Re: [VAC] NYTimes coverage (full article)

[Toby Folwick <toby_folwick@xxxxxxxxx>]

An Accidental Icon of American Pop
By PHILIP NOBEL

 
The Airstream has moved from the popular and
functional family tool advertised in a 1964 brochure,
to a nostalgic Pop accessory. 
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Of all the things that roll down American highways,
few are as strange and perfect as the Airstream, the
R.V. for the Atomic Age. Produced since 1952 at a
factory in Jackson Center, Ohio, the cylindrical,
self-contained Airstream "land yacht" has become a
middle-American answer to luxury on the high seas. By
the 1960's, the distinctive trailers were available in
a range of models, from the little bubble of the
18-foot Bambi to the 30-foot Sovereign Double, an
airship for the road. At one time or another, every
corner of the country, much of the world, and
countless envious gawkers have been reflected in the
Airstream's shining aluminum skin. 

The popular interest in Airstreams is such that
Airstreamers, as the owners call themselves, have
cooked up a term -- "trailer tappers" -- to describe
those who buttonhole them on their travels. But what
do the curious ask when they knock on the door? Does
it get hot in there? What happens when it hails? Maybe
they want to poke around inside to see the nautical
details, the berths, the ship's galley, the marine
toilet, the portholes. Do they ask who designed it?
Probably not; that would be like asking who designed
the Interstate. 

Until recently, the Airstream has led a quiet life,
loved by the cult of its owners who gather by the
thousands to park in radiating "wagon wheels" at
annual rallies or who caravan in comfort to
hardscrabble destinations. The caravan tradition began
with the the father of the Airstream and the company's
founder, Wally Byam, who led Airstreams on dozens of
goodwill missions overseas, including a 34,000-mile
trip through Asia and Europe in 1964. Following Byam's
lead, Airstream owners -- weekenders, retirees and a
core of "full-timers" -- have continued this quirky
community, carrying on as a kind of folk tradition
well outside the public gaze. 

At the most recent rally, near Bismarck, N.D., this
month, 2,000 Airstreams gathered under the auspices of
the Wally Byam Caravan Club International. Since the
1980's, Airstream has only produced what purists call
"squarestreams," blunt but still shiny approximations
of the old models. At the Bismarck rally, most of the
trailers were these clunkier, post-streamlined
designs, but the presence of a devoted minority of
classic Airstream enthusiasts, members of the rival
Vintage Airstream Club, attests to the growing
popularity of the older models. 

The splinter club formed in 1994, around the time that
designers and consumers began to rush in numbers to
all things mid-century. As curiosity became a
full-blown design revival, Airstream's happy obscurity
eroded. The revival announced itself, as so many do,
in an embrace by Hollywood. On the screen, Tim Burton
(owner of three vintage trailers) pitted alien flying
saucers against earthling Airstreams in his 1996
comedy "Mars Attacks!" And on the ground, just as
free-form modern homes by John Lautner are being
snapped up by young stars, an Airstream in the
driveway has become another kitschy status symbol: a
few Eames chairs scattered around, some period
Formica, a 1963 Airstream Bambi parked out back for
the guests. 

The shelter and lifestyle magazines picked up on the
trend, paving the way for Airstream chic. An issue of
Flaunt included a pop-up Airstream, presumably as a
kind of tiki for the road-deprived urbanite. Even
Manhattan has its token Airstream, a vintage 20-footer
used as a projection booth for summer movies in Bryant
Park. In May, Wilsonart, the laminate company, parked
a trailer at the Javits Center to show off an updated
interior concept they hope to sell to Airstream Inc. 

Now, at last, there is a book for the armchair
Airstreamer, "Airstream: The History of the Land
Yacht" ($19.95), written by Bryan Burkhart, a graphic
designer and owner of a vintage Airstream, and David
Hunt, a New York-based art critic. It was published
this year by Chronicle Books of San Francisco, a house
known as a leader in repackaging retro styles for
contemporary consumption; the book takes its place on
the backlist not far from "Patio Daddy-O: 50's Recipes
With a 90's twist." 

What happens to a design when it goes from popular to
Pop? The Airstream can survive a gloss of nostalgia,
but it may not fare so well with that late, late 90's
twist: seeing it as a fashion statement, an accessory,
not a tool. There is something unfortunate about
glamorizing this thing, which was meant to be used, to
be bashed about, hitched to the family truck and towed
to Lake Victoria. For Byam, function ruled; he once
said of the Airstream, "Let's not make any changes --
let's make only improvements." 

That aversion to styling is what made the Airstream so
good. If you parse the design, as the authors of
"Airstream" did, you'll find Pan Am seaplanes, old
Chryslers and fast trains, a hint of the Dymaxion
House, maybe a touch of Roswell, certainly a big dose
of the American passion for ameliorative gadgetry that
achieved such unusual elegance in the functional
designs of the fetishized 1950's. But, as Mr. Burkhart
said recently: "It's all accidental. There was no way
Wally knew Buckminster Fuller." It's not fashion or
its opposite, naïveté: dedicated problem-solving made
the Airstream that rare and wonderful and fragile
thing, a genuine American design icon: purpose-built,
frankly eccentric, infectiously optimistic; branded,
but stubbornly anonymous. 

Philip Nobel is a columnist and contributing editor
for the design magazine Metropolis.