Based Upon My School
Jimmy St. James
Based Upon’s unique metalizing process captures every mark and personal history of this rarified school desk. A limited edition piece that comments on the boundaries of public and private property.
Date of Design
2005
Size
711 mm L, 584 mm W, 610 mm H
Material
Timber, aluminium
Edition
12
BASED UPON MY SCHOOL is a simple yet evocative proposition. The desk has the character and markings of a typical British school desk, complete with engravings, graffiti and chewing gum, but in metal. The London based firm of Based Upon creates unique and wondrous interiors for clients such as Madonna, Nobu and Candy & Candy, their craft skills and unique preparatory metal coating process are sought the world over by the leading architectural and interior firms.
In Based Upon my School we are taken back to a place of childhood innocence… our first desires to own, to mark out something as ours: my peg, my locker, my desk…and because it has been transformed into something beautiful we find ourselves wanting to own it again. THIS IS MINE! But the desk is owned temporarily, one period, one term, one year, one examination. We can never own the desk. The desk is more permanent than we are. When we are gone the desk remains and is alive again in the hands of another child, who approaches it with the same territorial vigour that we did. He sees the marks left by others, but he cares not for them, these past would-be masters who failed where he will now succeed. I will own the desk! It is mine! In sympathy to all those who lost, Jimmy offers us the chance to own our very OWN desk.
Recent Press
December 2005, I.D.
October 2005, World of Interiors
August 2005, Dove