| In 1998 Andrea Zittel
moved back to her home state of California, leaving behind
her home and finely honed showroom testing grounds in NY,
which she called “The A-Z.” For the previous
eight years she had been working to create a complete world
that incorporated all of the elements of day to day living
from the clothing that she wore to the food that she ate.
Everything seemed to dovetail together perfectly into a
seamless system – one which was neat, compact and
complete.
But the transition to California led to many challenges.
Life became bigger, messier and a lot more difficult to
streamline. In short, it became impossible to “A-Z”
her new life – so she did what she has always done
in situations like this and assessed the new circumstances
and created an ideology (and corresponding design) to embrace
them.
Raugh is the term that describes this new lifestyle. Although
it is pronounced “raw”, it doesn’t necessarily
mean the same thing. While “Raw” suggests a
more natural or original state, “Raugh” on the
other hand actually means the way that something becomes
naturally “undone” over time and as the result
of repeated lived experience. Our house is really “Raugh”
these days, and it feels great. Raugh plays with the idea
of “natural order” and the way that the most
progressive designs start out by looking backwards towards
a more original or pure state of being.
There are many “Rules of Raugh”, some of which
include:
• Raugh is absolutely comfortable
• Instead of being easy to clean, a Raugh surface
absorbs or camouflages dirt rather than reveals it
• Since everything will ultimately break down or wear
out, a Raugh design must deteriorate beautifully
• Something Raugh doesn’t require an “expert”
to make it
Andrea Zittel’s Raugh living environments are large,
soft sculpted arrangements that look like landscapes or
rock formations. From a distance they sometimes look like
realistic granite, but upon a closer viewing look rough,
like the raw foam that they are made from. The beauty of
Raugh relies on our own evolved social codes that identify
and contextualize the designs in our day-to-day lives such
as furniture, architecture and clothing. For instance, a
few years ago an anthropological study describing how sitting
in a chair is actually not the most anatomically comfortable
resting position for the human body. But because of social
codes (Egyptian rulers sat in chairs, which meant that they
had special status) we all think that chairs are just fine.
The sense of correctness remains, but the moral and social
content/intent has been forgotten.
back to A-Z
Raugh Furniture
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