While using the vocabulary of Reitveld, Chareau, Hoffman, Wright, Breuer, Mackintosh and others, Ed Weinberger’s works represent a significant departure, a ‘new voice’, in seriously re-establishing a dialogue at the level of the original masters of the Modernist development. “I have attempted to uncover and explore some of the unpursued possibilities from within the imaginative horizon of their discovery…” explains Weinberger.

Here are some notes by Weinberger on some of his pieces:

The Cubist Constructivist Table and Desk  present two favorite Modernist themes, that of “Disclosure” and “Transparency” in a novel architectural expression: “Caseless Construction.”

It started with a simple objective, I began with the drawer and discarded the case. I wanted to display the “solidness” of a drawer in all its “cubist” glory, so to speak; not encased, as it usually is, by a sight-encumbering second layer.

To achieve such disclosure, I designed an alternative structure of latticed rods that replaced the solid panels. From the point of view of structural economy, this piece is inherently extravagant: it uses twenty-three parts to do what could easily be done with five panels alone; it requires sixty rather involved joints, when six simple ones would suffice.

The fabrication requirements to achieve this are formidable. Such an increase in the sheer number of parts carries with it an exponential proliferation of surfaces (240 of them!) that need to be made rigorously --- exactingly --- flat, straight and perpendicular. Accordingly, working tolerances must be changed an order of magnitude, from hundredths to thousands, from woodworking to machine-tool thresholds.

It is thus no accident that upping the ante of exactitude diffuses its physical presence intensely, evoking the perfection of abstract geometric form… Such, you might say, is the cunning of precision.

“Transparency” has been another major Modernist preoccupation from its very beginning. Its expression in modern furniture design is, however, fundamentally static. Even in those works whose basic character is that of “open” construction --- the most famous example is, of course, Rietveld's “Red and Blue Chair” -‑- their transparency is fixed: you would have to walk around the piece in order to change the composition of the space you actually see through and into. In contrast, in the Cubist/Constructivist table and Desk, there is a dynamic element: the viewable space changes as the drawer is moved “opened” or “closed” along its slide. Moreover, it is not simply a case of increased visibility --- it is not, so to speak, like an x-ray in which the “inside" of the table is now revealed --- the action of sliding the drawer is more than mere "dis-closure"; it actually diminishes or increases the amount of space there is to be seen ---  it creates or expunges it --- that is, it changes the allocation of the actual negative to positive space, as well.

The Winged Tripèd Desk is a massive double-cantilevered form suspended on three legs and intruded by a large drawer, which takes up much of its interior space. Its structural character remains unavailable, sealed within its apparent solidity. Opening the drawer to discover its hollowness only serves to make it more puzzling.

This piece seeks, as it were, to convey the incredibility of physical reality. Inherently unstable? Deflect over its span; shake loose at its edge‑hanging joints; rack with a push from the side; or topple with the slightest load set on its outreaching corners? How is it that it stands? Yet it does, resolutely, as if defying the principles of structural integrity --- or even gravity. (You can sit on its farthest edge: the desk won't budge.)

Its paradoxical structure is enhanced by its angled corners (they appear askewed or acute, when in fact they are square), as well as the off-side deviation (of 2½0 ) from the expected orthogonal.

The Tension Rod Table is based on a mechanical turn-buckle that is reverse threaded to shorten the length of the rods whose ends have clips that bite into the wooden listels. Tightening the turn-buckle takes up the slack and tautens the frame around an immovable fulcrum, and thus creates a rigid but transparent frontal plane in continuous tension. At the same time, the tension rods themselves support the weight of the top of the table under compressive force. Front-back stability is maintained by the multiple joints that connect the cross rods to the table’s top, to the uprights and to the double binding rods at its base.

The overall effect of this scaffolding is its surprising structural rigidity, its paradoxical compression-tension duality, and its transparent presentation of the Cartesian axes.

The Hollow-Box Split-Arch Bridge Desk. was inspired by Robert Maillart’s Salignatobol Bridge, near Schiers, in Switzerland. The essence of this design centers around three interlinked torsion boxes supported by a series of gunwale-like arches that mimic the construction of the original hollow-box construction of Maillart’s concrete masterpiece. Although Maillart’s original arch was practically asymptotic, the desk’s arches had to be parabolic and its leg supports broken to accommodate the reduced span-to-height ratio of the desk. [Maillart himself had to deal with the same problem when, four years after Salignatobol, he designed the reduced broken-arch at Felsegg – although he chose to break his leg inward instead of outward as I did!]

Plato’s Desk/Table is a departure from earlier geometric and architectural work. This piece has a certain uplifting gesture that implies elevation, or rather potential elevation.  This sense of upward movement, of posture that both supports and raises weight, of a stance that wants to lift and be lifted by itself, internally, inherently, is suggested in this “Stand-Up” desk/table that almost prances. My intention for Plato’s Table was to jack the legs to imply that if they were unhinged or straightened that they would send its dense body mass flying upward, while at the same time its folded leg bears its weight with a counterpoise.

This lyrical piece  which aims to convey a re-captured, archaic, artifactual, and mysterious presence, also tries to evoke the gestured figures of Lascaux Cave paintings of uncertain purpose.

The Swooping Bench is composed of juxtaposed and inverted triangles that suggest  massive bridge-like bulwark, a dense geometric form. The central panel is incrementally and asymmetrically receded to suggest penetration of its volume by a plane slicing through it at a very slight, almost infinitesimal, angle --- thus reflecting one of the central themes of my work: “marginal discrepancies.”

This piece also has an intriguing “generative” character, whereby its original shape can be sectioned, extruded or elongated into resembling variations.

E. Weinberger was born in New York City in 1942, where he currently resides.