blakegopnik:

THE DAILY PIC (#1349): This lovely
1937 blender was conceived by designer Peter Muller-Munk shortly after
he set up shop in Pittsburgh. It will appear in the Muller-Munk survey that launches Nov. 21 at the Carnegie Museum of Art in that town, and that I just covered (briefly) in the New York Times.

What
interests me about this object, in particular, is the one tiny,
spinning blade that we can just make out at its center. It made me
realize how very basic the demands of function can be in design (a
blender just needs a blade and a tube for it to spin in) and how little
they really condition the look of a thing.

The idea that function
and form are or need to be closely related is probably mostly myth;
every designer, no matter how functionalist, has vast latitude in the
look that he or she gives to an object.

Muller-Munk’s “Blendor,
Model B” comes at a lovely moment when decoration and use are in
particular tension: The appliance’s roots in Art Deco ornament are
perfectly clear, but so are its leanings toward the machine-age
esthetics of the new, streamlined “Moderne” style. Whether it matters or
not to how we blend drinks, Muller-Munk’s piece looks like it would
pass any wind-tunnel test. (Private collection; photo, Dallas Museum of Art)

The Daily Pic also appears at ArtnetNews.com. For a full survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.