Today, new construction - like the design for the Olympic stadium in Beijing - is still a goal. But for something to be "good design"it must be something we can use with clear consciences about how it was made and how we'll get rid of it.
It would have been more surprising if the iPhone had flopped. What's less predictable ?and much more interesting ?is why it has been so very successful.
"Christian Lacroix, Histoires de Mode"(at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs until April 20) is an exhilarating take on fashion history that mixes decades, centuries and designers - yet makes sense of each section.
In Tokyo, dog owners are dressing up their pets in designer garb and attending to their every need, whether it be organic food or massage and grooming sessions at dog salons and spas.
There were ceaseless celebrations by fashion and art bigwigs at Art Basel Miami Beach earlier this month. There were also wingdings hyping British shoemakers (Choo), Austrian crystal (Swarovski), German cars (Audi), French jewelry (Cartier), Bahamian resorts owned by Turkish developers (Dellis Cay) and, of course, the relentlessly bullish globalized market for art.
Lovely though it is, one teapot's record-breaking price has more to do with the rarity and fetishism that seduce collectors and inflate auction values, than with its merits as an object.
After factoring in the fabrics used in clothes and how they were produced, the real benefits of soy versus organic cotton versus recycled polyester may be slight, or confusing, or quite possibly misleading.
The boundaries between humans and animals have been eaten away to the point where devoted owners lose all perspective on the pet's role in their social lives.
