What’s a 200 year old major French car company doing making pianos? Peugeot Design Lab and piano maker Pleyel have teamed up to create a “revolutionary piano that has turned the codes of the world of music upside-down.” I don’t know what that means, but I like it!
When you really think about it, when did anyone ever really attempt to redesign such a classic instrument such as a piano? I commend them for this. After a year and half of development Peugeot and Pleyel unveiled at the Paris Motor Show a few weeks back something that resembles a mix between a baby grand and the Starship Enterprise; oh and the bench looks like it’s praying for the piano to stop looking so ridiculous.
Apparently, after two hundred years of coming up with new designs for cars things can get a little redundant. So maybe this collaboration was something of a respite from the business of making automobiles.
Nonetheless, the piano is a little bit of a wonder. The piano has been redesigned to align with the pianist’s hands and for the “first time ever in the history of pianos” the audience can see the artist playing from every conceivable angle. And where most pianos have three legs, this one has one, giving the instrument what they call “sublime visual lightness.” I feel lightheaded already – I’d take two of them, one for the foyer and one for the master bedroom, if only they would fit within any frame of aesthetic reference outside of a Peugeot showroom.
In where it seems the press release has completely run out of words to describe their magical new piano – they keep talking about all the “codes” of tradition they’re shaking up and in the last sentence likens it to the hull of a ship – I have decided that what ain’t broke, don’t fix. Please Peugeot, stop making pianos.
