Justin McGuirk
Selected writing 2005 – 2015
  • About
  • Category
  • Title
  • Publication
  • Year
  • Reviews
  • Philips shaver
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  • 2008
Justin McGuirk
Selected writing 2005 – 2015
  • Philips shaver

I was born to test razors. My stubble has the kind of potential that would make a mullah weep with envy. In testing the new Philips Arcitec, I’m not the crash test dummy, I’m the wall. So will this be a case of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object?

Before we find out, what’s in a name? Like “design”– sweepingly appropriated by big business and government bureaucrats alike – “architect” is a popular word these days. More importantly, it’s bankable. It conveys coolness with a touch of gravitas. Try misspelling it in Google and you’ll find all manner of products: computer software, chopping boards, bathroom sinks… a urinal.

But why would you want an architect to slice off your bristles? Is it the creative ingenuity, the attention to detail, the reassuring expensiveness? Or is it just that, like an architect, a shaver may burn you but is unlikely to draw blood?

The electric shaver is the marketeer’s dream. In terms of product development, the wet razor has reached the point where the only thing left to do to it is screw it up – although I daresay the Solaris, a solar-powered prototype with seven blades, is already being passed around the Gillette boardroom table. By contrast, the electric shaver, a piece of – hushed whisper – “technology”, exists in a state of perpetual evolution.

The Arcitec has come a long way from Dieter Rams’ Sixtant shaver for Braun of 1962. That had the pleasing simplicity of a fat iPod. Its Bauhaus-inspired form-follows-function boxiness represented the technical apogee of the moment. In contrast, the Arcitec’s “ergonomic” body has a touch of Art Deco streamlining. The brushed steel and matt-black rubber are as lovingly sculpted as a Brancusi bird, while its three flexing and pivoting heads and LED display announce that this is a sophisticated piece of machinery. In fact, it looks like it could be a light sabre with the safety catch on.

So what’s changed since the days of Rams? Quite simply the notion of function itself. Thanks to advertising, men’s faces become more sensitive every year – they’ve become contoured landscapes surfaced with society’s most valuable material: perfect skin. Our faces need more function, not less. We don’t want Rams’ universality, we want the specific – or, wherever possible, the bespoke. And so a gizmo’s form has, however subtly, to convey a sense of technical wizardry. By all means hide the mechanics but let it be known that Nobel-winning scientists have laboured over them.

So does this marvel of modern engineering work? Does it bollocks. But, then, none of them do – not on my landscape, anyway. To be fair, the first time I used it I’d made the critical mistake of letting the stubble get too long. No matter how hard I went at it, I couldn’t remove the last shreds of what was now a very patchy beard. I looked like I had radiation sickness, so I finished with a wet shave. The next time I fared better, but the Arcitec still couldn’t come to terms with the area under my jaw. I had a wet shave for dessert.

Shame. It looks like it should work. It even sounds like it should work – a screech of knives sharpening, reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s alien in its death throes. But even assuming it works for less hirsute gentlemen, they’d need to clear some room in their life for this gadget. Not just room on the shelf – since it comes with a docking station that automatically lowers it into a vat of cleaning fluid, and a coffin-like Power Pod for travelling, which alone is bigger than most sponge bags – but also in the diary, since the Arcitec requires almost as much maintenance as a car. With all the charging, cleaning and replacing of cleaning fluid, it’s easy to imagine how your life might start to revolve around this machine. Maybe this is why every young man about town is sporting a doormat on his face.

Justin McGuirk
Selected writing 2005 – 2015
  • Category
  • Title
  • Publication
  • Year
  • Architecture Activist architects Al Jazeera 2014
  • Architecture Djenné’s mud mosque Icon 2010
  • Architecture Honeywell, I’m home! e-flux journal 2015
  • Architecture Maison Dom-ino Dezeen 2014
  • Architecture PREVI, Lima Domus 2011
  • Architecture Revolutionary housing in Argentina Domus 2011
  • Architecture Robin Hood Gardens SQM 2014
  • Architecture The Base, Chocó Nuevotopias 2013
  • Architecture The High Line Icon 2009
  • Architecture Walter Benjamin puts activists to shame? Here 2013
  • Cities Beirut Icon 2006
  • Cities DIY cities (the limitations) Uncube 2014
  • Cities Edge City (São Paulo) Strelka Press 2012
  • Cities How radical is Radical Urbanism? Catalogue 2015
  • Cities Istanbul Icon 2010
  • Cities Jenin Icon 2005
  • Cities Life on the edge Moscow Urban Forum 2013
  • Cities Seoul Condé Nast Traveller 2012
  • Cities Shenzhen Icon 2008
  • Cities Unreal estate (London) Domus 2012
  • Cities Urban commons The Guardian 2015
  • Design Adventure gear The Guardian 2010
  • Design Beneath the street, the wilderness: Occupy and Bear Grylls Here 2012
  • Design Craft fetishism The Guardian 2011
  • Design Craft fetishism: From objects to things Disegno 2012
  • Design Design and the Right Domus 2013
  • Design Design and violence Dezeen 2013
  • Design Dreaming of year zero Bio 50 2014
  • Design Fabbers, dabblers and microstars Icon 2009
  • Design London riots The Guardian 2011
  • Design Luxury watch culture The Guardian 2010
  • Design Milan’s PR economy The Guardian 2011
  • Design On William Gibson on design Dezeen 2014
  • Design Open design Dezeen 2014
  • Design Samsung vs Apple Domus 2013
  • Design The internet of broken things Dezeen 2014
  • Design The post-spectacular economy Van Abbemuseum 2011
  • Design Ultramundane Domus 2013
  • People Alejandro Aravena Icon 2009
  • People Do Ho Suh Icon 2008
  • People Enzo Mari Icon 2009
  • People Ettore Sottsass Icon 2007
  • People Francis Kere Icon 2010
  • People Richard Sapper Domus 2013
  • Reviews Cool Tools by Kevin Kelly Dezeen 2014
  • Reviews Hearts of the City by Herbert Muschamp Icon 2010
  • Reviews Latin America in Construction at MoMA Architectural Record 2015
  • Reviews Mad Max: Fury Road Dezeen 2015
  • Reviews Max Bill Icon 2010
  • Reviews Philips shaver Icon 2008
  • Reviews Postmodernism at the V&A The Guardian 2010
  • Reviews Rebel Cities by David Harvey Art Review 2012
  • Reviews The Craftsman by Richard Sennett Icon 2008
  • Reviews The Historical Museum, Sarajevo The Guardian 2011
  • Reviews Together by Richard Sennett Art Review 2012
Justin McGuirk
Selected writing 2005 – 2015
  • Reviews
  • Philips shaver
  • Icon
  • 2008
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I was born to test razors. My stubble has the kind of potential that would make a mullah weep with envy. In testing the new Philips Arcitec, I’m not the crash test dummy, I’m the wall. So will this be a case of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object?

Before we find out, what’s in a name? Like “design”– sweepingly appropriated by big business and government bureaucrats alike – “architect” is a popular word these days. More importantly, it’s bankable. It conveys coolness with a touch of gravitas. Try misspelling it in Google and you’ll find all manner of products: computer software, chopping boards, bathroom sinks… a urinal.

But why would you want an architect to slice off your bristles? Is it the creative ingenuity, the attention to detail, the reassuring expensiveness? Or is it just that, like an architect, a shaver may burn you but is unlikely to draw blood?

The electric shaver is the marketeer’s dream. In terms of product development, the wet razor has reached the point where the only thing left to do to it is screw it up – although I daresay the Solaris, a solar-powered prototype with seven blades, is already being passed around the Gillette boardroom table. By contrast, the electric shaver, a piece of – hushed whisper – “technology”, exists in a state of perpetual evolution.

The Arcitec has come a long way from Dieter Rams’ Sixtant shaver for Braun of 1962. That had the pleasing simplicity of a fat iPod. Its Bauhaus-inspired form-follows-function boxiness represented the technical apogee of the moment. In contrast, the Arcitec’s “ergonomic” body has a touch of Art Deco streamlining. The brushed steel and matt-black rubber are as lovingly sculpted as a Brancusi bird, while its three flexing and pivoting heads and LED display announce that this is a sophisticated piece of machinery. In fact, it looks like it could be a light sabre with the safety catch on.

So what’s changed since the days of Rams? Quite simply the notion of function itself. Thanks to advertising, men’s faces become more sensitive every year – they’ve become contoured landscapes surfaced with society’s most valuable material: perfect skin. Our faces need more function, not less. We don’t want Rams’ universality, we want the specific – or, wherever possible, the bespoke. And so a gizmo’s form has, however subtly, to convey a sense of technical wizardry. By all means hide the mechanics but let it be known that Nobel-winning scientists have laboured over them.

So does this marvel of modern engineering work? Does it bollocks. But, then, none of them do – not on my landscape, anyway. To be fair, the first time I used it I’d made the critical mistake of letting the stubble get too long. No matter how hard I went at it, I couldn’t remove the last shreds of what was now a very patchy beard. I looked like I had radiation sickness, so I finished with a wet shave. The next time I fared better, but the Arcitec still couldn’t come to terms with the area under my jaw. I had a wet shave for dessert.

Shame. It looks like it should work. It even sounds like it should work – a screech of knives sharpening, reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s alien in its death throes. But even assuming it works for less hirsute gentlemen, they’d need to clear some room in their life for this gadget. Not just room on the shelf – since it comes with a docking station that automatically lowers it into a vat of cleaning fluid, and a coffin-like Power Pod for travelling, which alone is bigger than most sponge bags – but also in the diary, since the Arcitec requires almost as much maintenance as a car. With all the charging, cleaning and replacing of cleaning fluid, it’s easy to imagine how your life might start to revolve around this machine. Maybe this is why every young man about town is sporting a doormat on his face.

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