middle-American answer to luxury on the high seas.
> By
> the 1960's, the distinctive trailers were available
> in
> a range of models, from the little bubble of the
> 18-foot Bambi to the 30-foot Sovereign Double, an
> airship for the road. At one time or another, every
> corner of the country, much of the world, and
> countless envious gawkers have been reflected in the
> Airstream's shining aluminum skin.
>
> The popular interest in Airstreams is such that
> Airstreamers, as the owners call themselves, have
> cooked up a term -- "trailer tappers" -- to describe
> those who buttonhole them on their travels. But what
> do the curious ask when they knock on the door? Does
> it get hot in there? What happens when it hails?
> Maybe
> they want to poke around inside to see the nautical
> details, the berths, the ship's galley, the marine
> toilet, the portholes. Do they ask who designed it?
> Probably not; that would be like asking who designed
> the Interstate.
>
> Until recently, the Airstream has led a quiet life,
> loved by the cult of its owners who gather by the
> thousands to park in radiating "wagon wheels" at
> annual rallies or who caravan in comfort to
> hardscrabble destinations. The caravan tradition
> began
> with the the father of the Airstream and the
> company's
> founder, Wally Byam, who led Airstreams on dozens of
> goodwill missions overseas, including a 34,000-mile
> trip through Asia and Europe in 1964. Following
> Byam's
> lead, Airstream owners -- weekenders, retirees and a
> core of "full-timers" -- have continued this quirky
> community, carrying on as a kind of folk tradition
> well outside the public gaze.
>
> At the most recent rally, near Bismarck, N.D., this
> month, 2,000 Airstreams gathered under the auspices
> of
> the Wally Byam Caravan Club International. Since the
> 1980's, Airstream has only produced what purists
> call
> "squarestreams," blunt but still shiny
> approximations
> of the old models. At the Bismarck rally, most of
> the
> trailers were these clunkier, post-streamlined
> designs, but the presence of a devoted minority of
> classic Airstream enthusiasts, members of the rival
> Vintage Airstream Club, attests to the growing
> popularity of the older models.
>
> The splinter club formed in 1994, around the time
> that
> designers and consumers began to rush in numbers to
> all things mid-century. As curiosity became a
> full-blown design revival, Airstream's happy
> obscurity
> eroded. The revival announced itself, as so many do,
> in an embrace by Hollywood. On the screen, Tim
> Burton
> (owner of three vintage trailers) pitted alien
> flying
> saucers against earthling Airstreams in his 1996
> comedy "Mars Attacks!" And on the ground, just as
> free-form modern homes by John Lautner are being
> snapped up by young stars, an Airstream in the
> driveway has become another kitschy status symbol: a
> few Eames chairs scattered around, some period
> Formica, a 1963 Airstream Bambi parked out back for
> the guests.
>
> The shelter and lifestyle magazines picked up on the
> trend, paving the way for Airstream chic. An issue
> of
> Flaunt included a pop-up Airstream, presumably as a
> kind of tiki for the road-deprived urbanite. Even
> Manhattan has its token Airstream, a vintage
> 20-footer
> used as a projection booth for summer movies in
> Bryant
> Park. In May, Wilsonart, the laminate company,
> parked
> a trailer at the Javits Center to show off an
> updated
> interior concept they hope to sell to Airstream Inc.
>
>
> Now, at last, there is a book for the armchair
> Airstreamer, "Airstream: The History of the Land
> Yacht" ($19.95), written by Bryan Burkhart, a
> graphic
> designer and owner of a vintage Airstream, and David
> Hunt, a New York-based art critic. It was published
> this year by Chronicle Books of San Francisco, a
> house
> known as a leader in repackaging retro styles for
> contemporary consumption; the book takes its place
> on
> the backlist not far from "Patio Daddy-O: 50's
> Recipes
> With a 90's twist."
>
> What happens to a design when it goes from popular
> to
> Pop? The Airstream can survive a gloss of nostalgia,
> but it may not fare so well with that late, late
> 90's
> twist: seeing it as a fashion statement, an
> accessory,
> not a tool. There is something unfortunate about
> glamorizing this thing, which was meant to be used,
> to
> be bashed about, hitched to the family truck and
> towed
> to Lake Victoria. For Byam, function ruled; he once
> said of the Airstream, "Let's not make any changes
> --
> let's make only improvements."
>
> That aversion to styling is what made the Airstream
> so
> good. If you parse the design, as the authors of
> "Airstream" did, you'll find Pan Am seaplanes, old
> Chryslers and fast trains, a hint of the Dymaxion
> House, maybe a touch of Roswell, certainly a big
> dose
> of the American passion for ameliorative gadgetry
> that
> achieved such unusual elegance in the functional
> designs of the fetishized 1950's. But, as Mr.
> Burkhart
> said recently: "It's all accidental. There was no
> way
> Wally knew Buckminster Fuller." It's not fashion or
> its opposite, na�vet�: dedicated problem-solving
> made
> the Airstream that rare and wonderful and fragile
> thing, a genuine American design icon:
> purpose-built,
> frankly eccentric, infectiously optimistic; branded,
> but stubbornly anonymous.
>
> Philip Nobel is a columnist and contributing editor
> for the design magazine Metropolis.
>
>
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