The Death of Flair

>At some point we made fun of cubicles, and now we'll make fun of industrial-looking open spaces.

Yep, I remember making fun of cubicles, and pining for a walled office when I had one.

Now, I pine for the days when I had a cubicle. It wasn't great, but it was a whole lot better than this open-plan crap.

I guess it's a lot like a prisoner stuck in "the pit" or similar inhumane cage pining for going back to living with the general inmate population where he had to worry about getting shanked.

> Establishments want to project an image of class. It used to be class was associated with flair. The more intricate and multi-colored flower patterns you had, the more wealthy you were. The more gold foil and ornate columns the better.

In the specific case of chain restaurants, I thought flair was an attempt to replicate the cluttered-junk aesthetic that certain local joints acquired organically over time, not to signal wealth.

You're playing fast and loose with a lot of concepts here, and I think what you've written does not do justice to the actual complexity of the history.

For instance, in your paragraph starting "Establishments want...", you're conflating the flair in the article (buttons on suspenders, walls decked with antique signs and implements) with rococo design elements like intricate patterns, gold foil, and ornate columns. This is not at all where the "flair" is coming from. The "flair" is about cozy, old, familiar things. Not rococo.

And there are a lot of kinds of "mid-century modern, minimalist design" -- some of it was intended to be affordable (e.g., Eames designs like the bent plywood furniture), as you say.

But affordability in itself is not a defining characteristic of modernism -- consider Mies and much of Corbu's work, e.g. the Farnsworth house. Or Wright's houses, some of which were affordable (the Usonians), but most not (e.g., the ones with bespoke furniture). Modernism responded to different imperatives -- e.g., form follows function, and stripping extraneous decoration in the name of pure design.

"Poor people want to look like rich people. Rich people want to not look like poor people" - fashion in a nutshell.

"Wonder if people will get tired of that eventually, and it will become the epitome..."

100%. Trends come and go. How we feel (guilty here) about the minimal aesthetic, was how those in the 70's felt about Avocado bathrooms and hexagonal print wallpaper. I can't help being extremely judgemental of that style, but I realise that I too would have probably found it attractive and in at the time. Our children will look back at Scandi-style with the same feeling.

>> At some point we made fun of cubicles, and now we'll make fun of industrial-looking open spaces.

We have been for years. Exposed brick walls reflect sound, as do concrete or hardwood floors. Open ceilings where you can see the rafters and vents don't absorb any sound either. In my old office you can hear a lone customer support rep typing all the way on the other side of the building. Fill that space up with 30 employees and it's almost deafening.

Sure, it 'looks cool' but it's a loud, interruption-filled work environment.

This is why we can't have nice things...

I've been at two companies which tore up the floors and ceilings to get the unfinished look. It reminded me of friends in school who spent hours working on making their hair look sufficiently unmanaged.

This is true of pretty much every tribe/culture. You want to be a hippie and stick it to the man. You must have dirty hair or dreads, wear sandals, have those baggy light pants (no idea what they are called).

South Park made fun of this years ago with their depiction of goths but it's true for pretty much all groups. My brother in law (I love him, just taking short cuts to explain) is monster truck loving heavy metal loving hick stereo type. He hates suits and dressing up but at the same time he has his outfit (jean shorts and a t-shirt with a print on it) and it fits with his tribe of friends and it's just as much of a conscious fashion statement. An attempt to fit in by dressing like your peers.

I'm just as guilty. I can't really imaging having a video game company in the offices of E-Corp.

It looks exactly like the bland, mid range hotel dining rooms of thr 1990's. In fact, I had to check the caption carefully to mske sure that was actually the new design.

Collector's Weekly puts out surprisingly good long form writing. I first came across them because they wrote an article about my home town [1] and keep coming back because it's very hard to predict what topics they'll cover. It's basically a history magazine in disguise as a website about collectibles.

[1] http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-hippie-daredevi...

Yeah and 'flair' in the movie was something the staff wore, you know buttons and zany accessories.

I never thought it referred to the stuff on the walls.

Office Space is often cited as a slow burn sleeper movie, not so popular when it was released, picking up fans over the years.

The article covers this.

And really, by the same reasoning, Fight Club should have killed off Ikea before it ever got big here. Yet every time I turn around, it seems there's a new Ikea going up.

That's the speed at which fashion changes.

If trends spread instantly, the system might actually converge.

Makes perfect sense, especially if they have a clientele that has gotten used to things the way they are. People, on aggregate, tend to be kind of resistant to change, and are creatures of habit. You go in and frig with the decor or the menu, and people that have been going there as a regular thing for years will get irritated and try other places.

That's a good summary of the entirety of the headline (subtitle included), but honestly not a very good summary of the article. Not much is dedicated to the "what happens to the industry" question, and it's mostly devoted to how the current/fading aesthetic cluttered came to be. As someone who was not alive during the '70s when a lot of these places started, and never witnessed the very different function they then served (countercultural, sex-focused, etc.), I found all of that totally fascinating.

I honestly had no idea that the "antiques" at those restaurants were actually real. I had assumed it was all reproductions made specifically for that interior decor.

or the episode in The Simpsons where Moe turns his bar into Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag with "a whole bunch of crazy crap on the walls".

Not only that they were dark and you could get lost in them. They had booths and private walls where you couldn't just walk in the front door and see everyone like an open office under one giant spotlight.

I dig the new modern warehouse style like Chipotle's but everything is too open with little personality.

Restaurants used to be like a labyrinth in some restaurants, all dark and adventurous where noise didn't carry, now it is a GAP/Apple Store in the mall. Back in the day with arcades and flair, I guess I miss it. Everything looks the same. One day Ronald McDonald, dark booth labyrinths and flair will return. Famous Dave's BBQ has some of this like Fridays/Cracker Barrel and I like it, fun to look around and you can't see everyone either.

AFAICT, "modern" lighting uses spotty directional lights which only seem bright if you look right at them. Their actual subject illumination is quite poor, especially with the contrast.