Berlin: vintage metal-box neon
I’m not sure what attracts me to these metal box signs. Perhaps it’s their bulky physical presence, the seams, the dents, the peeling paint, the dirt — or the simple fact that they were crafted by hand. An internal backlash to years of staring at 2-dimensional representations of mathematical constructs?
Yeah, I think that might be it.
The stylish typefaces have a little something to do with it too, of course — but I think the bottom line is the odd klutzy gracefulness dictated by the limitations of tin and glass. These signs are firmly rooted in (to use a phrase I coined to communicate with my head-dwelling intellectual Lady Friend) “the World of Objects”.
I see them all over Berlin. Bookstores, flower shops, camera stores — they all seem to have been installed in the middle part of the last century, and since they appear on East and West sides of the city, perhaps they predate the Wall. Whether they’re a German or even European phenomenon I can’t say — being in a foreign country cranks up the brain’s Noticing Engine, so perhaps they’re all over the US, too.
Whatever. I’m enjoying it for its own sake … typography not only made flesh, but glowing!
