Works That Work Issue 1 by worksthatwork

WO R K S T H AT WO R K A M AGA Z I N E O F U N E X P E C T E D C R E AT I V I T Y I S S U E 1 , W I N T E R 2013 €16, $20, £13, ₹1100

E X P L O R I NG H U M A N C R E AT I V I T Y I N A L L I T S E X P R E S S I ON S

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At a time when many magazines are shrinking in size and readership, or closing down entirely, we are starting a new one. Not to fill yet another particular speciality niche, but rather quite the opposite: Works That Work is a magazine for the curious mind, endeavouring to surprise its readers with a rich mix of diverse subjects connected by the theme of human creativity, searching for a deeper understanding of work and its motives. On the one hand, we are committed to the most fundamental sharing technique there is: engaging storytelling. On the other hand, we are not bound to traditional publishing technologies and offer you our stories in a form that suits you whether you want to read us on paper, tablet or phone. One of the fundamental assertions of Works That Work is that creativity is not the exclusive domain of artists or designers, but something that surrounds us in our daily lives, something so embedded in our everyday experience that it often escapes our attention. All human creations involve design, though some of the most successful designs are so intuitive that we may take them for granted unless we stop to study them closely. Works That Work seeks out examples of unexpected creativity, from the metropolises of India to the provincial towns of the Netherlands. We hope to present subjects that affect the way we look at the world, but perhaps most importantly, we hope to publish articles that make great dinner stories to tell your friends. — Peter Biľak

Works That Work, Issue 1, Winter 2013 A Magazine of Unexpected Creativity Published twice a year by Typotheque issn: 2214-0158

Edited by: Peter Biľak Copy editing: Ted Whang Artefacts section: Peter Biľak, Anne Miltenburg Proofreading: Johanna Robinson Research: Bernadette Matthews Design: Atelier Carvalho Bernau Printing: Thoben Offset Nijmegen Binding: Boekbinderij Van den Burg Typeset in Lava from Typotheque Printed on certified, environmentalfriendly papers from Igepa Netherlands: Lessebo Design White 80g/m², Magno Star 100 g/m², EOS Volume 2.0 80g/m² and Symbol Freelife Country E/E 250g/m² (cover). Contact: Typotheque Zwaardstraat 16 2584 TX Den Haag The Netherlands editor@worksthatwork.com worksthatwork.com @worksthatwork Subscriptions: Exclusively online on worksthatwork.com/subscribe Advertising ads@worksthatwork.com Special thanks to Johanna Biľak and Hans Wolbers

Contributors this issue: Linda Asher, translator, New York Irma Boom, designer, Amsterdam Barbara Eldredge, design writer, New York Escif, street artist, Valencia Evol, street artist, Berlin Blake Evans-Pritchard, journalist, The Hague Luca Fabbozzo, photographer, Como Raban Haaijk, architect, Rotterdam Fred Hoogervorst, photographer, Port of Spain David Ives, playwright, New York Meena Kadri, writer, Wellington Peter Kerekes, filmmaker, Vištuk Martin Kollár, photographer, Paris Dingeman Kuilman, chairman ArtEZ, Arnhem Hanif Kureshi, designer, Delhi Kwikpoint, Alexandria, USA Alexandre Orion, street artist, São Paulo Mansukhbhai Prajapati, inventor, Rajkot Rijkswaterstaat, The Hague Michael Rock, founder 2×4, New York Ralph Schraivogel, designer, Zürich Bryan Schutmaat, photographer, New York Anil Sinha, professor NID, Ahmedabad Robin Stam, graphic designer, Rotterdam Viveka van de Vliet, journalist, Amsterdam Henk Wildschut, photographer, Amsterdam Michael Wolf, photographer, Hong Kong ‘Space for People, Not for Cars’ translated from Dutch by Duo Vertaalburo ‘Custodians of Beauty’ is an edited version of the essay ‘Aesthetic Awakening’ first published in Premsela booklet, spring/ summer 2010 Front cover: Michael Wolf, Bastard Chair 15 Inside front cover: Mural by Spanish street artist Escif in Katowice, Poland. Photo courtesy of Katowice Art Festival. Inside back cover: ‘Ode to the Workers’ by Evol, spray paint on concrete barriers at Smithfield Meat Market, London, 2011 Made and printed in the Netherlands Copyright ©2013. All rights reserved

Patrons: Nour Abu Ghazaleh Eleni Alpous Luca Ballarini, Bellissimo Sander Baumann beyond tellerrand Niels Biersteker Irma Boom Robert Čanak Commercial Type Carla Viviana Cordova Diederik Corvers António Cruz Jo De Baerdemaeker Willemien den Oudsten deValence DevKid, Ltd. Harald Dunnink, Momkai Liza Enebeis Enlightened Brand Simon Esterson Caspar Fairhall Folkert Gorter Lukas Hartmann Brian Homer Jan en Randoald Martin Jenca, Milk Studio Mark Kawano Frith Kerr, Studio Frith Raya Khalaf Andrej Krátky Joe Kuszai Bernard Lagacé Troy Leinster Tadashi Morisaki Process Type Foundry Hugo Puttaert Rowdy Rabouw Perrine Rousselet Guy Schockaert Henry See Slonline, s.r.o. Jon Tan Clodagh Twomey Bert Vanderveen Andrew Wilson Lambeth Dana Wooley

In this issue:

Artefacts 4 Custodians of Beauty

Dingeman Kuilman examines how art has divorced itself from aesthetic considerations and argues for a return to beauty as a measure of artistic merit.

Dabbawallas: Delivering Excellence

The Universal Language

Dawn wants to learn Unamunda, the ‘universal language’, and Don wants to teach her. But what is the real universal language, and what is it good for? A deft blend of comedy and philosophy by playwright David Ives.

Bastard Chairs

Point Me Where It Hurts

Mumbai’s dabbawallas pick up and deliver more than 350,000 home-cooked lunches to office workers every working day. How did this amazingly efficient delivery system develop from its start with one boy on a bicycle?

Refugee Gardens

Space for People, Not for Cars Translation Is a Human Interchange

Peter Biľak talks with Linda Asher, former fiction editor at The New Yorker and translator of Milan Kundera’s French works, about her work, good translation and good translators.

Chefs on the Battlefield

Aiming To Reduce Cleaning Costs 33

Hans Monderman, father of the Shared Space movement, argued that reducing traffic regulations can improve road safety. Statistics prove him right, but not everybody is convinced.

The picture of a fly in the urinals at Schiphol Airport has been touted as a simple, inexpensive way to reduce cleaning costs. Where does it come from, and how effective is it really?

British Respect

Evil Prevails When Good Men Fail To Act

Dutch Design

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REVERSE GRAFFITI São Paulo

PLEASE TOUCH! Amsterdam

A growing number of street artists around the world have taken to expressing themselves not with spray paint, but with cleaning solvent. The practice known as ‘reverse graffiti’ has been popularised by the British artist Paul Curtis, better known as ‘Moose’. Brazilian Alexandre Orion temporarily turned São Paulo’s Max Feffer tunnel into a 160-metrelong mural of skulls using only a damp cloth to clean away the dirt on the walls. The police intervened but, realising that Orion’s activity basically amounted to cleaning, let him go. The authorities would later erase his selective erasure, thus effectively cleaning the whole tunnel.

While the works of celebrated Dutch book designer Irma Boom are part of many museum collections, this one doesn’t do well in glass cases and doesn’t need to be handled with white gloves. Boom, with editorial support from art historian Johan Pijnappel, spent five years working on this private-edition book for the large Dutch coal conglomerate SHV Holdings, in celebration of its 100th anniversary. One feature of this 2136-page book is that the title is printed on the white linen cover in a transparent adhesive that attracts dust and collects fingerprints, so that the type is revealed only through intense use. Please touch. Preferably with dirty fingers.

Photo of Alexandre Orion courtesy of Panfilocastaldi.

Image courtesy of Irma Boom.

A rtefacts

MUSEUM OF THE ORDINARY New York City

THE FINGERS OF ONE HAND India

In 1997 Michael Rock and Susan Sellers (assisted by Alice Twemlow and Ole Scheeren) proposed a concept for a museum of design where objects are left in their original context instead of being removed from their natural environment. The Museum of the Ordinary was defined by four points in New York City and comprised 30 streets in Manhattan. The collection of this museum contained all the objects which happened to be in the given space. Pedestrians were turned into museum visitors and confronted with museum conventions, for example, descriptive labels attached to everyday objects such as manholes, city signage, street lamps, buildings, etc. The project questioned the traditional museum practice of decontextualising objects and presented an integrated alternative as well as the stories of these seemingly mundane objects. Today the authors are exploring the possibility of creating a virtual version of the museum. Photo courtesy of 2×4.

In a country of 400 languages and over a dozen writing scripts, it’s important to carefully consider which ones to use. Most Indic scripts have their own numeral system, and numbers can be written in numerous ways. This is where the design of Professor Anil Sinha of the National Institute of Design came into play. In addition to using Arab-Indic numerals to indicate their denominations, the simple 1, 2 and 5 rupee coins featured pictures of hands showing the appropriate number of fingers. Unfortunately these coins, which have been in circulation since 2007, are currently being replaced by a new edition, dropping the finger-counting and displaying the new rupee currency symbol ₹. Photo courtesy of Hanif Kureshi.

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THE BRIDGES THAT NEVER EXISTED Spijkenisse

COOL IDEA Rajkot

When Austrian designer Robert Kalina designed the bank notes for the euro in 1996, he chose to depict fictional bridges rendered in different styles of Europe’s cultural history: classical, Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque, rococo, industrial and modern. This perfectly generic and uncontroversial design was selected by Brussels’ bureaucrats so as not to offend any nation. Dutch graphic designer Robin Stam chose to make them real. It started as a joke, but if enough supporters can be found, ten bridges closely based on the engravings from the reverse sides of the bank notes will be built in Spijkenisse, a suburb of Rotterdam. Stam appropriated the colours and styles and made the unclaimed euro bridges Dutch. The first two bridges have already been built; the others have been delayed due to the euro crisis. Photo: Klaas Boonstra

Mansukhbhai Prajapati, a potter from the state of Gujarat, India, has developed Mitti Cool, an ingenious clay refrigerator that operates without electricity. Water dripping from a 20ℓ tank at the top of the refrigerator flows down the sides of the unit into a tank at the bottom, keeping up to 50ℓ of water, fruits, vegetables and milk cool and fresh for days by evaporation. The refrigerator costs ₹3440 (Indian rupees), or about €50. A larger, more expensive model is in development. Photo courtesy of Mansukhbhai Prajapati.

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Some time ago the jury of the Rotterdam Design Prize outlined the following factors in its selection criteria: vision, authorship, execution, context and international relevance. According to the explanatory notes, the domestic jury added execution as a criterion because of the increased significance of craftsmanship and the process of realisation. Strikingly, any association with the aesthetic quality of a design—its beauty— was avoided.

CUSTODIANS OF BEAUTY Dingeman Kuilman served on a number of international design juries which inspired this article.

The domestic and international jury members seemed to have found it difficult to give beauty a clear place in their adjudication. They are not alone: beauty has become a source of discomfort for most design professionals. It is as if they no longer dare utter the word aloud, while at the same time they both know and feel that it refers to something fundamental. So what went wrong between design and fashion on the one hand and beauty on the other? In 1952, the poet and painter Lucebert wrote an untitled poem containing these lines: in this age which people always termed beauty beauty has burnt her face she comforts mankind no longer she comforts the larvae the reptiles the rats but she startles mankind and moves him with the sense of being a breadcrumb on the skirt of the universe

Lucebert was 20 years old when the Netherlands was liberated from the Nazis. In his words, we hear his rage and despair over the injustice of the war years and the narrow-mindedness that followed. For him and the rest of his generation, beauty had become something unfathomable: the old trinity of truth, goodness and beauty was no more. Their experience of the aesthetic had been upset by a crippling awareness of futility. We also see this phenomenon illustrated in Dick Elffers’s famous poster ‘Weerbare Demo cratie’ (‘Resilient Democracy’). He created the image in 1946 for an exhibition at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam with which a group of artists hoped to strengthen leftist liberationist fervour. The expression of the man on Elffers’s poster reflects the horror Lucebert alludes to. In the 1960s, beauty was attacked a second time. In an era of increased prosperity, people

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Custodians of Beauty

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learned through media and advertising to link aesthetic experience to lifestyle. Their behaviour thereby conflicted with the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s notion that aesthetic judgements are selfless, that we take pleasure in things because we find them beautiful, rather than finding things beautiful because they give us pleasure. According to Kant, the true experience of beauty is separate from all self-interest in the form of enjoyment, ownership or status. The consequences of the alliance between beauty and commerce are most starkly visible in cosmetic surgery. The Internet search terms ‘beauty’ and ‘design’ lead us to countless medical and paramedical clinics performing facelifts and nose jobs. Beauty is sold as a cure for old age and loneliness, a guarantor of success and happiness. With its face both burnt and reconstructed, beauty loses much of its lustre. On one hand, we have the mistrust and nihilism of a society traumatised by war; on the other, the greediness and superficiality of an affluent state. This situation has consequences for design and fashion. As the judging criteria and jury reports of design contests show, beauty has been displaced by ideas like authorship, concept, inquiry and vision. Previous spread: Pope Benedict XVI waves as he arrives at the Sistine Chapel for a meeting with the artists on 21 November 2009 at the Vatican. Around 500 artists of various genres were invited by Pope Benedict XVI to the Sistine Chapel to discuss the renewal of the alliance between art and the Church while encour-

Designs no longer stand out for their aesthetic quality but are praised for being authentic, interesting, original, poetic, personal or inventive. One defence of beauty comes from an unexpected quarter. On 21 November 2009, Pope Benedict XVI received about 250 artists in the Sistine Chapel. Among them were the writers Kader Abdolah and Cees Nooteboom, the filmmaker and exhibition curator Peter Greenaway, the singer Andrea Bocelli and the architect Zaha Hadid. The Pope did not mince words: ‘The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature. What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation—if not beauty?’ Every pope, of course, preaches to the converted, but Benedict XVI did his best to make his speech relevant to non-Catholics too. For example, he cited Georges Braque (‘Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.’), who was certainly

aging the artists to infuse spirituality into their work. Around 250 artists accepted the invitation to the gathering. Photo: L’Osservatore Romano, Getty Images Top: Dick Elffers, ‘Weerbare Democratie, Tentoonstelling volk in verzet’, 1946.

Custodians of Beauty

Beauty has become a superficial commodity to be sold and exploited, unworthy to be considered an artistic value.

not a religious painter. The Pope did explicitly refer to the mystical aspect of the experience of beauty and link it to faith and Catholicism. He concluded his speech with a call to artists to place beauty at the centre of their work: ‘You are the custodians of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and of human engagement.’ Benedict XVI was arguing for a via pulchritudinis: a road of beauty that leads to a reconsideration as necessary as it is fundamental. The same route is recommended to us by the British writer and philosopher Roger Scruton. In his 2009 book Beauty, he argues that beauty is an essential and universal value, vital to how we shape our society. Unlike the Pope, Scruton expresses a preference for a conservative aesthetic (he vehemently opposes the Turner Prize, artists like Tracey Emin, and ‘starchitects’ like Koolhaas), but this detracts little from the like-mindedness of the two men. Thus, Scruton writes: ‘Without the conscious pursuit of beauty we risk falling into a world of addictive pleasures and routine desecration, a world in which the worthwhileness of human life is no longer clearly perceivable.’ Benedict XVI and Scruton seek a restoration of the trinity of truth, goodness and beauty and the primacy of selflessness. In this, they hope to kill two birds with one stone. The work of artists,

architects and designers will come to occupy a central place in society. And it will spur citizens to perceive the world in a more conscious way, so that they feel welcome again and begin to behave differently. I believe our times call for bold talk. Rather than seeking to legitimise culture through popularisation or social support (insofar as anyone can tell the two apart anymore), it seems to me more advisable to accord a central position to a rich concept like beauty in all its complexity. When I think of design and fashion, images present themselves on the basis of an experience— an aesthetic one, I suspect. For instance, I see Maarten Baas’s Sweeper clock, Hella Jongerius’s Non-Temporary earthenware, Viktor & Rolf’s Russian Doll show, and Bas Warmoeskerken’s RED Revisited plate. But I also see Anthon Beeke’s Globe posters, a brooch by Onno Boekhoudt, Andries Copier’s vases, Karel Martens’s telephone cards, Gerard Unger’s Hollander typeface—and Studio Joost Grootens’s atlases. In all these designs, I perceive a certain power. This power is not conservative (that is a misconception on Roger Scruton’s part) but transformative. Like the ancient torso of Apollo in Rainer Maria Rilke’s famous sonnet, it spurs us towards change. It is a power that comes not from outside, like the financial crisis or the climate crisis, but from within us. Because we need it now more than ever, Pope Benedict XVI would be the ideal jury chairman for the next major design contest.

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New Zealand-based writer Meena Kadri has lived and worked in India. Her work documents the intersection of culture and communication.

DABBAWALLAS: DELIVERING EXCELLENCE Top: Dhondiba Medge, the first chairman of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust of Mumbai, a dabbawalla cooperative which launched in 1954. His son, Raghunath Medge, is the current

chairman of the trust. Photo: Meena Kadri, taken from a framed image at the dabbawalla hub point near Grant Rd. Station, Mumbai

Dabbawallas: Delivering Excellence

Mumbai’s committed contingent of 5,000 dabbawallas delivers over 350,000 lunches per day to office workers across the megacity. Typically the lunches are packed in stacked metal lunchboxes which lend this collection of culinary couriers their name: dabba = tiffin, container; walla = worker. Each tiffin is picked up at the client’s home, delivered to his office, and then returned, a trip during which it will typically pass through the hands of at least 12 dabbawallas across an elaborate zoning system. Somewhere in the middle—far away from the fast-paced delivery antics—a home-cooked lunch is enjoyed.

Many articles about the dabbawallas start with their innovative system, but in designerly fashion, let’s start with the end user. Those who engage the services of dabbawallas tend to be middle-class office workers who embrace the Indian preference for and pride in ghar ka khana (home-cooked food). Most of them reach work by train, which means they leave home early and may be boarding chaotically packed carriages, making carrying their own tiffin a challenge. Add to this the status of arriving at work unencumbered. The dabbawalla system provides a welcome solution by collecting meals lovingly prepared at home, then getting them to the office and back. Lunching clients have diverse dietary preferences—Muslims, Hindus, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists and more join diabetics and dieters— increasing the need for precision delivery of the correct meal to its rightful recipient.

Overleaf: Dabbawallas sort boxes as they prepare to deliver hot lunches throughout Mumbai. Delivering over 200,000 lunch boxes each day to workers requires an accurate system—especially as each lunch

One such discerning diner was a Parsi banker working in Mumbai in the 1880s. He employed a young errand boy to deliver his lunch, and others, envious of his promptly delivered, freshly made, home-cooked lunches, soon requested the delivery boy’s services as well. The boy was Mahadeo Havaji Bacche from Pune, who is credited with founding the Mumbai dabbawallas. Unable to keep up with demand, he enlisted others from his village and the surrounding area. This location-based connectedness continues to enrich the signature camaraderie of dabbawallas to this day. Bacche’s understanding of client needs, fellow workers’ capabilities and Mumbai’s specific transport context allowed him to leverage local factors to build a service which was able to grow from his initial team of 100 to the 5,000+ dabbawallas that keep Mumbai office workers fuelled and fed today.

box commonly passes through the hands of at least twelve men in rapid succession on its path from home to office and back again. Photo: Luca Fabbozzo

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Dabbawallas: Delivering Excellence

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Delivering lunch boxes from people’s homes to their places of work and back again might sound fairly straightforward. However, the challenge for dabbawallas is to do so at scale within a lean business model, negotiating time-bound trains and dense urban environments while grouping deliveries to similar locations for efficiency. For this they employ a hub-and-spoke distribution approach. Lunches are usually collected from individual homes on foot or by bicycle around 9–10 AM. Once you recognise this, you’ll be surprised how often you spot dabbawallas on bicycles laden with tiffins around Mumbai during their morning or afternoon deliveries. From the morning collection, the tiffins are taken to a local sorting hub where they are grouped according to those heading into the city on the same train line. They’re often carried overhead on large metal trays, a tricky task when having to board urban trains which only stop briefly. At the other end they enter another hub where they are sorted again according to neighbourhood destinations. From here the tiffins continue their journey by bicycle or trolley, the final delivery usually being made on foot. Keep in mind Top: Since low literacy is an issue for some of the 5,000 dabbawallas, they have devised a system in which tiffin lids are painted with colour-coded symbols, numbers and a few letters to indicate the train lines, hub points and destinations at both ends of the delivery cycle. Note the swastika motif which is common historically in Hindu decoration. Photo: Meena Kadri

that individual dabbawallas only serve on a specific part of the tiffin’s route. It’s the smooth running of all the hub-and-spoke locations which ensures its delivery across the average 60–70 kilometres travelled by each tiffin. A senior dabbawalla quips, ‘It’s like a cricket team. Teamwork is essential’—an analogy which resonates in the cricket-loving nation that is India. Worth noting is that some office buildings downtown, where the service is popular, keep one of their elevators free over lunchtime specifically for the well-respected dabbawallas and their appetiteappeasing deliveries. The localised efficiency of the dabbawalla system has been hailed by business and design schools worldwide. Forbes Magazine awarded it a Sigma Six rating in 2002, estimating that less than one mistake is made in every six million deliveries—that’s 12 million dispatches if you count both directions. So how is this accuracy ensured by a workforce which has traditionally possessed low literacy? Historically the dabbawallas developed their own code utilising numbers, letters, colours and symbols applied to the tiffins to enable them to be sorted systematically at key points of the journey. (It’s not dissimilar to

Right: Collecting tiffins from trains and sorting for bicycle, cart and hand delivery—at the busy Dabbawalla hub near Churni Road Station. The delivery system has grown at a rate of five to six per cent per year despite the rise of office cafeterias and food chains. Photo: Meena Kadri

Dabbawallas: Delivering Excellence

A dabbawalla in the luggage compartment on the return train journey to Bandra, a northwestern suburb of Mumbai. Photo: Meena Kadri

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Dabbawallas: Delivering Excellence

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The dabbawallas’ coding system—while complex at first glance—has ingeniously evolved from the bottom up, to ensure accurate delivery by semi-literate workers.

the notion of packet-switching by which digital data is transmitted via shared networks like the Internet.) At larger hub points, a dabbawalla is stationed with the specific task of spotting potential mix-ups and redirecting misplaced lunchboxes back onto their correct trajectories. With an annual turnover surpassing ₹400 million, the dabbawallas have a surprisingly flat hierarchy. They are united by a workers’ association which is headed by former dabbawallas who are often found sitting cross-legged amongst workers as they take their lunch breaks at various hubs. Monthly tiffin deliveries are priced by weight, size and distance (around ₹300–500 per month), and each of the 800 teams splits its share evenly between members, regardless of their seniority. After maintenance costs have been paid for bicycles and other tools of the trade, as well as a fee to the workers’ association, each dabbawalla takes home around ₹6,000 per month. The association is in good financial health, supporting the families of deceased workers and donating to various food distribution charities. It also supplements its income through the provision of cooked-meal services. The dabbawallas present a united workforce. High levels of trust are cultivated, with new hires being introduced by referral. Most workers sport a white kurta pyjama set, though the iconic Gandhi cap is a more prescriptive requirement and makes them easy to spot in a crowd. They take lunch together from their own tiffins at their respective hubs, where spirits run high.

The edict of their founder that ‘Work is Worship’ seems prevalent in the pride shown by dabbawallas in the diligent service they provide. Acknowledgement that team effort is the essence of their enterprise is implicit in their humble approach, which celebrates teamwork over individual performance. This united dedication to a collective pursuit of excellence has served the dabbawallas well in the face of potential disruptions of service such as riots, monsoon floods and the multitude of state and religious holidays which pepper the Indian calendar, although the 1974 railway strikes temporarily halted their service due to the interruption of a core part of their delivery model. ‘Commitment to excellence is what drives our growth. That and the fact that the stomach is never in recession,’ beams the head of the workers’ association. In fact the service continues to achieve 5–6% annual growth and adapts to evolving lifestyles by offering SMS bookings and delivering lunches from diet centres. As I ride with a group of dabbawallas by train on their return journey, I’m amazed that after a long day of fast-paced heavy labour, they still have the inclination to discuss ways they could improve the performance and efficiency of their sector. Considering their thousands of satisfied customers, strong solidarity amongst workers and a delivery system ingeniously built on local conditions, you might well ask: are the best innovations home-cooked and home-grown?

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REFUGEE GARDENS Dutch photographer Henk Wildschut has photographed immigrants in Europe and Africa. For this piece he travelled to Tunisia.

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Refugee Gardens

In the summer of 2011, following the outbreak of violence in Libya, a camp was set up in southeastern Tunisia to accommodate refugees and other displaced people. Shousha camp was conceived as a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;transition campâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and currently over 2,000 refugees and asylum seekers mainly from East Africa (Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan) are waiting there for a decision by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) on their refugee status. The Dutch photographer Henk Wildschut travelled to Shousha refugee camp and was surprised by the response of these people to their dire situation. Many of the tents featured lovingly decorated gardens, and the tent dwellers try to support themselves by growing their own food there in the desert. (PB)

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Peter Biľak talks with Linda Asher, former fiction editor at The New Yorker and translator of Milan Kundera’s French works, about her work, good translation and good translators.

TRANSLATION IS A HUMAN INTERCHANGE Linda Asher has been translating Milan Kundera’s works since 1986. Bryan Schutmaat works with large format photography and photographed Mrs Asher in her Manhattan apartment.

Peter Biľak: What do you read? And is your reading affected by your profession? Linda Asher: I read constantly and widely in literary fiction and non-fiction, books and journalism, some science and history. My regular reading includes The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, and The Nation, as well as other magazines and newspapers. The regimen keeps me well fed personally and informed professionally. For a translator, all reading is of course nourishing and essential for a working lexicon of dictions, experience and information. When

I am engaged in a particular book project, I often read around it widely and intensively—for the period, for the world it comes from, or perhaps to broaden my sense of the author’s own range of reference and culture. And of course that’s a wonderful feature of, a bonus in, the profession of translator—you are regularly obliged to enter into a fresh world and learn to put it into words. Translating Milan Kundera’s work led me to read or reread a good deal in Eastern and Central European literature: Musil, Broch, more Kafka, Gombrowicz, Škvorecký. For Memoirs of a Breton Peasant it was useful to read about Breton history and sociology and 19th-century French military campaigns.

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Occasionally I as an editor may wonder whether a passage is precisely what the author intended, and may ask the translator to take another look at the original to see if what it says is what I have understood.

Besides translating, you worked at The New Yorker magazine. In 18 years as a fiction editor at The New Yorker, too, special reading habits took hold: one was always on the lookout for interesting work, new voices, fresh experience and outlook. I would not only read the reams of fiction which publishers proposed for publication in the magazine, but I also spent long hours in libraries and bookstores reading or scanning dozens of works a month. This became a habit, and even now I often have a half-dozen books from the lending library on my worktable. It is a constant adventure, keeping an eye out for fresh work, now for my own interest and pleasure. I also sit on a translation award jury for the French-American Foundation; for that project we look at some hundred recent translations from current and classic French writing each year. How did your work at The New Yorker combine with your translation interests? At the magazine I had a special interest in work in translation, and was able to publish a good deal of it. That meant not only reading widely to scout for it, but then working closely with translators to edit and polish a text with the final English reader in mind. Even working from languages one doesn’t understand, an editor can be helpful through sensitive reading. Texts by Haruki Murakami (Japanese), Georg Konrad

(Hungarian), Danilo Kiš (Serbo-Croatian) and Primo Levi (Italian) among others are interesting examples. Good translations have an authority with the text that one tends to trust, of course. But occasionally I as an editor may wonder whether a passage is precisely what the author intended, and may ask the translator to take another look at the original to see if what it says is what I have understood, perhaps to get to a more precise translation. That is, I might feel a paragraph is a little unclear and ask for a reworking; I might sense from the context that a word is inexact and ask, ‘Is that word only “dark”, or could it be “black” or “shadowed, murky”?’ Or a paragraph might seem to aim at a dramatic tension but then lapse, and I’d ask, ‘Does the original do that?’ As a translator myself, I know there’s often something more, and I have frequently often found that a translator is interested in that sort of close reading and collaborative spirit. (I myself appreciate it, when I am the translator.) But that sort of intervention is fairly rare. Raising questions must be done delicately. I could be wrong, and in the end the writer or translator must decide the question. But in any case, the discussion is usually rich. There were many times where the dance with the translator was very close. And it is possible that I was granted a little more leeway to question because they knew that as a translator myself I’d struggled with some of these issues.

Translation Is a Human Interchange

When one reads a translation there’s always an implicit trust that the author’s voice is coming across, but the reader can seldom evaluate whether the translation does it justice. As an editor reading something in translation, do you think you could distinguish the original voice from the voice of the translator by the consistency of the language? I might not know whether I was getting the voice of the original writer, but I could say whether, within the piece, the effect seems to be what the author intends. A few years ago Penguin used a different translator for each volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, which turned out an uneven but interesting sequence of tonalities, genuine but individual engagements. Bear in mind that there is sometimes interest in retaining some scent of the original context of a work, rather than achieving an utterly fluentseeming English translation. For myself, as a reader, I am often pleased to be reminded by the text—by the language, an idiom, a local expression for instance—that I am reading something that has come over from another language, another world. It is not a bad idea, either, for American readers to be reminded from time to time that not everything worthwhile originated in English. What do you appreciate in a good translation?

As I said, I do read, or at least scan, some hundred French books every year in the course of judging English translations of fiction and nonfiction for awards from the French-American Foundation. And my own recreational reading includes translations from other languages too. What I appreciate in a good translation is competence in both languages; attention to the argument or plot so that a reader’s experience is not disrupted by missteps or a tin ear; a sense that the song of the original has been brought across by a translator who can sing it… We all are pleased to read a significant work even when it has some faults, but there is a special pleasure when you can feel the matching of rhythms, of tones, between author and translator. And I think that can probably be sensed even in work from an unfamiliar tongue—a verve, a sureness. What do you strive to do in your work as a translator? Well, exactly that—what I have just described. When I first read a text for translation, it is to learn its nature: whether the text is gloomy or lilting, sharp-tongued or exuberant. I look for the meaning, the sound of the text, the song, which is to say the style, and my goal would be to find the English to answer in kind. I ask the question: do I have the voice to meet this? That’s very much my criterion. As I read anything, I read to see what the character of it is—what is its spirit, what is its kind of vocabu-

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lary or diction, the social and historical sound, whether it’s playful with language, whether its signal quality is profundity and therefore precision of argument… And in that moment, while I’m doing that reading, I’m also trying to assess whether I have an answering style to represent it in English. Translation is a kind of impersonation, I think. As a translator and as a self, I am keen to observe the world consciously, and to notice dialogue, notice dialect, notice personal styles of speech, notice tics. If you have a large enough library of this kind of experience, and if you have made yourself specifically aware of it, you’ve got many pages of experience to riffle through and decide whether you have the appropriate English available for the book at hand. It is important to have a very broad English, access to all sorts of English, to get the character of a text. So reading and being out in the world are very important for any writer, but maybe especially for a translator. I think that an encased and enclosed life probably doesn’t give you the chance to do this well.

voices and scenarios, and I enjoy that wide range of activity. I take on what comes down the road, but only if I like it, enjoy and respect it, and if I think I can do it well, give it a worthy presence in its new world. Once in a while I turn down a proposed work as perhaps too expert, or requiring a language that would take a lot of work to acquire, or as uncongenial to me in one way or another: I don’t think I’d do the best job on it and might find it tiresome to try. But that is much more theoretical than actual, because so few books are bought here for translation anyhow, and specialised works are most often translated by specialists. I tend to be offered projects that in one way or another do suit me, or that a publisher feels will benefit from my particular skills or my person ality. I am known to people, after all, both as a person and as a translator, so they are unlikely to invite me to do a book that requires arguing a thesis in physics or philosophy.

Is the choice of which-translator-works-onwhich-author made solely by the publisher? Are you selective in what you’d translate or not?

Sometimes, if it seems within reach. Yes. Indeed; I have done translations of science, history, and of course essays. Much of Milan Kundera’s work in French has been non-fiction, essays, which I have translated, beginning with The Art of the Novel, and lately Encounter and Testaments Betrayed. For some books—for instance an extraordinary photo book on vertebrate evolutionary development through time, Evolution, by

I am not a specialist in a particular writer or period deeply known to me, practised by me. I ‘work for hire’, responding to publishers’ requests. So I must play a variety of different

But if they asked you, you might?

Translation Is a Human Interchange

Translation is a kind of impersonation, I think. As a translator [...] I am keen to observe the world consciously, and to notice dialogue, notice dialect, notice personal styles of speech, notice tics.

J.-B. de Panafieu—I read the background science heavily to acquire not only the terminology and the argument, but the sound of the discourse, the way scientists talk. How many authors do you work with? Are there some authors that you always translate, or is it a mix? I have done much of Milan Kundera’s English translation since around 1986, when he started writing and publishing in French rather than Czech, which is to say a dozen books, essays, articles and speeches. Otherwise, over some thirty or forty translations, I have not worked much with any single author. Since language is constantly developing, do you think some books should be re-translated for a contemporary readership? Translators and publishers often argue that every generation could use a fresh translation. And of course that gives everyone the pleasure of intimate relation to a great, much-translated writer. Different generations read differently, and translators are always capable of pulling fresh stuff, newly viewed, different characteristics, out of texts over time and even in the same period. I’m working on some Balzac stories just now; a pleasure. When I first read him as an adolescent I found the work thick, rebarbative, not for

me. Now I see it as exactly the kind of busybody, exuberant, face-into-everything writing I love. If I’d been trying to translate him when I was 20, I would probably have been trudging through it. Now I feel a bright, delighted response to him; I have more experience of the world to bring to his observations and attitudes. Do you think there could be a text which is inherently impossible to translate because of a combination of a particular style and period? I can’t imagine that would be so. If there’s a reader for it, and if the reader is somebody who relishes pulling up language to meet it, then even the abstruse stuff or the most insane or knotty writer should be susceptible of translation. I can’t imagine that a priori one would say about anything that it cannot be translated, because translation is a human interchange. A book is not only a text, and I don’t see translation as an exclusively literary activity, but as a human exchange. It’s a social act, an act of transporting something valuable from one mind to another: I’m trying to tell one person what another person has said. You work closely with Milan Kundera, who is known for being very rigorous about translation. What is your collaboration like? Rich. His comments are fastidious, demanding, and laced with humour! He enjoys seeing

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What I appreciate in a good translation is competence in both languages […] a sense that the song of the original has been brought across by a translator who can sing it.

what English can do that reflects or extends the French. He likes hearing suggestions for alternative formulations that seem closer than easy cognates, for instance, and is interested in wordplay and different resonances. My husband, the late Aaron Asher, was his American editor (and sometimes translator) for years. I came to know Kundera, and as a friend I occasionally translated short French texts, articles and speeches for him. His first books after leaving Czechoslovakia were still written in Czech, though not published there. But afterwards he began to write and publish in French, and in 1985, after some experience together, he asked me to undertake the translation of his first major French work, The Art of the Novel, and I’ve done several more since then. I mention Aaron Asher because he was exactly that same kind of editor: enormously meticulous, demanding, funny. Both men were famous for their scrupulous attention to detail. And I responded happily to their combined tough requirements. They hardened my own standards. How is Kundera’s English? Does he read your translations? * Although Milan Kundera’s early works up to 1990 were written in Czech, they were banned by the communist government, and were never published in Czechoslovakia. Today, more than 20 years after the change in regime, only four out of his nine novels have been published in Czech, despite the fact that

He does read very well, and as I have said, he monitors the English carefully, asking questions and helping with my adjustments. I don’t believe he reads English regularly as recreation, in his leisure time, but he knows his own English vocabulary and arguments and humour very well. He oversees the translations into Italian, Spanish and German, maybe Polish as well. And of course the books are translated into Japanese and Hindi and other completely foreign languages—even scripts—where a writer must trust that his discussions with the translator ensure probable accuracy. But his own antennae are extremely sensitive; he knows how a nuance can go wrong. The first time that I started thinking about translation was reading his Life Is Elsewhere in English, which was written originally in Czech, but was never officially published in Czech*. Reading it, I was thinking that there was something not quite right with the language, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Then I read a different Kundera text in English, and it was a completely different experience. I looked into it, and realised that there had been a change of translator.

some were originally written in that language. After settling permanently in France, Kundera spent two years rewriting his previous novels and supervising their French translations. Since 1987 all his books published by Gallimard contain the note: entièrement revue par l’auteur, a la même valeur d’authenticité que le texte

tchèque (entirely reviewed by the author, having the same value of authenticity as the Czech text). The revisions were so dramatic that the French translations, not the Czech originals, are now the authorised texts approved by Kundera.

Translation Is a Human Interchange

Peter Kussi translated Life Is Elsewhere. The difference was that Kussi was translating from his native language into an acquired language, and you translated into your native language. Maybe he tried to be too Czech, but I found the diction slightly unnatural. I don’t really know if it is the book or the translation, but I read Kundera’s other English books with more ease. I thought Kussi did generally very well; it was vigorous and lively work. Maybe you found his English was a little less flexible than that of Michael Henry Heim’s, another of Kundera’s translators from the period, as English was Heim’s native language. As I said, I don’t necessarily mind a certain roughness or unease. Some moments of awkwardness are useful in reminding the reader that not all good things start out in English; not all genius is English—that’s an important truth. When I come across some stiffness in a translation from, say, the Bosnian or the Hindi, though it was probably not intended, I also appreciate that it puts me back in that town, in Sarajevo or Jaipur, you know, rather than just reading as if it came from downtown New York. Right. But translators usually translate from a foreign language into their native language. Is the other direction ever a good idea?

Really not, in my view. It is widely thought, and I feel this firmly, that translation is best done from the original into one’s native (or at least best) language. Perhaps in special cases, for example, when translating poetry: a poet without the original language will often work with a native speaker of that language, or a primary translator, and then secondarily, often beautifully, transform a more literal translation into poetry. What are the similarities or differences between the work of an editor and the work of a translator? Both are trying to get to the essence of the text, bridging the relationship between the reader and writer. As a translator, when you read a new text, you are reading for a whole gestalt. You want to know what the writer means, what he intends by writing this thing, you want to know how he’s saying it. You’re going to have to develop a new set of receptors to hear it. To undertake a translation is to read more deeply and more thoroughly and in more detail, with more receptors functioning than you would normally have to bring to a casual reading on the bus. And, of course, doing it six times—there’s probably no text that I’ve ever let out of the house without having done five or six revisions. The editor’s task is somewhat similar to a translator’s, as you say, except that a translator must bring fresh words to bear, not merely correct what is there, and that is the crucial impor-

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Translation is primarily performance, interpretation, more than it is ‘creation’, just as when Emanuel Ax plays Bach in a way that some other pianist doesn’t.

tance of gathering and nurturing an extensive vocabulary, of words and experience both, in your own language. As readers and writers, we all know our own tongues unusually thoroughly; there are probably very few words in English that I haven’t at least heard at some time. But there are words that I haven’t been using lately. We only use a very small part of our working vocabulary at any time. And then we are reminded of a word or expression that we haven’t used in years, and it joins our working lexicon again, a fresh coin; we start using it every day. Just an exclamation for joy, or a term for physical behaviour, and we think, ‘Damn! I haven’t used that word in a long time!’ Well, a translator, even more than any other writer, needs to keep all that material consciously within reach. We sharpen our awareness and readiness for a particular language that suits the work we are translating. You do that too as an editor—but practically speaking, when you know that a thing isn’t quite right, you ask the author for the solution; you don’t have to supply it yourself. As a translator you’re both writing and editing yourself, finding the right word. It’s true that as an editor I also often had alternative words to propose, or alternative phrasings, because I had thought hard about the text.

Do you consider the act of translation to be a creative act? In my view, translation is primarily performance, interpretation, more than it is ‘creation’, just as when Emanuel Ax plays Bach in a way that some other pianist doesn’t. One might say that interpretation does approach a creative imaginative act, that sensitive interpretation calls up almost new invention to embody it. But I’m not crazy about the word, the claim of ‘creativity’ for this activity. If all your pistons are functioning, translation is beautifully reactive. Another thing: I’ve often thought that I manage to do this thing well because I’m perhaps less thoroughly nailed to the earth than some other people are. To say a thing as an author has said it, I must be able to float a bit away from what would be my own natural style of perception and expression. That’s how translators are like actors: I am not so exclusively and utterly committed to my own language that I don’t dare leave my earth. For myself, I play with the idea that the condition, the talent, is slightly schizoid. It’s somewhat nuts to be so easily able to abandon your own home language, your home set of perceptions, and inhabit someone else’s. Thank you so much for your time.

w-t-w.co/x87

CHEFS ON THE BATTLEFIELD Slovak photographer Martin Kollรกr works with moving and still images, and photographed veteran army chefs for the documentary movie Cooking History.

Top: Naro-Fominsk, 70 kilometres southwest of Moscow, is the home of the 190th Military Academy for Chefs. Since its foundation in 1961 the school has produced more than 25,000 chefs.

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Cooking History, a documentary film by Slovak director Peter Kerekes, provides fascinating insights into the most inconspicuous, but perhaps most vital part of any war: army chefs. Food plays an important role in any armed conflict, or as Branka Mudrenić, one of the interviewed cooks says, ‘Without food there is no war, that is clear.’ The veterans recount their dramatic stories from the Second World War, the Algerian War, the Hungarian

Top: Students of the 190th Military Aca demy for Chefs demonstrated how to process a cow in a conflict situation, from slaughtering the animal to cooking the meat (beef stew for the regular soldiers, and steaks for the officers).

Right: Zoran & Zlatko, Serbian survival cooking experts, usually cook in the improvised conditions of a battlefield, but occasionally also provide catering for private parties.

Chefs on the Battlefield

Revolution of 1956, the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Balkan wars and the war in Chechnya. Russian cook Klavdia Lobanova recalls cooking blintchiki for the Soviet pilots during the LeninÂgrad siege, while German Franz Wienhart talks about baking bread for the hungry German soldiers on the other side of the blockade. Zoran and Zlatko, two Serbian army chefs, cooked snake goulash and scrambled wild birdsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; eggs while their units were in hiding near Kosovo, petrified by the idea that their hot kitchen could be the first target of the NATO heat-seeking missiles. The documentary presents the individual stories of the chefs as well as the recipes which may have affected the history of modern Europe. Even decades later, the cooks are still reliving their memories, still loyal to their generals and their orders. Branko TrboviÄ&#x2021;, personal taster of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, lost his appetite and ability to taste food the day after Tito passed away. But he

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still keeps a book with all the dishes served to the supreme commander of the Yugoslav army. Kerekes interviewed 106 army cooks around Europe, a dozen of whose stories he selected for the film. Most of the cooks tried to impress the movie director not only with their stories, but also with their dishes, and during shooting Kerekes gained 11 kilos. (PB)

Top: Croatian chef Mladen Vlachyna volunteered to join the Croatian army in 1991 after the Battle of Pakrac, which resulted in a full-scale war between Croatia and its rebel Serb population.

THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE DAVID IVES

David Ives occasionally writes humorous pieces for periodicals, but prefers delighting audiences in theatres and books with his deft blend of brilliant wordplay and philosophical inquiry.

The Universal Language received its premiere at Primary Stages (Casey Childs, artistic director) in New York City in December 1993. It was directed by Jason McConnell Buzas; the set design was by Bruce Goodrich; costume design was by Sharon Lynch; lighting design was by Deborah Constantine. The cast was as follows: dawn Wendy Lawless don Robert Stanton young man Ted Neustadt

‘The Universal Language’ from All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays by David Ives, ©1989, 1990, 1992 by David Ives. Used by permission of Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

David ives

A small rented office set up as a classroom. There is a door to the outside at right, another door at left. In the room are a battered desk; a row of three old chairs; and a blackboard on which is written, in large letters, ‘HE, SHE, IT’ and below that, ‘ARF.’ Around the top of the walls is a set of numerals, one to eight, but instead of being identified in English (‘ONE, TWO THREE,’ etc.) we read ‘WEN, YÜ, FRE, FAL, FYND, IFF, HEVEN, WAITZ.’ At lights up, no one is onstage. We hear a quiet knock at the door right, and it opens to reveal dawn, late twenties, plainly dressed, with a stutter. dawn H-h-h-h-hello…? (She steps in quietly.) Hello? Is anyb-b-body here?

(No response. She sees the blackboard, reads.) ‘He. She. It. Arf.’ (She notices the numbers around the walls, and reads.) ‘Wen—yü—fre—fal— fynd—iff—heven—waitz.’ (Noticing the empty chairs, she practices her greeting, as if there were people sitting in them.) Hello, my name is Dawn. It’s very nice to meet you. How do you do, my name is Dawn. A pleasure to meet you. Hello. My name is Dawn. (The door at left opens and don appears, about thirty, in lab coat and glasses.) don Velcro! [Welcome!] dawn Excuse me? don Velcro! Bell jar, Froyling! Harvardyu? [Welcome. Good day, Miss. How are you?] dawn H-h-h-how do you d-d-d-do, my n-n-name is— (Breaks off.) I’m sorry. (She turns to go.) don Oop, oop, oop! Varta, Froyling! Varta! Varta! [No, no, no! Wait, Miss! Wait!] dawn I’m v-very sorry to b-b-bother you. don Mock—klahtoo boddami nikto! Ventrica! Ventrica, ventrica. Police! [But—you’re not bothering me at all! Enter! Please.] dawn Really—I think I have the wrong place. don Da rrrroongplatz? Oop da-doll! Du doppa da rektplatz! Da-meetcha playzeer. Comintern. Police. Plop da chah. [The wrong place? Not at all! You have the right place. Pleased to meet you. Come in. Please. Have a seat.] dawn Well. J-just for a second. don (cleaning up papers on the floor) Squeegie la mezza. [Excuse the mess.] (He points to a chair.) Zitz? dawn No thank you. (She sits.) don Argo. [So.] Bell jar, Froyling. Harvardhu? dawn ‘Bell jar’? don Bell jar. Bell. Jar. Belljar! dawn Is that ‘good day’? don Ding! [Yes.] ‘Bell jar’ arf ‘good day.’ Epp— [And.] Harvardyu? dawn Harvard University? don Oop! [No.] Harvardyu?

The Universal Language

dawn Howard Hughes? don Oop. Harvardyu? dawn Oh! ‘How are you.’ don Bleeny, bleeny! Bonanza bleeny! [Good, good, very good.] dawn Is this Thirty East Seventh? don Thirsty oyster heventh. Ding. [Thirty East Seventh. Yes.] dawn Suite 662? don Iff-iff-yü. Anchor ding. [Six-six-two. Right again.] dawn Room B? don Rambeau. dawn The School of Unamunda? don Hets arf dada Unamunda Kaka-daymee. [This is the School of Una-

munda.] Epp vot kennedy doopferyu? [And what can I do for you?] dawn Excuse me…? don Vot. Kennedy. Doopferyu? dawn Well, I s-saw an ad in the n-newspaper. don Video da klip enda peeper? Epp? Knish? dawn Well it says— (She takes a newspaper clipping out of her purse. Reads.) ‘Learn Unamunda, the universal language.’ don ‘Lick Unamunda, da linkwa looniversahl!’ (A banner unfurls which says just that. Accent on ‘sahl,’ by the way.) dawn ‘The language that will unite all humankind.’ DON ‘Da linkwa het barf oonidevairsify alla da peepholes enda voooold!’ (DAWN raises her hand.) Quisling? Dawn Do you speak English? don ‘English’…? dawn English. don Ah! Johncleese! dawn Yes. Johncleese. don Johncleese. Squeegie, squeegie. Alaska, iago parladoop johncleese. [Sorry. Unfortunately, I don’t speak English.] dawn No johncleese at all? don One, two, three worlds. ‘Khello. Goombye. Rice Krispies. Chevrolet.’ Et cinema, et cinema. Mock—votsdai beesnest, bella Froyling? [But— what brings you here?] dawn Well I wanted to be the first. Or among the first. To learn this universal language. don Du arf entra di feersta di feersten. [You are among the first of the first.] Corngranulations. Ya kooch di anda. (He kisses her hand.) Epp! Voiladimir da zamplification forum. (He produces an application form.) dawn Well I’m not sure I’m ready to apply just yet… don Dai klink, pink dama? [Your name?] dawn ‘Dai klink…’? don Votsdai klink? Vee klinks du? dawn Um. No nabisco. (As if to say, I don’t understand.)

David ives

don No nabisco. Klinks du Mary, klinks du Jane, orf Betsy, orf Barbara?

Fred? dawn Oh. My name! don Attackly! Mi klink. Echo mi. ‘Mi klink…’ dawn Mi klink. don ‘Arf.’ Parla. dawn Mi klink arf Dawn di-di-di-Vito. don Dawn di-di-di-Vito! Vot’n harmonika klink doppa du! [What a melodious name you have!] dawn Actually, just one d-d-d-‘d.’ don Ah. Dawn di Vito. Squeegie. dawn I have a s-s-slight s-s— don Stutter. dawn Yes. don Tonguestoppard. Problaymen mit da hoover. dawn Da hoover? don (points to his mouth) Da hoover. Da veazle, da nozzle, da volvos, da hoover. Et cinema, et cinema. [Face, nose, lips. Etcetera, etcetera.] Mock! Hets arf blizzardo. Hets arf molto blizzardo! [This is very strange.] dawn Something’s wrong? don Dusa klinks ‘Dawn.’ Iago klink ‘Don.’ Badabba? [Understand?] dawn Um. No. don Dawn-Don. Don-Dawn. dawn Oh—I’m Dawn and you’re Don. don Ding! Arf blizzardo, oop? dawn Arf blizzardo, yes. don Votsdiss minsky? Dis para-dons. Dis co-inki-dance. [What does this mean? This paradox. This coincidence.] dawn Well. Life is very funny sometimes. don Di anda di destiny, dinksdu? dawn Di anda di destiny…? don Neekolas inportantay. Argo. Da binformations. (Back to the application form.) Edge? dawn Twenty-eight. don ‘Vont-wait.’ Slacks? dawn Female. don ‘Vittamin.’ dawn How do you say ‘male’? don ‘Aspirin.’ Oxipation? dawn I’m a word processor. don ‘Verboblender.’ dawn Is Unamunda very hard to learn? don Eedgy. Egsovereedgy. (He picks up a book.) Da bop. dawn Da bop? don Da bop.

The Universal Language

dawn Oh. Book! don Da bop. [The room.] Da rhoomba. [The walls.] Da valtz. [The door.]

Isadora. [The chair.] Da chah. [Two chairs.] Da chah-chah. don & dawn: Da chah-chah-chah! [Three chairs.] don Braga! Sonia braga! Iago trattoria Shakespeare enda Unamunda. dawn You’re translating Shakespeare into Unamunda? don Forsoot! Nintendo. [Listen.] ‘Ah Romeo, Romeo, bilko arfst du Romeo?’ (Pointing to a rose on the desk.) ‘Na rosa pollyanna klink voop sent so pink!’ Balloontiful, eh? dawn Yes. Bonzo. don Bonanza. dawn Bonanza. don ‘Mock visp! Vot loomen trip yondra fenstra sheint? Arf den oyster! Epp Juliet arf sonnnng!’ Video, Froyling, Unamunda arf da linkwa supreemka di amamor! [You see, Miss, Unamunda is the supreme language of love!] dawn You know, it’s strange how much I understand. don Natooraltissimississippimentay! Linkwa, pink dama, arf armoneea. Moozheek. Rintintintinnabulation! Epp Unamunda arf da melodeea looniversahl! Porky alla da peepholes enda voooold—alla da peepholes enda looniverse cargo a shlong enda hartz. Epp det shlong arf… Unamunda! [Naturally! Language, sweet lady, is harmony. Music. And Unamunda is the universal melody. Because all the people in the world—all the people in the universe carry a song in their heart. And that song is… Unamunda!] dawn So ‘linkwa’ is ‘language’? don Perzacto. Wen linkwa. (He holds up one finger.) Yü— (Two fingers.) dawn Two— don Linkages. Free— (Three fingers.) dawn Three— don Linguini. dawn I see. And ‘is’ is—? don Arf. dawn ‘Was’ is—? don Wharf. dawn ‘Had been’ —? don Long wharf. dawn And ‘will be’ —? don Barf. Arf, wharf, barf. Pasta, prison, furniture dances. [Past, present, future tenses.] Clara? dawn Clara. don Schumann. (He adds ‘WE, YOU, THEY’ to the blackboard.) dawn Well, Mr. — don Finninneganegan. (Like ‘Finnegan’ slurred. ‘Finninn-again-again.’) dawn Mr. F-F-F— don Finninneganegan.

David ives

dawn What kind of name is that? don Fininnish. dawn Mr. F-F-F-F— don Police! Klink mi ‘Don.’ dawn I’d love to learn Unamunda. I mean, if it’s not too expensive. don (perfect English) Five hundred dollars. dawn Five hundred dollars?! don Cash. dawn Five hundred dollars is a lot of money. don Kalamari, Froyling! Kalamari! Da payola arf oopsissima importantay!

[Be calm, be calm! The money isn’t important!] dawn I don’t have m-much m-m-money. don Oop doppa bonanza geld. Ya badabba. [You don’t have much money. I understand.] dawn And the thing is, I do have this s-s-slight s-s-s— don Stutter. Ya badabba. dawn So it’s always been hard for me to talk to people. In fact, m-most of my life has been a very l-l-ong… (Pause.)… pause. don Joe DiMaggio. Mock no desperanto, Froyling! [That’s too bad. But don’t despair!] Porky mit Unamunda—oop tonguestoppard. dawn I wouldn’t stutter? don Oop. dawn At all? don Absaloopdiloop. dawn The thing is, just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I have nothing to say. don Off corset! dawn I mean, a tuning fork is silent, until you touch it. But then it gives off a perfect ‘A.’ Tap a single tuning fork and you can start up a whole orchestra. And if you tap it anywhere in the whole world, it still gives off a perfect ‘A’! Just this little piece of metal, and it’s like there’s all this beautiful sound trapped inside it. don Froyling di Vito, das arf poultry! Du arf ein poultice! dawn But you see, Mr. Finninn— don —Eganegan. dawn I don’t think language is just music. I believe that language is the opposite of loneliness. And if everybody in the world spoke the same language, who would ever be lonely? don Verismo. dawn I just think English isn’t my language. Since it only m-makes p-people laugh at me. And makes me… don Lornly. dawn Ding. Very lornly. So won’t you teach me Unamunda? I do have a little money saved up. don Froyling di Vito… dawn I’ll pay. Iago pago.

The Universal Language

don Froyling, arf mangey, mangey deep-feecountries. [There are many,

many difficulties.] dawn I’ll work very hard. don Deep-feekal, Froyling. dawn I understand. P-p-please? don Eff du scoop. dawn ‘Scoop’ means ‘want’? don Ding. dawn Then I scoop. Moochko. don Donutsayev deedeena vanya. [Don’t say I didn’t warn you.] Dollripechus. Boggle da zitzbells. Arf raddly? [All right. Buckle your seatbelts. Are you ready?] dawn Yes. I’m raddly. don Raza la tabooli. Kontsentreeren. Lax da hoover, lax da hoover. Epp echo mi. [Clear your mind. Concentrate. Relax your mouth. And repeat after me.] (Picks up a pointer.) Shtick. dawn Shtick. don (pointing to himself ) Ya. dawn Ya. don (points to her) Du. dawn Du. don (points to ‘HE’ on the blackboard) En. dawn Du. don Ogh! dawn I’m sorry. Squeegies. don Video da problayma? dawn Let me begin again again, Mr. Finninneganegan. You see? I said your name. I must be getting b-b-b-better. don Okeefenoch-kee. Parla, prentice: Ya. dawn Ya don Du. dawn Du. don En. dawn En. don (points to ‘SHE’ on the blackboard) Dee. dawn Dee. don (points to ‘IT’) Da. dawn Da. don (‘WE’) Wop. dawn Wop. don (‘YOU’) Doobly. dawn Doobly. don (‘THEY’) Day. dawn Day. don Du badabba? dawn Ya badabba du!

David ives

don Testicle. [Test.] dawn Al dente? [Already?] don Shmal testicle. Epp—alla togandhi. [Small test. And—all together.] dawn (as he points to ‘I, YOU, WE, HE, YOU, THEY’) Ya du wop en doobly day. don & dawn (don points to her, then ‘IT’) Doo da! Doo da! dawn (sings from ‘Camptown ladies sing this song’) Ya du wop en doobly day— don & dawn (sing together) Arf da doo-dah day! don Bleeny, bleeny, bonanza bleeny! dawn Riddly-dee? don Indeedly-dee. (dawn raises her hand.) Quisling? dawn How do you say ‘how-do-you-say’? don Howardjohnson. dawn Howardjohnson ‘to have’? don Doppa. dawn So— (Indicating ‘HE, YOU, SHE.’) En doppa, du doppa, dee doppa. don Ding! dawn ( faster) En doppa, du doppa, dee doppa. don Ding! dawn ( faster still, swinging it) En doppa, du doppa, dee doppa— day! [They.] don Bleeny con cavyar! Scoop da gwan? [Want to go on?] dawn Ya scoop if du do. don Dopple scoop! (points left) Eedon. dawn Eedon. don (pointing right) Ged. dawn Ged. don (pointing up) Enro. dawn Enro don (pointing down) Rok. dawn Rok. don (right) Ged. dawn Ged. don (up) Enro. dawn Enro. don (left) Eedon. dawn Eedon. don (down) Rok. dawn Rok. don Argo… don & dawn Ged eedon rok enro, ged eedon rok enro! [Get it on, rock and roll,

get it on, rock and roll!] don Krakajak! dawn Veroushka? don Veroushka, baboushka. dawn This is fun! don Dinksdu diss is flan? [You think this is fun?] dawn Flantastico!

The Universal Language

don Ives-ing onda kick. [Icing on the cake.] (He holds out his hand.) Di anda. dawn Di anda. don (palm) Da palma. dawn Da palma. don (index finger) Da vinci. dawn Da vinci. don (middle finger) Di niro. dawn Di niro. don (thumb) Da bamba. dawn Da bamba. don (leg) Da jamba. dawn Da jamba. don & dawn (doing a two-step) Da jambo-ree. don Zoopa! Zoopa mit noodel! dawn Minestrone, minestrone! [Just a second!] Howardjohnson ‘little’? don Diddly. dawn Howardjohnson ‘big’? don Da-wow. dawn Argo… don Doppa du a diddly anda? [Do you have a small hand?] dawn Iago doppa diddly anda, dusa doopa doppa diddly anda. [I have a small

hand, you don’t have a small hand.] don Scoopa du da diddly bop? [Do you want a little book?] dawn Oop scoopa diddly bop, iago scoopa bop da-wow! [I don’t want a little book, I want a big book.] don & dawn Oop scoopa diddly bop, iago scoopa bop da-wow, da-wow, da-wow! dawn Ya video! Ya Hackensack! Ya parla Unamunda! Ya stonda en da rhoomba Epp du stonda mit mee. Da deska doppa blooma. don Arf da boaten onda see! dawn Yadda libben onda erda don Allda himda— dawn —enda herda dawn & don Dooya heara sweeta birda? Epp da libben’s niceta bee! Wop top oobly adda Doop boopda flimma flomma Scroop bop da beedly odda! dawn (really wailing now) Arf da meeeeeee! Arf da meeeeeee! Arf da meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (They collapse in a sort of postcoital exhaustion as the lesson ends.) don A-plotz, Froyling. A-plotz! [A-plus.] Wharf das gold for yu? [Was that good for you?] dawn Gold for meeka? Das wharf gland! Wharf das gold for yu? don Das wharf da skool da fortnox!

David ives

dawn Nevva evva wharfda bin so blintzful! Nevva evva felta socha feleetzee-

totsee-ohneeya! Da voonda! Da inspermation! Da cosmogrottifeekotsee-ohneeya! [I’ve never felt so blissful! Never felt such happiness! The wonder! The inspiration! The cosmic satisfaction!] don (doesn’t understand) Squeegie, squeegie. Cosmo…? dawn Grottifeekotseeohneeya. don Off corset! dawn Oh my galosh! don Votsda mattress, babbly? dawn No tonguestoppard! No problaymen mit da hoover! don Vot diddle-eye tellya? dawn GOOMBYE ENGLISH, BELLJAR UNAMUNDA! Oh, sordenly ya sensa socha frill da joy! [Suddenly I feel such a thrill of joy!] don Uh-huh… dawn Ein shoddra divina! Ein extahz! Ein blintz orgazmico! [A divine shudder! An ecstasy! An orgasmic bliss!] don Dawn… dawn My slaveyard! (She rushes to embrace him, but he slips aside.) don Police! Froyling di Vito! dawn Du gabriel mi a balloontiful grift, Don. A linkwa. Epp frontier ta deepternity, iago parla osolomiento Unamunda! [You gave me a beautiful gift, Don. A language. And from here to eternity I’m going to speak only Unamunda!] don Osolomiento? dawn Epsomlootly! Angst tu yu. [Absolutely! Thanks to you.] don Um, Dawn… Dot kood bi oon pogo blizzardo. [That could be a bit bizarre.] dawn (suddenly remembering) Mock—da payola! don Da payola. dawn Da geld. Fordham letsin. [The money for the lesson.] don Moooment, shantz… [Just a second, honey.] dawn Lassmi getmi geld fonda handberger. [Let me get my money from my purse.] don Handberger? dawn (holding up her purse) Handberger. don Oh. Handberger. dawn (as she digs in her purse) ‘Ya stonda enda rhoomba epp du stonda mit mi…’ don Dawn… dawn (holding out money) Dots allada geld ya doppda mit mi. Cheer. [That’s all the money I brought with me. Here.] Cheer! Melgibson da rest enda morgen. [I’ll give you the rest in the morning.] don I can’t take your money, Dawn. dawn Squeegie…? don I’m sorry, but I—I c-c-can’t take your money. dawn Du parla johncleese?

The Universal Language

don Actually, yes, I do speak a little johncleese. dawn Mock du parlit parfoom! don Well I’ve been practicing a lot. Anyway, I-I-I-I don’t think I mentioned

that the first lesson is free. dawn Mock ya vanta pago. [But I want to pay.] don But I don’t want you to vanta pago. dawn Votsda mattress? Cheer! Etsyuris! [What’s the matter? Here! It’s yours!] don I can’t take it. dawn Porky? don Because I can’t. dawn Mock porky? don Because it’s a fraud. dawn Squeegie? don Unamunda is a fraud. dawn A froyd…? don A sigismundo froyd. dawn Oop badabba. don It’s a con game. A swindle. A parla trick. dawn No crayola. [I don’t believe you.] don Believe it, Dawn! I should know—I invented it! Granted, it’s not a very good con, since you’re the only person who’s ever come knocking at that door, and I’m obviously not a very good con man, since I’m refusing to accept your very attractive and generous money, but I can’t stand the thought of you walking out there saying ‘velcro bell jar harvardyu’ and having people laugh at you. I swear, Dawn, I swear, I didn’t want to hurt you. How could I? How could anybody? Your beautiful heart… It shines out of you like a beacon. And then there’s me. A total fraud. I wish I could lie in any language and say it wasn’t so, but… I’m sorry, Dawn, I’m so, so sorry. dawn Vot forest? don Will you stop?! dawn Unamunda arf da linkwa looniversahl! don But you and I are the only peepholes in the vooold who speak it! dawn Dolby udders! Dolby udders! [There’ll be others!] don Who? What others? dawn Don, if you and I can speak this linkwa supreemka, anybody can. Everybody will! This isn’t just any language. This isn’t just a room. This is the Garden of Eden. And you and I are finding names for a whole new world. I was so… don Happy. I know. So was I. dawn Perzacto. don I was happy… dawn And why? don I don’t know, I… dawn Because du epp ya parla da dentrical linguini. don Okay, maybe we speak the same language, but it’s nonsense!

David ives

dawn Oop. don Gibberish. dawn Oop. don Doubletalk. dawn The linkwa we parla is amamor, Don. don Amamor…? dawn Unamundamor. Iago arf amorphous mit du. [I’m in love with you.] don Amorphous…? dawn Polymorphous. don Verismo? dawn Surrealismo. don But how? I mean… dawn Di anda di destiny, Don. don Are you sure? dawn Da pravdaz enda pudding. (Points around the walls at the numbers.)

‘When you free fall…’ don ‘Find if…’ dawn ‘Heaven…’ don ‘Waits.’ dawn Geronimo. don So you forgive me? dawn For making me happy? Yes. I forgive you. don Iago arf… spinachless. [Speechless.] dawn (holds out her hand) Di anda. don (hold out his) Di anda. dawn Da palma. don Da palma (They join hands.) dawn Da kooch. (They kiss.) don Iago arf amorphous mit du tu. (They are about to kiss again, when the door at right opens and a young man looks in.) young man Excuse me. Is this the School of Unamunda? (don and dawn look at each other.) don & dawn Velcro!

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BASTARD CHAIRS German photographer Michael Wolf lives in Hong Kong documenting the vernacular culture of Chinese megacities.

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Bastard Chairs

Chairs are essential objects that are frequently presented in museum collections, whether for their historical, anthropological or design value. They tell stories about the people who built them and the people who sat on them, their status, interest and skills. There are plenty of chairs that we wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find in museums, chairs made by people to meet their momentary need to be seated. Michael Wolf photographed these DIY chairs mainly in mainland China and Hong Kong, documenting these improvised street creations, each personalised by its maker. He calls them â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bastard chairsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in affectionate reference to their dubious origin. (PB)

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Bastard Chairs

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Barbara Eldredge, who writes on design from New York, interviewed a number of US war veterans about their experience with the visual translator guides.

POINT ME WHERE IT HURTS Top: Around five million of Kwikpointâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guides and cards have been issued to military personnel. The laminated, pocket-sized pamphlets are handier and more durable than conventional printed

dictionaries and manuals. Above, a US soldier in Afghanistan communicates with a local elder using one of the Kwikpoint Visual Language Translators. Photo courtesy of Kwikpoint.

Point Me Where It Hurts

Kwikpoint guides enable basic communication between US troops and locals in Afghanistan and Iraq. Each one requires careful research to determine what things may need to be said, and how to communicate them across barriers of language and culture. The Afghans were not offended by the cartoonish depictions of bomb detonations, hidden Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), or hostage situations. No, the illustration choice that they rejected was the flesh-toned skin of the medical diagram’s human form. ‘It was considered pornographic,’ says Alan Stillman, founder and CEO of the visual communications company Kwikpoint. ‘People wouldn’t use it and didn’t like it because they’re so religious there.’ At first glance, the androgynous medical illustration, along with miniaturised drawings of IEDs, turban-topped bomb-makers, and soldiers alternately inquisitive and distressed, could be mistaken for yet another piece of dark comedic satire à la South Park or Family Guy. But these cartoons are not cynicism-wracked bits of entertainment. Rather, they constitute unique graphic tools available to US armed forces on the battlefield: Kwikpoint’s Visual Language Translators. Approximately the size and shape of a foldout road map, the guide’s laminated panels contain a series of thematically grouped pictograms enabling communication between soldiers and ‘native locals’. Need medical attention? Point to an ambulance. Need to know where the guns are stashed? Point to the picture of a weapons cache. The icons symbolise everything from modes of transportation (car, van, bus, bicycle, camel, etc.) to complex concepts relating to transactions and health (I’ll reward you for telling me where to find a downed helicopter; show me where it hurts), all at the tip of a soldier’s finger. The Kwikpoint guides occupy a strange space in the world of 2D images, not quite infographics but certainly more than mere illustration. Visual Communications Director Stephanie Stierhoff says that working on the pictograms is not dissimilar to working on the icons and logos she designed during a stint on Madison Avenue. Both require simple forms and distinguishing

features. Both are distillations of a larger idea. Both aim to achieve immediate viewer recognition. And yet, as she says, making the guides is different from making any other kind of product. ‘This affects people directly,’ Stierhoff tells me. ‘When people go out in the field, they’re using our guides for very critical ideas, whether it be a user guide to put on a ballistic vest correctly or communicating ideas to a local in Afghanistan. If we don’t do our research, and don’t convey these ideas precisely, as precisely as we can possibly do it, it could really have an effect on that person.’ Hence the research. And the necessity to address the pornographic implications of their flesh-coloured medical image. After a bit more experimentation, the Kwikpoint design team changed the flesh colour to a cyanotic robin’segg blue, transforming a pornographic human figure into an abstract one. ‘People look at it and kind of laugh and go, “Well, are you looking for aliens?” or “Do they have blue people there?”’ relates Kwikpoint’s founder Alan Stillman. He continues, ‘And we say, no, this is just a cultural adjustment we have to make.’ Stillman, a maths whizz who got into Cornell’s mathematics programme at the age of 16, didn’t begin his career with the dream of creating military translators and IED identification guides. Rather, the idea was sown along a 15,000-mile international bike journey he took in the late 1980s. Outside Hungary, Stillman and a friend clipped pictures out of magazines to illustrate a few basic needs, the idea being that if all else failed, they could implore someone for help by pointing to what they wanted. After Stillman returned to the States in 1988, the idea of making a picture-dictionary continued to pull at his thoughts. The concept was simple yet effective: a collection of pictograms that could be pointed at to communicate the things a traveller might need. Finally, in 1989, after fail-

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A cyan tint was used in a medical diagram of a human figure, after the ordinary fleshtoned skin was rejected by the Afghans as being pornographic. Designing the visual translators involves extensive research, including the help of linguists, graphic designers, military consultants and technology engineers. Image courtesy of Kwikpoint.

ing to find similar products on the market, he decided to take a shot at making one himself. Stillman bought a Macintosh computer with the idea of using clip art for his symbols. All he’d have to do was find the right digital images and assemble them into his visual dictionary. But the lack of graphic consistency and style among the icons irked him. ‘The problem was that I wasn’t an illustrator,’ Stillman tells me. ‘So I took a job at a Macintosh graphics lab in Virginia, started learning about desktop publishing, and found a bunch of artists.’ In exchange for their pictograms, Stillman would teach his cadre of artists how to use Illustrator 88 or Freehand. His spare time was spent poring over travel guides and creating content lists. The first guide came out in the summer of 1991, and for several years Kwikpoint catered to the visual language needs of travellers. But three days after 9/11, they received an email from a marine major in the Pacific. The marine had bought one of their travel guides in an airport and used it to communicate while on duty in East Timor. He asked if Kwikpoint could

make a custom guide with military pictures of tanks and guns on one side and the travel images on the other. They sold him a relatively small batch of 2,000 guides. As the tourism industry nose-dived, Stillman and his team saw potential in the military market. They set to work creating products that would facilitate the most common and important interactions that military personnel might encounter in the field. By 2004, Kwikpoint’s products had become standard issue for all US troops going into Iraq and Afghanistan. There are now dozens of Kwikpoint guides tailored to the specific needs of various missions and groups: guides for aviation teams, medics and infantry, and visual instruction guides illustrating proper procedures for things like putting on a ballistics vest or detecting an IED. The military is now their largest client and there are approximately five million of the various Kwikpoint guides and smart cards in the field. Developing each product can take anywhere from three months to a year, but the process always begins by identifying the specific con-

Point Me Where It Hurts

Sample from the Aviation Visual Language Survival Guide for Afghanistan. It contains essential graphics to help communicate various situations—for example to request help or to identify danger—all by pointing to pictures. Image courtesy of Kwikpoint.

cepts and items a user will need—things like how to make a bomb, how to identify an IED, types of weapons, tactics, ambushes, etc. From this ‘shopping list’, the design team develops representative sketches. Images are either nouns or complex concepts. The former are easy enough; if they need to represent a toaster, the illustrators will draw a toaster. But conveying complex actions or visual phrases like ‘hide me’ or ‘tell me where you saw the downed helicopter’ takes multiple iterations and testing to distil an idea into its simplest and most understandable form. Thinking again of the comedic impression of cartoons, I ask Stierhoff about the aesthetic look of the guides, why they chose illustrations over photographic images. ‘Well,’ she replies, ‘photographs are very specific. We’ve done testing on this before and if we show a picture of a yellow Mercedes… they’re going to say, “No, I didn’t see a yellow Mercedes today”. We don’t want to be that specific. It’s “Have you seen a vehicle with four wheels and four doors?” [Drawings are] more symbolic. That’s the difference between a photograph and an illustration or pictograph.’

After icons are developed, they are tested by a variety of people to make sure that they convey their intended meaning, that the visual metaphor works. ‘You have to map it to your cultural audience,’ says Stillman. ‘If you’re making a guide for Afghanistan, you have to make sure that it works within the Afghan cultural realm. Because a metaphor of a light bulb might work here but it might not work in Pakistan.’ According to Stierhoff, Kwikpoint does an extraordinary amount of research in the cultural area. They call in subject-matter experts from the military, IED-defence organisations, and individuals who have recently arrived from various countries. ‘We’ve gathered quite a cache of subject-matter experts qualified to give us very current advice on the regions and the people.’ Stillman recounts the time they were developing pictograms to represent the various places a bomb might be hidden. Explosives are often concealed beneath rubbish, ‘so we had to have some icons for garbage in Afghanistan. And it turns out what you and I would throw away and call garbage in America is not garbage in Afghan-

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This page: The village elder merits a generous amount of the limited space in the Afghan Aviation Guide in order to illustrate his supreme importance and to show respect to the local population. Image courtesy of Kwikpoint. Opposite page: Complex concepts, such as getting a monetary reward for reporting a downed helicopter, are shown in sequences of images not unlike comic strips. Aware that Afghan languages are written in the opposite direction from English, designers of the sequence included three reminders that it should be read from right to left. Image courtesy of Kwikpoint.

istan. We went out to an Afghan restaurant, and we interviewed some people who are kind of like busboys and waiters who had just come from Kabul within the last six months… Our garbage design is based on this.’ The layout and information architecture of the guide is another chief consideration. Images are arranged in a way that enables mental association and facilitates pointing at multiple images in a sequence. Objects and concepts are kept within their main categories to aid in recognition and are often located near an associated ‘anchor graphic’ to emphasise meaning. So various bomb components and explosives will be anchored by an image of a bomb-maker. Their proximity helps the viewer to understand their significance. The panel depicting the Village Elder in the Afghan Aviation Guide, for instance, was afforded a prominent visual position in the layout and given more room than any other single concept. Stierhoff tells me that elders are supremely important figures in the community, and they took special care to give them impor-

tance with visual space and size. She says, ‘If we do it wrong, and a soldier is showing it to them, it can be very embarrassing or downright insulting and cause issues… In the case of the Elder, it was a very key idea that we had to put in there. Oftentimes, the soldier has to find this man in the village, and you’ll have to go perhaps from door to door, so you want to have the picture be respectful and representative of the idea.’ The careful research and cultural considerations seem to have paid off. A video on Kwikpoint’s website says the guides have helped to find ‘countless thousands of bombs. Saved thousands of soldiers,’ and there are a number of testimonials. One features an infantryman, Corporal Josh Collins, recounting an incident he witnessed while deployed in Iraq: a distressed Iraqi man ran up to the military checkpoint yelling for a hospital. Collins and his comrades used the Kwikpoint to asked him why he needed a hospital and he pointed to the picture of a gas pump, a picture of a little girl, and made a drinking motion. They deduced that his little girl had con-

Point Me Where It Hurts

sumed gasoline and were able to immediately get her proper medical attention. Collins ends the story by looking directly at the camera and saying, ‘I believe that using the Kwikpoint to find out exactly what happened saved his little girl’s life.’ I spoke with First Lieutenant Josh Bevcar, who was deployed for the first six months of the Iraq invasion in 2003, before the Kwikpoint guides were standard issue. Instead of the easy reference afforded by the pocket-sized guides now available, his unit had to rely on ‘big manuals on Iraq that were unwieldy and in short supply.’ He told me that just having the IED smart card with its visual guide, points on Middle Eastern culture, and a few Arabic phrases ‘would have been incredibly useful and helpful while deployed’. But Kwikpoint’s guides are not a catch-all silver bullet in the field of military language communication. Dmitry Solominsky, who served in Iraq from 2008 to 2009, was less enthusiastic about the guides. He told me that the guides were in no way a replacement for human translators and that he and his team members did not use

them. He continued, ‘A human being can tell you things that a paper can never tell you. They know what a neighbourhood is like, what kinds of people are there. They know local dialogue and slang. They know if someone is lying to you. You can never place all of that on a piece of paper.’ With the removal of military troops from Iraq and the decreasing number of new deployments to Afghanistan, Kwikpoint is scaling back their development of combat-orientated military guides. They continue to design training materials but their interest in creating lifesaving graphics is shifting from the battlefield to the field of medicine. While they still work on making illustrations to help soldiers identify IEDs, the Kwikpoint team is also using its visual language tools to help everyday citizens recognise the markers of a stroke. ‘My own grandmother died of a stroke before my eyes when I was a child,’ Alan Stillman tells me. ‘Right now, only one in ten Americans knows how to spot a stroke. If you could get it to nine out of ten, you could save almost a million lives a year.’

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Hans Monderman, father of the Shared Space movement, argued that reducing traffic regulations can improve road safety. Statistics prove him right, but not everybody is convinced.

Amsterdam-based journalist Viveka van de Vliet travelled to Friesland to walk backwards into busy traffic junctions.

SPACE FOR PEOPLE, NOT FOR CARS Top: Shared Space is an urban design concept that promotes the reduction of barriers between pedestrians and vehicles, and the elimination of traffic signs and signals. It was pioneered by the late Dutch traffic Â engineer Hans Monderman, who spent much of his career implementing Shared Space schemes in Friesland, the northern

province of the Netherlands. To date, the Shared Space concept has been used in Germany, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Australia. Photo: Raban Haaijk

Space for People, Not for Cars

Away with zebra crossings, speed bumps, traffic lights, safety islands, and even road signs! Traffic engineer Hans Monderman (1945–2008) argued for fewer traffic laws and more personal responsibility as the key to increasing road safety and quality of life in urban areas. It is a philosophy that has been dubbed ‘Shared Space’, a name under which similar projects are being established all over the world. In the past, anyone walking from Leeuwarden’s central railway station to the city centre would have passed through a strictly regimented traffic zone consisting, like so many others, of a paved road on which all motorised traffic (including a busy bus route) raced by, a separate bike path, a zebra crossing and a pavement. Now, after years of indecision, the municipality wants to recast this once characterless square, the Wilhelminaplein, as the city of Leeuwarden’s new ‘living room’. And the transformation is finally becoming reality: the square has been largely redeveloped in accordance with the philosophy of Hans Monderman, a traffic engineer and native son of Leeuwarden. All road signs, speed bumps and pavement strips have been eliminated, with the paving of the square and the road combined into a single unit. The square (where the weekly farmers’ market is held, and which can easily accommodate the occasional music festival) is distinguished from the road only by the slightly different shade of grey of the paving. New street furniture and features have been added, such as wooden benches and trees. The stately old court building now looks directly onto the new Fries Museum and, to the left, onto a new row of shops, cafe terraces, and restaurants, and the apartments above them. On the vast square in between, cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians can be seen participating as equals in a harmonious urban flow. It is, at first glance, perhaps a curious sight: a few pedestrians walk blithely in the middle of the road, suddenly meandering across it at an angle as there are no zebra crossings to lead them any other way; as Top: In Drachten, the Laweiplein road junction has been converted into a shared space where drivers, cyclists and pedestrians mix together, negotiating right of way by means of informal social rules rather than by defined traffic rules. Kerbs were removed so that there is no clear physical demarcation between the pave-

they do, a car manoeuvres around them, calmly and vigilantly. The only road sign to be seen, reading ‘excepting bicycles and mopeds’, is probably something that Monderman himself would have left out, but he would no doubt have been pleased to be able to look upon this, the successfully redesigned Wilhelminaplein. Hans Monderman, a traffic engineer, or perhaps more aptly, a traffic philosopher, did not believe in traffic laws as we know them. After completing his studies, he designed roads in his native Friesland and drew on his experiences as a driving instructor to understand how road accidents occur. ‘All those road signs,’ he once said, ‘they all essentially tell you the same thing: just drive, don’t worry, drive as fast as you want, no reason to pay attention to what’s going on around you. And that’s a dangerous message.’ It was from this concept that Monderman began developing his new vision of traffic safety in the early 1990s. Ultimately his concept became known as Shared Space, and it

ment and the rest of the street. When people feel that a situation is potentially unsafe, they stay alert, reduce speed and cause fewer accidents. Photo: Municipality Smallingerland

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Space for People, Not for Cars

Monderman’s theory was that increasing traffic regulations reduces personal responsibility, the need for drivers and pedestrians to pay attention to what is happening around them.

elevated Monderman to national and international prominence. In 2004 his philosophy was developed into the four-year European Shared Space project. Monderman headed the project’s teams of experts, both in the Netherlands and at the international level. He was a long-time advocate of reducing rules and increasing personal responsibility. Road signs, speed bumps, traffic lights and zebra crossings all diminish that responsibility, shifting the emphasis of a space to the technical and the legal. This leaves little of the quality and the essence of the place you move through; it is then no longer a place where you can slow down, stay, breathe, relax, meet. His answer was to do away with them. ‘The goal is to create a high-quality environment offering equally high quality of life, serving people, not traffic,’ explains traffic engineer Sjoerd Nota of the firm Ruimte voor Iedereen (Space for All), also affiliated with the Shared Space Knowledge Centre at the University of Applied Sciences in Leeuwarden where the faculty of Civil Engineering, Civil Technology and Mobility initiates and performs research and offers advice, and which also implemented a successful Shared Space project, completed some three years ago, right in front of the university. In this project, a typical busy access road became a pleasant campus square where buses, bicycles, pedestrians and motorists coexist in harmony. ‘The trend is that the traffic engineer with the rule book under his arm is no longer claiming the exclusive right to redesign the city centre space, but is choosing an approach that covers the full spectrum of interests,’ says Nota. He himself also works in Monderman-style Shared Space projects with governmental agencies, educational institutions, consulting firms, architects,

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local authorities, psychologists, social geographers and residents. ‘In his theory, road users are encouraged to pay more attention to each other,’ Nota explains. Monderman believed that as soon as you stop telling people what they can and can’t do (traffic behaviour), they instinctively learn what they should do (social behaviour). ‘Traffic becomes safer, and the severity of accidents decreases, once road supremacy is no longer claimed by the motorist,’ says Nota. ‘When the road belongs to everyone, people learn to pay attention to each other, and motorised traffic slows down all by itself. Speeds actually go down by an average of 40%.’ Monderman’s philosophy has now been implemented in some 150 locations in the Dutch provinces of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe. And Shared Space has also begun springing up elsewhere in the country. In other countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Belgium and Germany, Monderman’s vision has been embraced widely, as it has in the United Kingdom, with perhaps the most highly publicised Shared Space project the redevelopment of Kensington High Street in London. Then there is New York, where Monderman gave impassioned lectures on his theories of traffic. In 2005, he took New York Times reporter Sarah Lyall on a tour of Drachten, where Monderman launched one of his first and still best-known projects, the Laweiplein and the Drift/De Kaden junction. Lyall described this city centre junction as an anarchic jungle, but did immediately note that no one hooted their horns or yelled at Monderman when he simply strolled out onto the square into traffic, asking rhetorically, ‘Who has the right of way?’ He didn’t actually care. ‘People here have to find their own way, negotiate for themselves, use their own brains.’ In 2001, the Laweiplein and De Kaden were essentially the birthplace of Shared Space in Friesland. Monderman convinced policymakers, local authorities and residents to make De Kaden qualitatively more pleasant for all road users by taking away traffic lights, minimising the rules, lowering speeds and promoting traffic flow—all at a complicated junction at which a bus route and motorised traffic (up to 17,000 vehicles per day) enter the junction from three directions, with cyclists and pedestrians coming from four directions. The whole space became a

Space for People, Not for Cars

cobblestoned public square with no pavements. But the number of accidents did not decline, Nota’s research shows, primarily because the surrounding area and connecting routes were still under very traditional rules of the road. It was then that the local authorities began extending the approach to the surrounding area. Even more motorised traffic goes through the Laweiplein, some 22,000 vehicles a day. There, the Shared Space approach resulted in a roundabout with a green patch at its centre. The only road signs here seem to be light poles and the yield signs on the road. The results are impressive. Comparison of the period 2000–2008 and the period before the redesign shows that the number of accidents as well as the number of serious accidents has decreased by 50%. The flow of traffic has greatly improved. Previous spread: Drachten, a Dutch town in the northern province of Friesland, with a population of about 45,000, is a showcase for the Shared Space movement, with most city crossings redesigned by Hans Monderman. De Kaden, a central crossroad junction in a shopping centre of Drachten, features no traffic signals

The master plan for the redevelopment of the historic Sneek city centre involved the addition of a high-quality shopping and recreational area at the Prins Hendrikkade and Vismarkt junction. It created more room for pedestrians, cyclists, and those travelling by water, while rerouting traffic and improving traffic flow. Users nonetheless felt that the area had become less safe; this tension stems from their unfamiliarity with the concept, and is a commonly cited phenomenon in its application. Not everyone, it seems, is eager to embrace Monderman’s philosophy. As the saying goes, a prophet is without honour in his own country. Though much in demand as a pioneering expert in the field for over 25 years, at home Monderman often had the sense of being seen as eccentric or simply a troublemaker. The effects of Shared Space are still hotly debated in the field. Is it pie-in-the-sky, or does it really work? Local authorities worry about liability issues and are unwilling to be left with the feeling that they have not done everything possible to make their cities safe. The Directorate-General for Public Works is hesitant. Some projects, like the ones in Drachten and Haren, have been reversed in the face of political pressure and negative public image, to be replaced by the old familiar zebra crossings—because the residents subjectively report feeling less safe in the absence of traffic lights or crossings, even though objective research shows that removing them improves safety. In Haren, the number of accidents fell by 46%; the number of crash-related injuries by as much as 83%. Whatever the case, the fact that more places in this country and abroad are developing Shared Space projects is a positive sign. No doubt Monderman would have liked to have experienced them for himself while performing his favourite traffic safety test: walking backwards with his eyes shut across a busy crossing. And no, he didn’t die in the street, but in his bed.

and no traffic being given the right of way. In the seven years before the redesign of the junction 30 collisions were reported, including four involving injury. In the two years following the scheme there were only four collisions, and no injuries were recorded. Photo: Peter Biľak Top: The only traffic sign in the village

of Makkinga says ‘Verkeersbordvrij’ which translated as ‘free of traffic signs’. Makkinga was the first community to introduce the concept of Shared Space in 1998, and probably the only place in the world with a total absence of traffic signs, road markings, parking meters and pedestrian crossings. Photo: Peter Biľak

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AIMING TO REDUCE CLEANING COSTS British journalist Blake Evans-Pritchard usually covers international law, but travels widely and is well-acquainted with the Amsterdam airport urinals.

Urinals at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the Netherlandsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; main international airport, feature an etched image of a fly. According to Sphinx, the urinal manufacturer that provides the toilets for Schiphol, having the fly in the toilet represents savings in cleaning costs of 20% or more. Photo: Peter BiÄžak

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The picture of a fly in the urinals at Schiphol Airport has been touted as a simple, inexpensive way to reduce cleaning costs. Where does it come from, and how effective is it really?

There’s something of a surprise waiting at the bottom of the urinals in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport: an etched image of a fly. At first glance, one might be forgiven for thinking it real. Then one notices that all the urinals have one, and the fly is always in the same position, just above the urinal drain and off to the left. It turns out that men, in their urinal behaviour, cannot resist peeing on things, especially if they look as though they might wash away. As any mother—or for that matter longsuffering wife—will tell you, men often lack a certain precision when aiming into the toilet bowl. This is bad enough at home, but in public conveniences such male carelessness can be multiplied many times over. Urinal designers have been obsessed for decades with finding a solution to so-called ‘splashback’. There have been splashback screens that let urine in but not out, rubber floor mats, curiously shaped urinals in which the stream ricochets off concave walls into rather than out of the urinal, and ribbed urinals. But, according to Klaus Reichardt, who invented the waterless urinal and now runs a company that sells this technology, nothing works as effectively as getting men to aim in the right place. ‘Guys are simple-minded and love to play with their urine stream, so you put something in the toilet bowl and they’ll aim at that,’ says Reichardt. ‘It could be anything. I’ve seen a golf

flag, a bee, a little tree. It just happens that at Schiphol it’s a fly.’ It is Aad Kieboom who takes the credit for introducing the urinal fly into Schiphol Airport in the early 1990s, although he says the idea wasn’t his. ‘The idea came from a dear colleague of mine, Jos van Bedaf, manager of the cleaning department,’ says Kieboom, who at the time was in charge of terminal extensions and renovations. ‘It was such a neat idea that, once I was convinced, it was not difficult to get management on board.’ Van Bedaf himself got the idea from his time in the army in the 1960s, where he first came across small targets placed in the urinals. The choice of the fly is an interesting one. As Reichardt points out, it can conjure up images of something unsanitary—and indeed this is the first thought that enters the minds of many who encounter the Schiphol fly for the first time. However, Mike Friedberger, product director for chinaware at American Standard, which supplies fly-engraved urinals to JFK Terminal 4, also owned by the Schiphol Group, believes there could be a very good reason for the fly. ‘If it’s something that you consciously don’t like, you’re more likely to pee on it,’ he says. ‘If they had put a pretty butterfly or ladybug there, men might not aim directly at it. On the other hand, if you used an ugly-looking spider or a cockroach, people might be afraid of it and not even stand there. A fly seems to be a compro-

WTW #1 The urinal fly was introduced to Schiphol in the early 1990s, suggested by Jos van Bedaf, manager of the cleaning department. This photo was taken shortly before our photographer was arrested for taking pictures in the airport’s restrooms. Photo: Peter Biľak

mise: something that is universally disliked, but that doesn’t elicit fear and make people not want to stand there.’ Even positioning a company logo at the bottom of the bowl would work, although Friedberger points out that companies probably would not want to encourage people to urinate on their trademark. The University of Louisville in Kentucky has been particularly inventive in this respect—placing the emblem of the rival University of Kentucky at the bottom of the urinal in some of their changing rooms. The target in the bowl doesn’t even have to be an image, as Ortwin Reintjes, managing director of BR Waterless Solutions, which installs waterless urinals in Ireland, explains. ‘We don’t use the fly image in our urinals,’ he says. ‘However, if there is a problem with splashing, we advise our clients to place a small piece of wood—about the size of a cigarette butt—into the urinal. As men have the tendency to aim at the little piece of wood, the splashing is reduced significantly.’ Schiphol may have started with the fly, but it now seems to be experimenting with other designs. A recent visit to the airport revealed golf flags in some of the urinals instead. It is difficult to know for certain how much having a urinal target reduces cleaning needs. Some purveyors of this idea claim that it can reduce spillage by up to 80%, but Reichardt is sceptical. ‘As I have learnt over the past 25 years, bathroom behaviour can be really strange. Per-

haps 60–70% might start to pee towards the fly; the others probably wouldn’t care so much. I’d say the reduction in spillage is probably more like 50%, but even so, that is still noticeable.’ Sphinx, the urinal manufacturer that provides the toilets for Schiphol, says that having the fly in the toilet represents savings in cleaning costs of 20% or more. Schiphol is often cited as the source of studies done into spillage reduction, but it appears that no such studies have taken place. Kieboom says that he was certainly never aware of any scientific research done into the effects of the fly, and that the 80% figure was ‘very empirical’. In terms of cost savings, Kieboom estimates that they are probably closer to 8%, assuming that the 80% spillage reduction estimate is correct. ‘The total public toilet space [that needs cleaning] can be divided into about 20% general space, 40% for the gentlemen’s and 40% for the ladies’,’ he says. ‘Of that 40% for the men’s, only about 25% at most is reserved for urinals. The rest is for “closed” toilets, space for washing hands and general walking space to move around in. So for the urinals, you end up with only 10% of the total space of the public toilets. So in fact reducing spillage by 80% results in a saving of 8% of the total budget for cleaning public toilets.’ While the urinal fly has proved inspirational for countless people who first noticed it when travelling through Schiphol, the idea of giving men something to aim at is far older.

Aiming To Reduce Cleaning Costs

As early as 1976 Joel Kreiss, an inventor from New Jersey, registered a US patent for a bull’seye target to improve aim, noting that ‘parents, janitors, and others responsible for this cleanliness have often despaired [sic] the human male sloppiness of failing to direct urine into the proper receptacles’. Even further back, in 1954, inventor Rolph Henoch registered a patent for a complex device suspended over the toilet, which served as a target for young boys who were being trained ‘in the practice of not wetting the floor around the toilet bowl’. However, the most intriguing use of a urinal target is by the Victorians, dating back at least as far as the 1880s. Simon Kirby, owner and manager of Thomas Crapper, which manufactures period sanitary ware, is something of an expert on the use of toilets through the ages. Two old Victorian urinals stand outside his office door in Stratford-on-Avon, both embossed with a small bee. ‘The bee was put on as an unusually vulgar Victorian joke,’ he says. ‘The Latin for bee is apis. Victorian gentlemen would have been schooled in Latin and would have got this joke, which would be lost on us now. It’s quite rare for any humour to be applied to sanitary manufacturing, so I rather like this.’ Kieboom says that he was not previously aware of any of these ideas before putting forward the idea of the fly to Schiphol’s management. And nearly a quarter of a century after the first one being suggested, the idea still has the capacity to capture the popular imagination. ‘I worked for 31 years at Schiphol Airport,’ says Kieboom, ‘first in the operations department, then in charge of major projects like the Terminal Three building, a brand-new railway station incorporated within the terminal buildings, renovating Terminals One and Two and developing four new piers, being chairman of Schiphol’s fine arts committee. I did a lot for the JFK Terminal 4 project [in New York] and also a Top: A Victorian urinal target dating back at least as far as the 1880s features a bee. The Latin for bee is apis, a vulgar joke understandable to Victorian gentlemen, but almost certainly lost on 21st-century men. Photo courtesy of Thomas Crapper & Co.

lot of other foreign projects. And how will I be mainly remembered on the Internet? By the fly in the urinals!’ Kieboom is intrigued by the hype that the story has generated. He says that the version that still makes him smile is the one reported in Iceland. Rather than flies, the targets in the urinals were pictures of Icelandic bankers. This was around 2008, shortly after the country’s three main commercial banks had collapsed. Just about anything can be put at the bottom of the urinal to serve as a target, but psychologically it is much more effective to put something there that men want to pee on.

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British Respect

Photo: Fred Hoogervorst

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BRITISH RESPECT The story behind the enigmatic photo of a beached supertanker.

British Petroleum ordered the construction of this supertanker a year after the 1973 oil crisis. Having lost most of its direct access to crude oil sources in the Middle East, BP was looking to diversify its operations and commissioned Japanese shipyard Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd in SakaideÂ to build this VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier). Originally named British Respect, and operating under the UK flag, she was one of BPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest tankers, capable of holding over 2,000,000 barrels of oil, which is approximately the daily oil consumption of the United Kingdom today. Bob Bryne served on the ship as a radio officer in 1980. He was joined by his wife, and for the first month of their service they were anchored in Lyme Bay, UK, where they were frequently visited by their friends and family. They could enjoy parties on board most weekends, as well explore the coast in lifeboats. Not everyone had such a good time. Another former crew member who prefers to remain anonymous is trying to forget memories of his service as the ship was constructed using blue asbestos, a material known at the time to present serious health hazards. In 1986 British Respect was transferred to the Gibraltar registry, and in 1987, while docked off the coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf, she was bombed and set ablaze by Iraqi aircraft. In 1988 she returned to service and was re-registered in the Bahamas. In 1992 the 336-metre-long tanker was sold to Delos Maritime Corporation, a Greek company specialising in opportunistic vessel acquisition. Renamed Delos, the oil tanker operated for another seven years before it was decommissioned and sold for scrap. At that time, the average price of non-stainless-steel tankers for demolition was approximately $400 per ton, which at around 40,000 tons would put the value of the Delos over $16 million.

She arrived at Chittagong, Bangladesh in October 1999, a place infamous for its shipbreaking industry. Bangladesh is the number one ship demolisher in the world, dismantling around 150 ships a year. Salvaging the metal for scrap in Western countries costs more than the value of the scrap metal itself. In the developing world, however, shipyards operate with high health risks and low-paid workers, a practice condemned by international organisations and Western companies that use those ships. (PB) Top: On 29 April 1974, British Respect was launched by Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Sakaide, Japan. Photo courtesy of Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd. British Respect served all over the world. In 1983, for example, her route took her from the UK to Kharg Island (Iran), around the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) to St Lucia and St Croix (the Caribbean), down to Cayos Arcas (Gulf of Mexico), then to Bilbao (Spain) and through the Suez Canal to Dubai. Photo courtesy of Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd.

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EVIL PREVAILS WHEN GOOD MEN FAIL TO ACT Ralph Schraivogel spent four months crafting a poster design whose simplicity belies the intensive, meticulous work behind it.

The poster is probably the most direct graphic communication medium. Directness is the essence of the poster; good poster designers know that the poster is viewed for only a few seconds, competing for attention with visual noise and other posters. Therefore most posters are designed quickly, relying on eye-catching first ideas to get their message across efficiently. This poster by Ralph Schraivogel is an exception. It took four months to create this seemingly simple image. The starting point was the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass), a series of coordinated attacks conducted against Jews throughout Germany in November 1938 while the authorities looked on without intervening. To commemorate this tragedy, often described as the beginning of the Holocaust, German chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a powerful speech at a synagogue in Berlin. Immediately after the live broadcast Sacha Wigdorovits, Schraivogel’s long-time client, called to commission a poster inspired by Merkel’s address. The poster was to include a quote by the 18th-century Irish statesman Edmund Burke: ‘Evil prevails when good men fail to act.’ Schraivogel, who teaches at an art school, never throws away his sketches, drafts and rejected proposals. He believes that keeping them and showing them to students has educational value. As a result we have a rare opportunity to see the complete process of a poster’s creation, including the rejection of many versions that other artists might have settled for early on. Schraivogel worked slowly and methodically, exploring the typographic potential embedded in Burke’s quotation. Over 300 steps later Schraivogel arrived at the version that he believed was it. (PB)

WTW #1 PREVAILS WHEN GOOD MEN FAIL TO ACT

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DUTCH DESIGN An innovative project strengthens the Netherlandsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; seacoast while creating new recreational areas and a stable ecosystem.

The Netherlands is not only one of the most densely populated countries in the world, but because of its unique geography (half of its surface lies below sea level), it is also very vulnerable to flooding. A popular saying goes that God may have created the world, but the Netherlands was created by the Dutch. As proof, the Dutch can point to an entire province which consists entirely of land reclaimed from the sea, and a complex system of drain-ditches, dams, barriers, canals and pumping stations that keeps the country dry, habitable and arable. The unique situation of the Netherlands makes it especially sensitive to climate change. The rise in sea level caused by global warming has exacerbated coastal erosion, which necessitates continual reinforcement of the shoreline. Traditionally this has meant that beaches have to be replenished with fresh sand every three to five years, an expensive operation which also disrupts the ecosystem and forces it to redevelop every time. In 2011 an innovative alternative method of coastal protection was implemented by Rijkswaterstaat and the Province of South Holland in the area between Rotterdam and The Hague: 21.5 million cubic metres of sand was dumped into the North Sea all at once, creating the Zandmotor (Sand Engine), an artificial peninsula of 128 hectares, or 256 football fields. Within 20 years, if everything works as expected, the wind, waves and sea currents will evenly distribute the sand along the 20-kilometre stretch of coast, reinforcing the coastline and creating wider beaches and new recreational areas. Construction of the peninsula cost â&#x201A;Ź70 million, an investment that should make further sand replenishment unnecessary in this area for the next 20 years. An additional benefit is the creation of a stable local ecosystem. The Zandmotor has already become a popular destination for surfers and kite surfers.

From the top: 2011 After 10 years After 20 years

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Seals frequently visit the giant dune, and seaweed has covered the bottom of the new lagoon, creating a habitat for fish. Living below sea level requires a different way of thinking about how to live with the forces of nature. The Zandmotor is an important experiment in dynamic coastal management, and may become a model for similar projects along the Dutch coast as the weather becomes more erratic, and protection of the coastline becomes a matter of survival. This approach proves that the largest projects are best managed by working in harmony with nature, not against it. (PB)

21.5 million cubic metres of sand was dumped into the North Sea, creating the Zandmotor (Sand Engine), an artificial peninsula of 128 acres, or 256 football fields. Photo: Rijkswaterstaat / Joop van Houdt

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W W W. S U I T C A S E T Y P E . C O M

TH OB EN

NO. 26

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d b o o k

NO. 27

Admitting wrong is an act of the strong.

begin today.

NO. 28

Ca l l yo u r m ot h e r at l e ast o n C e a w e e k .

Being polite is never a fault.

NO. 29

Be a builder, not a destroyer.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d h e a v y i ta l i c

NO. 30

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d b o o k

Invest in good tools. Explore! I implore! Explore!

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d h e a v y i ta l i c

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d e x t r a b o l d i ta l i c

NO. 31

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d l i g h t

Forgive and forget.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d b l a c k i ta l i c

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d e x t r a b o l d i ta l i c

NO. 32

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d l i g h t

Keep a clean nose.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d b l a c k i ta l i c

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d b o l d i ta l i c

NO. 33

NO. 18 NO. 19 NO. 20

l at i n 5 1 2 b o l d i ta l i c

NO. 21

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d b o l d i ta l i c

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d t h i n

NO. 22

l at i n 5 1 2 e x t r a b o l d i ta l i c

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d t h i n

NO. 23

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d e x t r a b o l d i ta l i c

Never litter.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d e x t r at h i n

NO. 24

l at i n 5 1 2 h e a v y i ta l i c

Practice remembering.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d e x t r at h i n

NO. 25

B e a f r i e n d to t h e n ew k i d at s c h o o l .

NO. 10

NO. 09

l at i n 5 1 2 b o o k

Recycle everything.

NO. 11

NO. 08

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d b o o k

Look around.

NO. 12

NO. 07

l at i n 5 1 2 l i g h t

Be in the moment.

NO. 13

NO. 06

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d l i g h t

This is your hour, your day, your year.

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d h e a v y i ta l i c

NO. 14

NO. 05

l at i n 5 1 2 t h i n

Layer cLothing for activity in the coLd.

l at i n 5 1 2 b l a c k i ta l i c

NO. 15

NO. 04

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d t h i n

Harvest sHould find you tHin. Winter Will give you WeigHt.

Dine in. Volunteer. l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d b l a c k i ta l i c

NO. 16

NO. 03

l at i n 5 1 2 e x t r at h i n

Give to charity.

NO. 17

NO. 02

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d e x t r at h i n

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d b o l d i ta l i c

Spending money is not saving money.

you get one body. Eating hEalthy makEs your body run bEttEr.

Steer into a skid.

Rest. Rest. Rest. Less stuff is more life.

Do as much as you can. Relish the end of summer.

Judge for yourself. Clean up after yourself.

Put what you have before what you want.

8 1 p I e c e s o f u N s o l i c I t e d ad v i c e :

LATIN 512!

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d h e a v y

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d h e a v y

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d b l a c k

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d b l a c k

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d m e d i u m i ta l i c

Take a joke.

accidents happen.

R e s p ec t ag e and expeRience. Buy quality clothing and take good care of it.

NO. 73

Begin something new.

NO. 74

(Travelling farther broadens it more.)

NO. 75

Travel broadens the mind.

NO. 76

Start early.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d b o o k i ta l i c

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d l i g h t i ta l i c

NO. 77

If you’re out of your depth, hire a professional.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d b o o k i ta l i c

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d l i g h t i ta l i c

NO. 78

Never use your teeth to opeN aNythiNg.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d t h i n i ta l i c

NO. 79

Hydrate. Smile. Please. l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d m e d i u m i ta l i c

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d t h i n i ta l i c

NO. 80

“Working for yourself” is mostly work.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d d e m i b o l d i ta l i c

Embrace weather.

genius = idea + workⁿ Give others credit.

It’s about them. be an example.

Expect change.

NO. 70

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d e x t r a b o l d

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d d e m i b o l d i ta l i c

NO. 71

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d e x t r a b o l d

laTin512.com

NO. 72

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d b o l d

Invest in yourself before corporations.

Try

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d e x t r at h i n i ta l i c

NO. 81

K e e p yo u r mind clear.

NO. 58

Don’t mess with the wildlife in public parks.

NO. 59

Feed hope.

Check tire pressure before driving any great distance.

NO. 60

Nothing is nothing until it’s something.

NO. 61

Take it as it comes. Understand your needs.

NO. 62

l at i n 5 1 2 e x t r at h i n i ta l i c

Never skip breakfast.

NO. 63

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d e x t r at h i n i ta l i c

Laugh it up.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d b o l d

NO. 64

l at i n 5 1 2 t h i n i ta l i c

Less is more (except for libraries).

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d d e m i b o l d

NO. 65

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d t h i n i ta l i c

All you hAve to do is Ask.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d d e m i b o l d

NO. 66

l at i n 5 1 2 l i g h t i ta l i c

Bad news is best delivered as soon as possible.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d m e d i u m

NO. 67

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d l i g h t i ta l i c

Be interesting.

l at i n 5 1 2 c o m p r e s s e d m e d i u m

NO. 68

l at i n 5 1 2 b o o k i ta l i c

Never give aN eveN Number of flowers.

4 widths & 10 weights

from terminal design

NO. 69

NO. 46

l at i n 5 1 2 b l a c k

NO. 47

NO. 44

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d b l a c k

NO. 48

NO. 43

l at i n 5 1 2 h e a v y

(And AlwAys forgive the lAte.)

NO. 49

NO. 42

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d h e a v y

AlwAys be on time

NO. 50

NO. 41

l at i n 5 1 2 e x t r a b o l d

(it takes some Practice.)

NO. 51

NO. 40

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d e x t r a b o l d

Practice tolerance.

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d b o o k i ta l i c

NO. 52

NO. 39

l at i n 5 1 2 b o l d

Avoid speeding tickets and hangovers.

l at i n 5 1 2 m e d i u m i ta l i c

NO. 53

NO. 38

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d b o l d

Help others.

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d m e d i u m i ta l i c

NO. 54

NO. 37

l at i n 5 1 2 d e m i b o l d

Enter the new year with a clean house.

l at i n 5 1 2 d e m i b o l d i ta l i c

NO. 55

NO. 36

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d d e m i b o l d

Friends worth having are worth keeping.

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d d e m i b o l d i ta l i c

NO. 56

NO. 35

l at i n 5 1 2 m e d i u m

Learn when and h ow t o s ay “n o”.

NO. 57

NO. 34

l at i n 5 1 2 e x p a n d e d m e d i u m

NO. 45

a n e w t y p e fa m i l y

n O. 01

l at i n 5 1 2 c o n d e n s e d e x t r at h i n i ta l i c

A dull knife is a dangerous thing. Count your wealth least by money.

You don’t have to prove anything.

Take care of your own.

Have someone’s back.

Don’t drive buzzed.

Pull your weight.

Keep at it.

SOCIAL DISTRIBUTION Works That Work wants to examine often ignored areas of design. In the spirit of this aim, we also intend to bypass traditional distribution networks which typically take the largest part of the cover price, as well as control where the publication will be sold and at what price. Instead we would like to deepen our relationships with our readers, and make them partners in this enterprise. We call this social distribution.

HOW IT WORKS A Works That Work reader based, for example, in Buenos Aires, knows a lovely bookstore in his town that could be a good place to sell the magazine. He first contacts the bookstore, and if they are interested, he then contacts WTW to inform us of the potential distribution location. The next time that he or one of his friends travels to one of our magazine hubs* he visits our office and buys copies of the magazine at a 50% discount, paying up front. He in turn sells the magazines to the bookstore. Bookstores generally buy magazines at 60–75% of the cover price, so the reader’s profit is 10–25% of the cover price, depending on how he negotiates with the store. He sends information about the store (including a photo) to WTW, and we publish it on our website, driving other potential readers to the store. This distribution process supports local bookstores, involves readers as partners and agents of the magazine, ensures that all the parties get paid, and frees us up to focus on what we do best: publishing the magazine.

CONDITIONS — The minimum order is 7 copies. — The Reader/Distributor negotiates terms with the Bookstore. — The Reader/Distributor pays the Publisher when picking up the magazines. — The Publisher gives the Reader/ Distributor a 50% discount. — The Reader/Distributor arranges transport of the magazines.

— The Bookstore agrees to sell it for a fixed price set by the Publisher. — The Reader/Distributor provides details of the store to the Publisher. — The Reader/Distributor invoices the Bookstore directly. — The Publisher promotes the Bookstore on its website and social media.

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