We can speculate that this industrial building standing, possibly abandoned, on the corner of 10th St. & 33rd Rd. in Queens, New York was originally commisioned by a small metalworking company, doing well enough to afford to build it’s own workshop. It has a purposeful appearance, lots of walls to store materials or place machinery against, lots of window to provide the right working conditions for detailed machining operations, a very tall roller-shutter door for backing a truck in and removing large constructions. The single metal door near the corner serving as the entrance has an unusual modesty about it, suggesting the owner’s briefing to the architect was a practical one, with no room for unnecessary elaboration.
Why should the architecture of this building seem so appealing to us now? Could it be the ommision of signature, the lack of creative iceing on the cake?
Having checked the address on Google Maps I just discovered that the building is listed as occupied by an Fuller & Sadao Inc., you guessed it? Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao! Quite an unlikely HQ for architects who proposed covering manhattan with a giant space dome, but maybe they also appreciated the no-nonsense beauty of the place.
British designer Jasper Morrison (*1959) is regarded as a pioneer of "New Simplicity", advocating a more humble and serious approach to design. The fundamental principles presented in his 2006 exhibition “Super Normal”, created in collaboration with Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa, attracted a great deal of attention.
