Abstract

In 1923, Paul Valéry created an artificial world of antiquity. In it the sea could wash up things which, because of their brilliance, hardness, and unfamiliar form, interrupted and irritated well-established habits of thought. Nature or art? Given or created? Earthly or heavenly? Eupalinos, the architect, does not find himself in the position to decide. He throws back into the sea the shiny, ball-like thing he had picked up from the shore only seconds before.1 In the 1950s, the situation has changed markedly. Parisian consumer society uses the polished floors of exhibition halls and salesrooms to create encounters with similarly enigmatic and wonderful objects. However, one can no longer take these ..