Thomas Eickhoff: Designer
A few days ago I was able to interview Minneapolis designer Thomas Eickhoff. We met at the International Market Square or otherwise called, IMS.
The square contains four old warehouse and factory buildings now connected by a large roof which creates a courtyard beneath. As one walks around the courtyard connecting each of the old buildings they can access over 1500 manufactures in 70 plus show rooms. There are textiles from around the world, one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture, art galleries, kitchen showrooms, stone work, and you name it. You can shop for your home or corporation, but you must shop with a designer. It is here, in the courtyard restaurant, that we conduct our interview.
VAF: What is attractive about this place?
Tom: It is a necessity on one side because it is where I meet people to do my work. I take clients here to make selections and put designs together. But it is also a place of beauty. Design is about beauty…I take things that other people have created and take them to the next level and put those things together to create something even a step above what they were individually. This is where I shop.
VAF: Is there anything that you do not like about IMS?
Tom: There is a consumer culture here that promotes giving oneself to things…more is better. Who you are is often defined by what you have. I can relate, but my own life is often very different.
VAF: What do you mean? How do you see yourself contrasting this culture?
Tom: My house is how it has always been. I have never done anything with the house other than tear things apart. Not necessarily that I wouldn’t want to, but I’ve always ended up doing other things instead. When I get some money, instead of doing things on my house, I go to Russia or The Gulf after a hurricane. So basically, it is trying to live on a certain level of income rather than raising my standard of living as income goes up.
VAF: So you live more modestly than many of your clients.
Tom: Yes, I don’t take clients to my house. I don’t want them to think that is what they are going to get.
VAF: You said that you take trips to Russia. How did that come about?
Tom: In sixth grade I saw a movie. From that I was convinced that God wanted me to be a missionary. But in sixth grade that meant going to Africa and I didn’t want to go to Africa. Later when I thought about it I didn’t want to go be a missionary as a missionary. I wanted to go with a career. I’d given up on missions for quite a while and then the opportunity came to go to Russia. When I was over there I connected with all the architects and designers.
I ended up registering my design firm in Russia. To get visas I would write an invitation inviting myself to come to Russia. I’d go without being anything but who I am. I’d go as a designer. People who go as a full time missionary have to figure out ways to connect with people. Swarms of people don’t come to your door because you say that you are a missionary.
VAF: Is it ever difficult to integrate your faith with your work?
Tom: Unfortunately, some times beautiful things cost a lot of money. It’s hard when you present to a client a table for $4,000, just a little end table, and say “this would be a great design for your home” and you think, we could buy something for $500 and use $3,500 to feed poor children in Africa.
But it’s also not that simple. Does God really want a world designed by Wal-Mart? Would children in Africa actually get fed more if I told clients they should spend $500 on a mediocre design instead of $4,000 on the great one?
What I can do is live as I feel God has called me personally to live and let God use that in whatever way and with whomever God chooses.
VAF: You have Parkinson’s. How has that changed you?
Tom: It has made me more realistic about life and death. It has given me a better perspective I think…not living in the false world that we can ignore death along with the frailty of life and how we really don’t have control over those things. I have probably been more purposeful each day in realizing that today is the healthiest day of the rest of my life. The chance that I have until I am 90 to do the things I want to do is not there. I need to pack more stuff in each day. I have a ‘to do’ list already that I am not going to get done before I die. I am going to go to heaven with a ‘to do’ list.
VAF: What is your interest in Via Affirmativa?
Tom: It connects with who I am as a designer. It is nice being around a lot of like-thinking people. My sense in working with churches is that there is a huge pull away from beauty—partly because most people associate beauty with money, with the costs.
I volunteered to help with a church project and in the first meeting that I went to the chairman turns to the architect and says, “is this needed or is this just aesthetics?” That sent a chill up my spine. Just aesthetics? What do you mean ‘just aesthetics’?
Why does humanity need different colored eyes and to have hair with different textures? Did the Zebra need its stripes? You take all the aesthetics out of it and what do you have? I think believers should have the most appreciation for things beautiful and for the arts.
*You can view more of Thomas Eickhoff’s thought and work at his blog by clicking here.
March 15th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Tom
Thanks for sharing your heart so openly. It is interesting to hear how you see design. I have a question. When you speak of great design is that different than addressing my sense of aesthetics regarding a product?
Gary
March 17th, 2007 at 2:28 am
Gary,
Aesthetics is just one aspect of design. For a design to be a good or great design, it must have balance three essential components - aesthetics, function, and cost. Or to put it in a familiar vocabulary, form follows function follows finances. This is one of the key differences between design and the fine arts.
Take the 4,000.00 dollar table - the aesthetics have to be very good to warrant the 4,000 price tag. If the aesthetics are only worth 500.00 but it cost 4000.00 to produce, its a poor design. If the aesthestics are such that people will pay 4000.00 for it and it cost 500.00 to produce, you not only have a great design, you have a profitable one. In design, the aesthetics have to work with the costs.
The aesthetics also have to work with the function. It doesn’t matter if the table has great aesthetics if its legs don’t support it. It also doesn’t matter how much it costs if the legs are different lengths with the result that things placed on the table slide off. No one is going to pay anything for a table that doesn’t work, that doesn’t perform the function it is intended to perform.
Thus, in design, it is the bringing together of these three elements - form, function, and finances - that make for great design. It is why one can find great design not only at an exclusive design center, but also at a Target store.
March 20th, 2007 at 5:11 am
Tom,
I’ve often wondered about “church” and the aparent disregard or lose of interest in any aesthetics in the buildings that they tend to meet in. I’d be interested to know (in light of your comments on feeding children/ trips to Russia/ etc) how you view this idea of Aesthetics, function, and cost with the building or use of a venue/meeting place for like minded folowers of Jesus?
March 24th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Wow! You went straight to the heart of one of my biggest struggles. I’m not sure I have an answer yet and if I did, it would probably not fit on a blog response. The piece I wrote in my blog called “Is Beauty Needed” is a response to designing for an evangelical church and the question of beauty - ( http://theartofdesign.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/is-beauty-needed/ )
In short, I don’t have the answer yet, but I’m looking. Here is where I’m at in my pursuit - both the questions and few answers:
On beauty, should not those who are closest to the Creator, who have the Creator living inside them - the Creator of beauty itself, be the most reflective of beauty, have the most insight into beauty, be the most persistent seekers of beauty? And thus, should not the places we have, whether our homes or our “churches” be the most beautiful?
And on the other hand, how can one let a child die of hunger to pay for a higher ceiling or more beautiful windows or more comfortable seating?
But then, how much different is this from when the woman poured perfume on Jesus’ feet and the disciples argued the money go to the poor? Jesus rebuked not the woman, but the disciples.
There’s a tension here that Jesus chose to leave as a tension. Jesus contextualized the situation. For that particular time and place the spending of money on a thing of beauty was preferable over giving to the poor. How one interprets this example to apply today is hard, however, as Jesus is not with us in the same sense.
We have a saying in my church “It’s not either/or, it’s both/and”. I think beauty and things of beauty are to be a part of every believer’s and every churches’ life. And I think caring for and helping the poor and disadvantaged is to also be. The question is not which, but what is the balance? If I have a dollar to spend, how many cents goes to the poor and how many to beauty?
In Mathew 25, Christ says how we treat the poor and disadvantaged will determine our eternity. The implication being that one cannot be a true believer and not help the poor. One could argue Christ does not make the same implication for beauty, but is not helping the poor a thing of beauty?
Thus I think beauty is not just in how we paint, or design a church, or play an instrument, but is also how we see the poor and how our life “plays” the poor.
And, contrary to a pervasive belief, beauty does not always cost more. What’s more beautiful, a formal royal garden or an alpine meadow in full bloom stretching as far as one can see? What’s more beautiful, an orthodox church where every surface is painted with a Biblical story or an all white simple shaker meeting house? Different people will answer these questions differently. A Russian would say the Orthodox church. A gardner could say either. Cost is not the determiner of beauty. And different people will define beauty differently.
There is a beauty in the simplicity of evangelical churches …if that simplicity is permitting beautiful things to happen for the poor. A fear I have is that we have simply replaced the biggest pipe organ in town boasting rights with the biggest audio/video worhsip service production boasting rights.
I could go on. As, for me, it’s a question with an answer in-progress, I’d appreciate hearing what others think on this.