WIREFORMS

This emerging trend is easy to describe: 1: visualize  form, 2: make with wire. Some of Alexander Calder’s earliest works in the mid-20^th century were wire sculptures, where a single piece of wire was bent using only hands and pliers into thousands of different forms, from portraits to animals (eventually leading to his famous mobiles). Although picked up briefly by Eames afterward, Wireforms didn’t see a resurgence until very recently in the Furniture and Housewares categories. The technique is very simple: to use a network of long structural wires to define the primary characteristics of a form. This can be of any thickness or color, or any method of geometry from rigid angular intersections to chaotic loops and swirls. Wireforms can be used to provide an ironic twist on a cultural icon (see Material Reinterpretation), or arrive at an entirely new metaphor that only this medium can create. The use of brightly colored wire helps draw attention to the wireform’s unique structure, while the use of black or chrome wire can be juxtaposed with other more massive solid form elements to give the impression those shapes are floating (as in the Eames chair examples). Beware friends who come into your Wireform living room with wire cutters….

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