kitchens, both in magazines and in people’s homes, and this immersion had set something in motion: she deconstructed them into their myriad components—black-coral quartz countertops, Philippe Starck brushed nickel faucets, Next Generation refrigerators, ironic plywood, AGA stoves, Brazilian rosewood cabinets—and then into an almost Foucaultian exploration of their meaning, a maze of signifiers and collapsing semiotics. And it was into this particular and somewhat European moment that Fassblut appeared. She had gotten his name from a woman in her book club who swore he was a genius, and said he had reinvented not just the kitchen but the idea of the kitchen.
“I think we’d like pot lights,” Gladys said. “Something subtle that disappears, almost.”
Fassblut nodded and looked up at the track lighting that had looked modern only sixteen years earlier and now looked like shag carpet. He took two short steps and stood in front of the refrigerator, a wheezing nineteen-year-old Troublefree Frosty.
“The refrigerator, of course, will go,” Gladys said.
“Stand here,” Fassblut said, gently guiding Gladys to a spot at the centre of the room, the place she wanted a butcher’s block island.
“Here?”
“A bit this way.” Nudging her slightly.
Gladys stood as if waiting for a photograph to be taken.
“The spacing of the geometry so often ignores the human.”
This seemed to comfort Gladys. She wanted something singular and arresting, yet ultimately functional. And she didn’twant it to be too cold. She wanted hints of Mediterranean warmth. Maybe a playful colour in the backsplash. Their orange Le Creuset cookware on display.
“There’s something in a magazine I’d like to show you,” Gladys said. “It’s not what I want this kitchen to be, but I think it caught something that I’m trying to do.” She fetched the magazine and Fassblut ignored it.
Fassblut stared at their erratic DesignerStyle dishwasher. “There is the unspoken aesthetic that haunts,” he said. “The animals that are unmourned on our plates. Of course, blood is the ritual, but not the result. You need transcendence. Look at Formica. It took the American kitchen into gleaming servitude. It constituted a mystery of ignorance that fed the masses.”
“We had Formica in our kitchen when I was young,” Gladys said hopefully.
Fassblut said, “Every kitchen is filled with death.”
A week later a courier dropped off Fassblut’s drawings. The epic counter was, in fact, Formica, a classic white with tiny squares of black and beige sprinkled on it. In the centre of the kitchen, where Gladys had wanted her island, there was a single block of wood, a piece of redwood that was seven feet long, three feet high and three feet wide (and cost $11,600). It was symbolic, an altar. Untreated, the exposed wood would absorb blood and juices, and it would be “a testament to both life and death [and bacteria] under this roof and a living portrait of all that sustained the Salt [sic] family.” This was in the short essay attached to Fassblut’s $83,000 estimate.
In the end, he settled for a $4,000 kill fee.
Harry later discovered that Fassblut’s entire career was built on unconstructed kitchens, bathrooms, houses and buildings. None of his designs were built: not his windowless corrugated-tin farmhouse that was a rejection of the pastoral myth;nor his stainless steel bathroom that was a witty take on the hygienic fallacy; nor his suburban sod huts made of living grass (“the breath of conformity transposes content into history”). And especially not the synagogue that was to be built entirely below grade, the only evidence of its existence a massive twenty-foot periscope sitting on a spacious, otherwise empty gravel site (“a stone witness that weeps for all antinomies”). The name of the synagogue was to be spray-painted onto the gravel and remain subject to wind, rain and snow. And for all this, Fassblut was well paid.
In the end,
“I think we’d like pot lights,” Gladys said. “Something subtle that disappears, almost.”
Fassblut nodded and looked up at the track lighting that had looked modern only sixteen years earlier and now looked like shag carpet. He took two short steps and stood in front of the refrigerator, a wheezing nineteen-year-old Troublefree Frosty.
“The refrigerator, of course, will go,” Gladys said.
“Stand here,” Fassblut said, gently guiding Gladys to a spot at the centre of the room, the place she wanted a butcher’s block island.
“Here?”
“A bit this way.” Nudging her slightly.
Gladys stood as if waiting for a photograph to be taken.
“The spacing of the geometry so often ignores the human.”
This seemed to comfort Gladys. She wanted something singular and arresting, yet ultimately functional. And she didn’twant it to be too cold. She wanted hints of Mediterranean warmth. Maybe a playful colour in the backsplash. Their orange Le Creuset cookware on display.
“There’s something in a magazine I’d like to show you,” Gladys said. “It’s not what I want this kitchen to be, but I think it caught something that I’m trying to do.” She fetched the magazine and Fassblut ignored it.
Fassblut stared at their erratic DesignerStyle dishwasher. “There is the unspoken aesthetic that haunts,” he said. “The animals that are unmourned on our plates. Of course, blood is the ritual, but not the result. You need transcendence. Look at Formica. It took the American kitchen into gleaming servitude. It constituted a mystery of ignorance that fed the masses.”
“We had Formica in our kitchen when I was young,” Gladys said hopefully.
Fassblut said, “Every kitchen is filled with death.”
A week later a courier dropped off Fassblut’s drawings. The epic counter was, in fact, Formica, a classic white with tiny squares of black and beige sprinkled on it. In the centre of the kitchen, where Gladys had wanted her island, there was a single block of wood, a piece of redwood that was seven feet long, three feet high and three feet wide (and cost $11,600). It was symbolic, an altar. Untreated, the exposed wood would absorb blood and juices, and it would be “a testament to both life and death [and bacteria] under this roof and a living portrait of all that sustained the Salt [sic] family.” This was in the short essay attached to Fassblut’s $83,000 estimate.
In the end, he settled for a $4,000 kill fee.
Harry later discovered that Fassblut’s entire career was built on unconstructed kitchens, bathrooms, houses and buildings. None of his designs were built: not his windowless corrugated-tin farmhouse that was a rejection of the pastoral myth;nor his stainless steel bathroom that was a witty take on the hygienic fallacy; nor his suburban sod huts made of living grass (“the breath of conformity transposes content into history”). And especially not the synagogue that was to be built entirely below grade, the only evidence of its existence a massive twenty-foot periscope sitting on a spacious, otherwise empty gravel site (“a stone witness that weeps for all antinomies”). The name of the synagogue was to be spray-painted onto the gravel and remain subject to wind, rain and snow. And for all this, Fassblut was well paid.
In the end,
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