Rethinking kitsch

Does anybody remember these? 

Did it jibe with your psychedelic wallpaper while rockin' you out on Elton John or Three Dog Night in the summer of '72? 

Did it mingle with your macramé when you wore it on your wrist like a bracelet or strung it around your neck like love-beads? 

Did you twist it while doin' the Twist in your bellbottoms or miniskirt?

Did its sweetcake commercials turn you on soooooooo much it made the top of your list of must-haves?

If you answered 'no' to any of the above—'cause either you weren't around back then or this kind of kitsch was just not that into you—these are examples of the Toot-a-Loop Crazy Color Radio, aka Panasonic R-72. People found it groovy, not so much for its sound (which was far from hi-fi, and was AM only), but for its portability, wearability, and twistability ("It's an S, it's an O, it's a crazy ra-di-o!" went its Mary Poppinsy jingle—though you had to twist it open to adjust the dial). Others dug its donut-hole familiarity, sensuous curves, and novel look and feel compared to the "square" transistor radios with the telescopic antennae they were getting bored of listening to on the beach.

Yeah, I had an orange-yellow Toot-a-Loop. And I slathered it with the psychedelic stickers that came with it, to mesh with my "mod room." But its novelty wore off quickly as I tired of its tinny reception and aimed for a higher-fi sound.

Western Electric got in on the act with its Sculptura Round Donut Phone, in both touch-tone and rotary dial (who remembers how to work one of those?) versions. Now the skinnier part of the negative space in-between the non-concentric circles became the receiver, while the heavier half held the cradle, buttons or dial, and wiring. But this was as temporal as the Toot-a-Loop, especially when digital development turned them both into dinosaur doodads I dismissed for years as void of intellectual or archival value.

It turned out I was duped. An odyssey through Boston's Museum of Science revealed to me the mathematical origins of these gimmicks: the Dupin Cyclide. Initially recalling the familiar Toot-a-Loop image of my preteens, this display presented itself as a geometric solid curving out of two nonconcentric circles as a tubular sequence of circles expanding to halfway around and contracting back to the initial starting size to form a symmetrical solid of a circle-within-a-circle, bulging at one end and thinning back out at the other. 

A complex model, to be sure, but basically this model I saw at the museum can fit 14 spheres inside it so that each sphere would touch its neighbor and all spheres would touch the cyclide's circular surface. In the computer-generated model to the right, the cyclide comprises multiple circles going both latitudinally and longitudinally, such that the latitudinal circles diminish in distance from each other as they near the thinner side of the cyclide but the longitudinal circles are always equidistant from each other. The cladding of the web the circles create forms a dupin cyclide solid.

Phoenix Center's internal office building, taken in
2011 while under construction. Photo by Hat600.

And yes, the dupin cyclide model figures prominently in organic modern architecture. Perhaps the most remarkable example is the Phoenix International Media Center in Beijing, China, which applies the Dupin Cyclide form of bulging out at one end and thinning back out at the other to form a mathematically harmonic relationship with its alignment with the bending road beside it, its immediate street corner, and Chaoyang Park on one side of it.

According to its architect, Shao Weiping, the Phoenix Center's web network of mathematical spheres creates a twisting lattice "mesh" of a DNA-like double helix, wrapped in a loop in circular contours that serve as a living example of the yin-yang symbol of ancient Chinese philosophy, with two opposing geometric forces counter-forcing against each other yet complementing each other in a tension of harmony and a pushmi-pullyu of balance.

Entrance to Phoenix Center, Beijing, China. Photo by EditQ.

Designed with parametric 3D modelling software, including the late Frank Gehry's Digital Project modeling tools, the Phoenix Center's dupin cyclide curves and contours have a scentifically practical use as well: they were manipulated to channel the building's surrounding airflow and convert the steel diagrid into a network of miniature canals that rechannel rainwater into reflective pools around the Center.

So, before you dismiss '70s and other fads as passé kitsch, do the math and consider the intellectual origins behind it.

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!

Sources:

"Dupin cyclide," Wikipedia, last edited on 16 January 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupin_cyclide

Giovannini, Joseph, "Phoenix International Media Center, Designed by BIAD," Architect, July 14, 2014, https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/phoenix-international-media-center-designed-by-biad_o/

"Phoenix Center," Wikipedia,  last edited on 7 May 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Center