Traveler

Condé Nast
ESSAY FOLDING SHIPPED 1-19

The Tao of Folding

The essence of travel design is the fold.Tracy Young explores the wrinkles
N TA O I S T P H I L O S O P H Y, T H E Franzus folding curling iron and Braun
square is the First Form, the undiffer- alarm clock into a folding makeup kit.
entiated void from which the opposing Fold your foreign currency into a money
Yin and Yang forces arise. Where oth- clip or a billfold. Don’t forget your pass-
ers see only the void, the folder sees a port. Your ticket in its envelope. Your
world already overflowing with possibili- laptop computer, cell phone, PalmPilot,
ties. His mission is to discover those possi- portable CD player, electronic chess set.
bilities and bring the square to life. Strap all of the above onto a Moveasy
–Peter Engel, folding luggage trolley. Fold your coat
Origami from Angelfish to Zen and stow it in the overhead bin. “Fold up
the tray in front of you and place your
A journey starts with a map that’s, say, seat in the upright position.” Open and
four and a half inches wide by seven and fold your Wall Street Journal. Or Harp-
a half inches long. Unfold it once, then er’s Bazaar. You haven’t left the runway Hemispheres of influence:
Artist Chuck Hoberman
again, by thirds from bottom to top, then and already you’ve done more folding and his Expanding Dome
sideways again and again, like an accor- and unfolding than Karl Lagerfeld’s fan (above), inspiration for his
dion with seven vertical pleats, until it’s a at the fall collections. portable geodesic shelter;
his unfolding Icosahedron,
flat sheet more than 22 times its original On arrival you reverse the process.
aboard Royal Caribbean’s
size—a world, in the words of the origa- Hang up your clothes. Unwrap the little Explorer of the Seas.
mi master, overflowing with possibilities. folded shower cap and sink into a warm
If to travel is, in the best sense, to bring tub. Shake out the fresh folded towels.
Sphere designs © Charles Hoberman

the world to life, the essence of travel de- Fold down the bedspread. Unfold your
sign is the fold. Itty Bitty Booklight, open your portable STORY EDITOR
Place your shirt face down on the bed currency converter, and check out the DESIGNER
and then fold it, like a map, in thirds room service menu. Coming and going,
lengthwise, then in thirds again from bot- packing and unpacking, folding and un- COPY EDITOR
tom to top. Lay your suits in a garment folding. Like the flapping of wings or a
PHOTO EDITOR
bag and fold in half. Put your compact grasshopper’s hopping, folding is synon-

MARCH 2001 

0301-TR-YF01
 Traveler
Condé Nast
ESSAY/FOLDINGRO SHIPPED 1-19

ymous with travel. Without it, you can’t bers of midcentury Americans saw the
take even the first step. Just ask my father, world only because they were soldiers. Air
whose knee, that fragile hinge of cartilage travel was about to become mass transit.
and bone, was replaced with artificial parts Over the last 50 years, cheaper, faster
that could set off a metal detector. Unable travel has only strengthened the relationship
to negotiate the stairs, he slept in his den on between folding and travel gear. We of the
a rented folding bed. modern middle class travel like our ances-
Is it purely coincidence that a TV com- tors—unlike the rich, whose servants car-
mercial for British Airways uses a folding ried their trunks, or the mad, like the charac-
animation to send its message: “The British ter in Jane Campion’s The Piano. Yet we also
simply know how to travel”? And what like to bring our favorite things along with
about the neatly folded ends on the fresh us when we go, like socialite climber Sandy
roll of toilet paper that better establish- Pittman (a little bit of both), who had Sher-
ments provide, or the crisp, tucked corners pas lug her cappuccino machine up Mount
on the bed in your hotel room? Is there Everest. It’s as if we’re compensating for the
something civilized about an edge? lack of amenities once de rigueur on Pull-
The origamilike spires of the chapel at man cars and luxury liners.
the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado The more things fold, the more we can
Springs quite deliberately evoke flight and bring along. Families hit the beach with fold-
travel, even if it is to the spiritual realm; so ing chairs, umbrellas, boom boxes, barbe-
does the wharf in Yokohama, which uses a cues, and baby joggers. Would-be explorers
folded structure to conjure the flow of com- hit the road in SUVs kitted out with tents
merce and the sea. The note that Tom that fold out of the tailgate. Weekend war-
Cruise leaves on Kelly McGillis’s pillow in riors slither through the wilderness like the
Top Gun is folded into a paper airplane. last of the Mohicans in Feathercraft folding
These are details, perhaps, but nonetheless kayaks. Kids swarm the sidewalks on Razor
there’s something about all these folds that scooters. Tourists tote folding cameras—
makes us think of travel. and folding canes. Two Las Vegas gentlemen
have patented a business card that folds into
He who would travel happily must travel a golf tee! And what, after all, is a taco but
light. –Antoine de Saint-Exupéry folding food to go?
We’re a tsunami of travelers. So vast a
H E R E L AT I O N S H I P B E T W E E N horde come summer that the Hampton Jit-

T travel design and folding has remained

constant, even as travel itself has
evolved. Our ancestors—nomads looking
ney, which began operation with one small
van in 1974, at one point added an oversize
bus that folded in the middle. Some longtime
for food, refugees looking for asylum, or locals, forced out by this new wave of new
foot soldiers conscripted by some higher money, folded their tents and moved away.
authority—traveled out of necessity, not
choice. Their only real possessions were Luxury, rather than necessity, is the mother
those they could carry on their backs. of invention. –Henry Petroski,
So even today, while NASA’s Langley The Evolution of Useful Things
Research Center is designing folding struc-
tures that can be stored in the cargo bay of a N 1982, WHEN LEE IOCOCCA
space shuttle, our more familiar and
beloved travel gear harks back to those ab-
original mobile societies, for whom survival
I brought out the Chrysler LeBaron, he
not only rescued his company but revived
the convertible, America’s most glamorous
created a kind of voluptuous relationship car, the car you drove for the sake of driv-
between man and his equipment— ing. The sun on your face, the wind in your
weapons, mess kits, tents. Folding wooden hair, the heightened sensation of speed, the
writing desks, once used by officers in the Springsteen blaring into the night—all this
field, became prized by Victorian lady ex- was way more appealing than a significant-
plorers; now these have morphed into fold- ly more practical sedan.
ing mobile work spaces, like Intrigo’s light- Travel enchants us with an illusion of
weight polycarbonate Lapstation, which freedom, regardless of the reality. Indeed,
was designed for computer users to deploy today’s perfect travel experience is both lib-
on the beach, on the floor, or when lying in erating and sensual. And if the reality is nei-
STORY EDITOR
bed surfing the Internet. Even the overseas ther, successful contemporary travel design
DESIGNER or “envelope” hat, which the Army just re- can soften the blow—whether it’s a roof
cently retired and replaced with the beret, that folds away into the trunk of a Mer-
COPY EDITOR was sampled in the headgear worn by stew- cedes (turning a coupe into a roadster) or a
PHOTO EDITOR
ardesses during the days of the Pan Am simple nylon folding chair. To paraphrase
Clipper, a subtle reminder that huge num- Hegel: If freedom is the thesis and comfort

 C O N D É N A S T T R AV E L E R
 Traveler
Condé Nast
ESSAY/FOLDINGRO SHIPPED 1-19

the antithesis, the synthesis is folding. also requires you to schlepp along half a to fit in a bag I can sling over my shoulder.
For instance, when I and all the other un- dozen “peripheral” devices if you want to But the pleasure I take in this object is more
happy campers on a two-week wilderness make use of all the “features.”Adding insult aesthetic than practical; my folding bike, I
course were divesting ourselves of anything to portability, the Apple PowerBook, that guess, is not so much a PC form of trans-
that could be considered excess baggage, slim, folding status symbol for creative pro- portation as my secret flight of fancy.
like deodorant, my friend Nancy insisted fessionals on the go, is so sleek and slippery
on lashing a folding chair to her backpack. that the upwardly mobile, who are always If a machine were merely practically driven,
After a few nights in the wilderness, howev- nervous about losing their grip, buy after- we wouldn’t find so much energy and style
er, Nancy looked a lot less silly. Designed by market adhesive strips to make its surfaces given to it. –Chuck Hoberman
a former Outward Bound instructor, the easier to hang on to. (It wasn’t until the
chair—basically two squares of half-inch- iBook that Apple’s famously “user friendly” HUCK HOBERMAN, AN ARTIST/
thick insulated pack cloth hinged together
with carbon fiber straps—weighed just over
a pound and was as easy to operate as a
designers provided a built-in handle.)
My own initiation into the arcana of trav-
el-gear design happened when I decided to
C inventor who likes to call himself a
“folder,” is showing me around his loft
in an incongruously municipal-looking
magazine. The chair shifts when you do, buy a folding bike. Now, folding bicycles are building on Worth Street in lower Manhat-
and you can slip it under not a recent invention. As tan. I have gone to talk to Hoberman about
your sleeping bag for early as 1904, the French folding travel gear, but now I feel as if I’ve
extra padding. A comfort “Like the Army employed a model ended up in a sci-fi version of Santa’s work-
to the senses as well as to with a special hinged joint shop. Hoberman’s team of engineers are
the intellect.
Not that all folding
flapping of in the middle of the frame
that allowed the bike to be
tweaking their CAD drawings while a
young woman cuts tiny pieces of folded
travel gear is a triumph of
design. When, for in-
wings, folding folded in two and carried
over the shoulder. During
paper with an X-acto knife and a tattooed
fellow puts together brightly colored joint-
stance, its use is not trans-
parent, disaster ensues.
is synonymous the sixties and seventies,
when small European
ed plastic pieces of an Expandagon, just
one of several brainy award-winning toys
Once, while preparing for
a sailboat race, my moth- with travel” cars were fashionable,
there was a fad for folding
Hoberman has created.
Toys have enabled Hoberman to pursue
er made a small, entirely bikes. And now, even inventions such as a folding tent made from
logical error: When she and my father though SUVs rule the earth, an interest in one sheet of corrugated plastic that can be
rounded the mark and hoisted the sail, the human-powered vehicles, including the unfolded and set up, with a simple tug, by one
spinnaker she had carefully folded into its ubiquitous scooter, seems to have been person; a portable geodesic shelter that can
“turtle” holder ballooned out upside down. rekindled. (There are three folding bicycles be transported from site to site; folding surgi-
Folding, in fact, is enough of an art that that I know of on my block alone.) cal instruments that can travel through the
travel books and real simple magazine The obvious difference between now and body for endoscopic procedures; a briefcase
pieces have been devoted to the endless even 30 years ago is that today’s models made of scored, corrugated plastic, like the
problems of packing. Only a genius like must contend with the higher standards for tent, that folds down to the size of a shoebox.
Issey Miyake would have the imagination to all trendy modern travel gear: How do you “Perfect for the traveler who wants to
build the solution right into the problem, as increase portability without diminishing bring home a lot of purchases,”I say.
he does in his Pleats Please line—geometric performance? Speed and power and high- Hoberman smiles. “Why not just throw
pieces made of space-age synthetic fabric. tech materials are so taken for granted that everything in a sack?”
On the body, they stretch and move to flatter the English Brompton, a bike that folds as His passion for things that transform
almost any shape or size. They can be neatly as an umbrella, is considered a clunk- their shape and size has taken him from a
washed in cold water, dry quickly, and re- er. There are, on the other hand, sophisti- NASA contract to installations at art muse-
quire no ironing. As for packing—roll them, cated portables, with the same performance ums all over the world. What appeals to him,
fold them if you must, or crumple them in a specs as full-size racing bikes, that can be he says, is relationships between parts, be-
ball and stuff them in your knapsack. The disassembled for transport in a suitcase. tween the organic and the high-tech. Fold-
pleats are part of the fabric’s “memory.” Have a couple of screwdrivers before trying ing things are also growing things. Like us.
Like the Swiss Army knife, a fistful of al- to put one back together. Like the DNA evoked by Hoberman’s “Ex-
most totemic implements, Miyake’s clothes But I finally honed in on Peregrine Bicy- panding Helicoid,” a permanent installa-
illustrate the essence of good travel design: cle Works in Athens, Georgia, where fold- tion at the National Inventors Hall of Fame
small, light, versatile. ing purist Hugh Kern, a computer whiz in Akron, Ohio. And, indeed, the beauty of
turned bike builder, assured me that he his creations is the biomorphic beauty of
A woman without a bicycle is like a fish with- could build a high-performance bike—with mathematics made visible. Like origami. Or
out water. –Anonymous 20-inch wheels, dual shocks, and high-end a bicycle, which balances itself by falling, as
components—which I could fold and un- our bodies do when we walk. Like traveling
O L D I N G T R AV E L G E A R M AY fold with nothing stronger than coffee. through time and space: New York to Paris.

F provide elegant solutions to the problem

of miniaturizing some basic needs such
as food, clothing, and shelter, but it can run
The bicycle that arrived is not only beau-
tiful—and taxi yellow, to boot—but it rides
like a Porsche. The perfect McLuhanesque
Or the computational models that allow
cosmologists to speculate from deep within
the folds of the brain—where persists both
STORY EDITOR

DESIGNER
into trouble when the design tries to serve medium, the bike is a travel tool that is an ex- the urge to travel and the mysterious pleas-
too many masters. Take your laptop com- tension of my body, allowing me to push out ure of folding—whether the universe itself COPY EDITOR
puter, marketed as a “desktop replace- into the environment. It is also ecologically is flat like a map or folds back on itself, a PHOTO EDITOR
ment.” Light enough to carry anywhere, it correct, economical, and compact enough wrinkle in time. ■

MARCH 2001 