This week I gathered more toilet handles from interesting places. Portaluppi’s creations housed the most handle (often traditional in America) devices. Terrangi’s kindergarten. Alessi’s bathroom. Such famous handles. Out of the roughly 15 photos/drawings I have made only two even vaguely match up. Terrangi’s and Portaluppi’s handles seem to have the same thin silver handle, unfortunately I did not think to ask the tour guide if these were originally there or later altered (something I will be better about in the future). Also branding, in my rushed moments of taking photos in a bathroom stall, the images of the brands often come out unidentifiable. It’s already so easy to identify how much more variation in branding and form Milan has than the US.
Taking photos of toilet handles in Edinburgh, Scotland (on our beautiful weekend trip) also showed a change from Italy’s. Most of them were not handles at all, but a circle push. It’s interesting to see the transition in my sketchbook as the variety of the forms single down to circular shapes.
I may have to do background research and match branding up with the handles post image and online. After this I plan to reserve a page each for all of the different brands I learn about, their history and (if any) company mottos of functionality/design. I have also divided up the devices by material (plastic, metal, glass, rubber) and automatic vs manual. I am starting to take more interest in their locations and what establishment they were found in.
As for the mapping, my group and I have lightly established what we find interesting about the project (although we have been unable to walk to the actual path yet). My idea is that since we have been so heavily focusing on the history of the architecture of Milan, I was thinking it would be interesting to pick out little traces of history (ie: an art nouveau window bar, any remnants of rationalism on a street corner, etc). It could be as specific or broad as we wanted. And then creating a sort of ‘timeline’ that includes our present walk down the street + all of these historical moments (could be with simply typography + line mapping + possibly icons).
This historical map could be combined with our own little intricacies. How we feel at each spot. Where gum got on our shoes. Where I may or may not trip and skin my knee. Where the pasta smells good and garbage smells bad. It could be a huge collaboration of time periods clashing (could be shown in different colors or directions of the lines). Walking the area will most definitely affect my vision, but I’m so excited to have an idea I am passionate about to spark ideas from!