Things I learned from Paul Rand: 26 – Rearranger
Here is a quick story I want to share, about one of Paul Rand’s many quirks he had.
All About the Aesthetics
Inviting Paul Rand to your home was a risk — more often than not, he couldn’t tolerate how your space was arranged.
For example, I was once at my friend Robin’s house and we were just trying to have a nice relaxing time hanging out with Paul. But within a matter of minutes, Paul became really irritated with the way the furniture was arranged in the living room, where we were sitting. Next thing, he made us move all the furniture around: the sofas, chairs, tables, side tables, the lamps, … everything. It was quite laborious.
We must have spent at least an hour moving things around while Paul directed us, until he was finally happy with the new arrangement. Only then, he was able to enjoy some conversation with us. He just couldn’t sit another moment in a space he couldn’t visually approve.
We found out later that this was something Paul Rand was known to do. He was quite a menace at people’s homes, and sometimes offices. I think he felt it was his duty to guide people to make their environments more beautiful.
However, one of the issues was, he only made these decisions on what he thought was aesthetically pleasing. Paul himself wasn’t a big TV watcher, for example. So he would push the TV all the way to the side, instead of being the center of the living room.
In this case, I remember right after Paul left, Robin put all the furniture back the way she had it before.