Platonic Forms (1): Lidded Box

Pavel Janák's Lidded Box (1911)

Plato's Forms are the set of archetypes representing the essential "thingness" of each kind of object in the real world. The various day to day objects in real life are mere shadows of the perfect Platonic Form that they represent. Each rabbit, human, fish, chair or box is defective in some way, either in design or execution. The greater the defect, the further the object is from its perfect Platonic Form.

For me, Czech Cubist designer and architect, Pavel Janák's Lidded Box (1911), is the closest thing to a Platonic Cubist lidded box. Any attempt to improve on this design seems futile, it simply is the Cubist Lidded Box.

Top view

Consisting of equilateral pyramids on a cuboid base, the box is white with black lines along each edge. This is reminiscent of a crystal, a motif that was popular at the beginning of the 20th century.

Janák's Lidded Box is produced by changing the natural horizontal and vertical surfaces into oblique ones. In this sense it represented the "abstraction of matter". Janák deliberately avoided verticals and horizontals which he associated with artists of the previous era.

Quality reproductions of Janák's Lidded Box can be purchased from the Modernista design store in Prague, Czech Republic.

Table #1

Computer renderings of my dining table design "Table #1" are presented below...

The supporting frame extends the angular cubist shape of the legs into an interconnected web which simultaneously underlines the profile of the table top (below).

The table top, in turn, follows an angular cubist layout which is designed to wrap slightly around each seated person.

Table #1 was inspired by the Czech painter Antonìn Procházka's Cubist armchair of 1919. Design studies of Procházka's armchair are shown below.

Ceiling Light #1

My most recent design (ceiling light #1) is inspired by interior designers of the Czech Cubist period. The light fixture (below), by Czech architect Josef Gočár (1913), illustrates the basic form I wanted to use.

The glass shades in ceiling light #1 (below) utilize an inverted crystalline form geometrically distorted into a shape that cannot be found in nature.

The geometry has been deconstructed, such that, when viewed from any angle, the observer can always see more than one spatial face. For example, when viewed from below, all vertical sides are visible, when viewed from the front or back, the left and right sides are partially visible.

The shade mount (below) is the main structural unit. It is an angular form, made from brass, which simultaneously supports the glass lamp and projects it upward.

Detail of a single lamp from Ceiling Light #1

A rendering of the entire assembled light fixture is shown below. Three lamps are arranged together in a triangular pattern then hung from the ceiling by a triple stem. Each shade is 300mm long (about 1 foot), and 150mm wide (about 6 inches) at the top.

The rendering below shows how the light fixture would look when viewed from directly underneath. A triple hexagon is arranged into a triangular pattern. This shape was inspired by the concrete blocks commonly used to pave the sidewalks in parts of the Vinohrady district of Prague.

Below: It is amazing what you can see sometimes in something that you walk over every day...