Photo taken by Tyler Zimmerman

Since man could build there have been thousands of decorations made and classic architectural styles have come and gone, like Gothic, Neoclassical, and Art Deco just to name a few, but they all pale in comparison to the greatest piece of furniture crafted and sold, the golden monkey lamp. 

On the surface, it’s a simple piece really, a golden monkey holding a lightbulb, but when you look deeper there’s far more to it. The monkey represents humankind’s innate desire for riches as monkeys can represent luck and prosperity in some cultures and with it being colored gold only accentuates these ideas. It also repressed the childlike wonder that we may never experience again. And the light that he holds represents the future and the possibilities of new things. Saugus Student Ethan Martin expresses, “The Monkey Lamp is hands down the greatest thing you have ever bought, when you showed me it almost brought a tear to my eye, I was going through tough times and this lamp inspired me to keep going and persevere.” 

The Monkey isn’t just a funny statement piece, it’s more than that. More and more we see a big trend of people using minimalism or the “Millennial beige” which if you don’t know is just a very bland, sterile shade of beige akin to something you might find in a doctor’s office, very bland. And people are remodeling their houses and changing anything that has character to something bland. There are countless videos on social media, especially of these people either remodeling or flipping a house and they show the before and it’s filled with personality and color and the house looks lived in and comfortable. Then the after is this extremely soulless redesign with bland designs that just feel like a hotel lobby. 

The Monkey is just so much more than a bland statement piece. It might show the start of a new change in modern interior design, a change from uninteresting minimalism to something more. 

It’s not even interior design that has no character, modern suburban houses are just cut and paste and big urban city areas all look the same, pull up a picture of Little Rock Arkansas, and then one of Reno Nevada, very big cities on opposite sides of the country, they should on all accounts at least look somewhat different, they have different accents, different food, culture, weather, there should be more, but everything is the same bland square building. Or even new mansions constructed by people who have more money than some small countries are just lame mid-century modern homes when mansions used to be humongous estates that were something cool to look at. If you’re going to make a huge house that creates insane amounts of carbon emissions, it should at least be a sight to see, something to be amazed by. 

 The point is that modern architecture in all aspects is really boring and I genuinely think that the monkey lamp that I found at TjMaxx is a light of hope into what might be the future of really fun, really interesting designs. So Saugus I urge you to try to find something fun and interesting, graduation is coming up maybe look for something weird to get for your new college dorm, a statement piece, or just something you like, as long as it isn’t boring and beige.