Comment by msy
16 hours ago
The work of Dieter Rams, the primary influence for Ive's work at Apple that's set the aesthetic direction for hardware for the last ~20 years to critical acclaim and is a showcase of manufacturing prowess? That Dieter Rams? This is an absurd and ahistorical understanding of modernism.
Apple hardware is glass-surfaced featureless rectangular parallelepipeds very similar to the glass-surfaced featureless rectangular parallelepiped skyscrapers that this article is decrying. The main difference is that Apple hardware has rounded corners as a necessary concession to practicality.
Isn't that exactly their point? Every new building looks like an iPhone: sleek glass and metal.
But that’s not a byproduct of trying to ‘use cheaper resources’, it’s borne of trying to create products that are shaped exclusively by how to best solve a problem and treat materials honestly, as opposed to ornamentation and material imitation.