Wood Car

If the Eameses had applied their fabrication skills to the design brief of the Citroen 2CV, during a serious fuel shortage, they might have ended up with something like Joost Conijn’s beautiful (the photo [now lost (2013)] doesn’t do it justice) wood-burning, plywood Hout Auto (Wood Car), currently exhibited at the NICC space of the Koninklijk Museum voor Shone Kunsten Antwerpen. An accompanying video documents the car’s rambling journey through the mountain passes and pot-holed backroads of central Europe, avoiding major routes. According to the NICC website:

The artist travels towards the unknown. The main plan is to make a film about the unexpected incited by the wood car. In order to keep the motor running, Conijn travels through woods, independent of petrol, leaving cultivated roads behind. Crossing little villages, people guide him to local saw-mills and offer him some food and spare wood.