Article:
Utopia is where you park it
I'll never forget as a kid hanging in the back of our 1966 Ford Country Squire
station wagon- complete with real imitation wood paneling as we wound our way
across the USA on one of our yearly family vacations... I would create complete
worlds back there, more as an escape from my two annoying younger sisters who
fought incessantly and tried to get me in the middle of who was right, than the
fact that I was bored, or in some way creative, although I guess both contributed
as well. I remember the silver bullet shaped trailers that either we breezed
by, or breezed by us, as we visited such places as Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone
Park, Cape Cod or points in between. I imagined that these silver aerodynamic,
UFO like speeding spaceships were filled with little green men bent on destroying
the earth - it was up to me to decipher their secret transmissions and notify
the proper authorities... OK so I watched way too much TV instead of doing my
homework. The first chance I really got to experience the inside of one of these
trailers called Airstream was when I stayed with my uncle for a few weeks one
summer while he built a chalet in the mountains outside of Breckenridge, Colorado.
He was living in an Airstream trailer which was a huge improvement over the summer
previous when we stayed in Teepees, this of course brought to fruition a completely
different fantasy world but that's another story. Now I can't say that Airstream
trailers are completely the only reason that I wound up in the world of design
but I must give some credit where credit is due. For the first time I think I
realized what design was and how form follows function - well maybe it was somewhat
subconscious, but I do remember that I was impressed that so much could be contained
with-in such a small
space and that every detail was so well thought out.
UTOPIA: Continued >>
Christopher C. Deam / Airstream
International 2003
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