The Cootie Catcher

Cootie Catcher. Designed by Vivien Muller.

Uh, Oh, I spy a theme emerging. Fresh off a look at 3Fold, in which George Rice both critiques and invigorates the aesthetic of the boardroom, comes another example of modern minimalism in glass and steel. Though it may be a slight misnomer to refer to the work of either Rice or Vivien Muller as “minimalistic,” I’m taking this liberty nonetheless. [via Yanko Design]

Allow a brief digression: while neither 3Fold nor Muller’s “The Cootie Catcher” are strict examples of minimalism (“an art movement in sculpture and painting that began in the 1950s and emphasized extreme simplification of form and color”), they both partake of the push toward the revelation of structure; they both engage Le Corbusier’s suggestion that “what lies beneath” is as beautiful as the show-stopper above. To the layman, this might translate as “glass and steel! glass and steel!” Which is exactly what we have here (well, glass and aluminum to be precise). Like 3Fold, Muller’s origami inspired table base is in love with the triangle. And why shouldn’t it be? As every structural engineer worth his/her salt will tell you, the triangle is nature’s gift to tensile loads—sharing the burden among its three sides; bending under compression just so, but never to the breaking point.

As with 3Fold (and 2Fold, for that matter), Cootie Catcher shouts this truth at the top of its lungs while giving a striking visual demonstration to boot. Constructed of eight simple triangular pieces (an eye’s glance tells me four are isosceles and four equilateral), with the bottom units featuring a slightly bent and beveled edge, the pieces are bolted together to form an insectivorous-looking base. Again, as with Rice, the triangles are hidden within the whole, creating the appearance of a many-jointed, many-hinged, many legged creature that might move with the mechanical elegance of a spider or a crab. But back to Origami, the “Cootie Catcher” also looks as if some pair of sublimely deft hands formed it from paper, or, better yet, in a fit of dancing fingers, fashioned it from crinkly neon foil, thus creating the childhood fortune-telling game from whence it takes its name (“cootie catcher?” “Who knew?”). And since cooties are those generalized playground nasties—be they a kiss from a mischevious girl or the lice in the hair of the weird kid—one could also think of Muller’s table as a Venus Fly Trap for bad vibes. Just when you least expect it, its aluminum jaws might contract, praising the industrial form and banishing bad design.

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Tags: furniture glass metal Origami residential table

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