At the same time as he was developing the Ant Chair, Arne Jacobsen created a one-off range of office furniture that arguably represents the first tangible evidence of his move away from the natural materials and traditional handicrafts of his pre-war furniture and onto the mixed media, industrial products that have ultimately come to define his work. And so can truly be considered great lost furniture design classics. Not least because they really are lost! In 1951/52 - the records are a
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A couple of years ago we stood in a branch of a major German electronics chain in disbelieving silence. An electric pasta cooker. Disbelief turned to sorrow. An electric pasta cooker. With a 24 hour programmable timer. After 85 million years man had reached and passed the zenith of his evolution. We now found ourselves on the downward spiral back to the pond. Sorrow turned to loneliness. The experience did however highlight for us the paradox of a career as a product designer. You're
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You don't have to be a globetrotting design specialist to know that the Danes invented light, uncomplicated wooden furniture with free flowing organic forms. It's just one of those acknowledged truths we can all trot out at cocktail parties. Which makes it all the more surprising that the apparent counter-evidence should be found in the Danish Museum of Art and Design in Copenhagen. The Temple to Denmark's design history. While giving full credit to the museum for presenting Børge
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As The Smiths so succinctly put it, "Stop us, oh,oh,oh, stop us. Stop us if you think that you've heard this one before" But once again October is out there, lurking, tacitly, like some not especially friendly sounding nuclear submarine. And once more we find ourselves questioning not only the nature of our existence and the sociological sense of product design, but also why the European design weeks can't sit down together and plan their year better? As is traditional our October begins
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Ever since DMY Berlin inaugurated their "Three from Ten" Awards in 2009 the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin has honoured the nominees and prize winners with an autumn exhibition. 2012 is no different and the exhibition "DMY Awards and Jury Selection 2012" can be viewed in Berlin until mid-October. It is of course only logical that the Bauhaus Archiv should take an interest in largely experimental and conceptual design projects. For although today heavily stained with cliché and tainted by the passing
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Any email that starts "Please join us for A Taste of Austrian Design and Lifestyle in Stockholm" is going to get our attention. And quickly lose it when we realise that no one is actually offering to pay for us to join them. Just inviting us. If we should, by chance, happen to be in Stockholm. However on this occasion the affront was short lived. For despite numerous good reasons to ignore the exhibition - the word "Lifestyle" in the title and the objectionable construction of the
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Back in April 2010 we reported that Dutch design anarchos Droog were planning a hotel in Amsterdam. On September 16th 2012 Hôtel Droog will finally open for business. And because it's from Droog, Hôtel Droog has only one bedroom. Which is really an apartment. The majority of the complex is taken up with all those things that in a "normal" hotel would be of secondary importance to the accomodation: eating, drinking, shopping, being pampered or relaxing in a garden. Situated in a 17th century
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Irritating as they are, forgers are rarely daft. You only very occasionally find one purveying, for example, fake Billy Ray Cyrus albums. Or fake Greek State Bonds. They prefer to stick to things they are certain they can sell with ease. Which is why Bauhaus furniture is so highly regarded by professional forging gangs. Not only is everyone familiar with the important pieces, but it all looks so simple. Who can tell the difference? However, aside from the potential safety issues, a copy
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Browsing through the catalogue for the exhibition "Der Stuhl" in Stuttgart one item in particular caught our attention: "Der Federdreh by Albert Stoll, Waldshut (Baden)" - and not just because it is a delightful piece of woodworking. Loosely translated as "The Sprung Swivel" Der Federdreh does what it promises - swivels and has spring suspension. Might not sound that interesting, but back then Der Federdreh was the very first chair of its kind. Anywhere. Consequently Der Federdreh is, in
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Without wanting to sound too much like Dieter Rams, good design really, really doesn't have to be complicated or otherwise outrageous. One of the best examples of this is without question the coat hook system Knax from LoCa. Created by Thomas Harrit and Nicolai Sørensen the idea couldn't be any simpler nor the effect any more liberating. Through the integration of a series of self-retracting metal hooks in a piece of wood one creates a hanging system that takes up virtually no space, even
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Back in the day exhibitions demonstrating how modern flats and houses could, even should, be constructed and furnished were all the rage. Events such as "Die Wohnung" and the associated Weißenhofsiedlung Stuttgart, or post-War shows such as "Interbau 57" or "Wie Wohnen?" presented visitors a brave new world as visualised by the leading designers and architects of the day. Today we have glossy magazines full of wise words from "Trend Researchers" and a data Tsunami of "Style Blogs" which
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Back in January Benjamin Hubert was awarded the A&W Audi Mentorpreis 2012. Presented in conjunction with the A&W Designer of the Year Award the Mentorpreis can in many ways be considered as being the "Young Designer" category. The interesting aspect of the A&W Audi Mentorpreis is that the winner is nominated by that year's A&W Designer of the Year. So in 2012 Patricia Urquiola. After the award ceremony we caught up with Benjamin for a quick chat; however, we very cleverly managed to lose the
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Back in January we published a post looking at IMM Cologne 1962 and setting that year's exhibition in the context of what we could all expect at IMM Cologne 2012. Amongst the material we read and reviewed in preparing the post the page that made the biggest impression on us was an advert for Sesam-Bar by Oeseder Möbel-Industrie: a small corner unit containing a rotating interior compartment with bookshelves on the front and a mini-bar on the back. The name coming of course from "Open Sesame":
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"The exhibition will principally present simple, functional and comfortable chairs for the home, office and garden"1 With this clear note of intent opens the catalogue to the exhibition "Der Stuhl" that took place in Stuttgart from September 15th until October 15th 1928. Organised by the Württembergische Gewerbeamt - the trade office responsible for the greater Stuttgart region at that time - "Der Stuhl" featured some 400 objects from over 50 international producers and was conceived with
read moreIf there is a chair on the market at the moment that better symbolises how complex simplicity in design is than Pressed Chair by Harry Thaler for Moormann. We want to see it. At Milan 2011 Nils Holger Moormann told us of the literal and figurative mountain pass that had to be negotiated before Harry's idea could be transformed into a market ready, mass producible product. Then ahead of Milan 2012 Harry Thaler then told us about the long way from the original experiments with wood until he had
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Our views on Chemnitz are well known. Travel south of Chemnitz however and you'll come to an area of Germany that time didn't so much forget - it never even knew it existed. A bit like Bhutan, the Erzgebirge is an autonomous, inaccessible mountain region where the dearth of contact with the outside world means that popular knowledge about the area is largely dominated by myth, legend and the yellowing, travel logbooks of gentleman explorers of centuries gone. It is therefore all the more
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About a thousand years ago we asked our favourite Portuguese designerTM Rui Alves aka My Own Super Studio about the use of colour in his work and he answered "I try not be afraid of colour. Portuguese art and design has a tradition of using lots of colour and so for me it is natural to use colour." Anyone wanting to get a feel for what Rui means need only spend a day travelling on the Lisbon underground. While there are a lot of cities where using the underground system is more visually
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Shortly before the 11th Dutch Design Week kicks off in Eindhoven at the end of October, Holland's oldest auction house, Venduehuis in the Hague, will host its 1st Design Auction. Presumably the first of many. In addition to a general sale of design objects, prototypes and the like, the Venduehuis Design Auction also features a charity auction of specially created one-offs. Under the title "A Chair for Charity", thirteen leading contemporary Dutch designers have been invited to select an
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Remaining in celebratory mood..... Twenty five years after the young guns of European modernism gathered in Stuttgart to open the Weissenhof Siedlung, a "somewhat ageing" Danish architect, who as a student had been greatly influenced by the works of European modernism, was about to make his global breakthrough with a chair design which as much as any represents the post-War break with modernism and the fearless march into the new, uncertain, world. Happy 60th Birthday the Ant Chair by Arne
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On July 23rd 2012 the Weißenhofsiedlung Stuttgart celebrates its 85th "birthday". An anniversary which provides a near-perfect excuse to relive one of the most important moments in the development of European Modernism. As if we really need an excuse. Initiated by the Deutscher Werkbund in cooperation with Stuttgart City Council the Weißenhofsiedlung comprised some 63 flats in 33 buildings designed by a truly stellar collection of international architects and was just one part of a larger
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If we're honest when we initially saw Speiseschrank by Nadin Jahn at the Bauhaus University Weimar 2012 Diploma exhibition we kept on walking. It just didn't tickle us. Didn't seem that interesting or relevant. But when we approached it a second time we stopped and considered it properly. Thankfully! Back in the day fruit and vegetables were stored in cellars, garages and similar naturally cool, dark spaces. Today they are stored in heated kitchens and as most of us only go shopping once a
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Back in April we asked Pascal Berberat, Head of the Vitra Airport Division why airport seating always has armrests. And thus denies us all the chance to lie down and snooze. A flippant question we concede, but such issues of course take on a very real significance when your flight is delayed and you find yourself with an unexpected overnight stay in the airport. What ya gonna do? Currently airports have either nothing to offer, meaning passengers have to find a way to make themselves
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Among a decent if not especially vintage selection of Diploma projects on show at the Bauhaus University Weimar Summaery 2012 exhibition, the one that was getting the least attention when we were there was also, in our opinion, the best. Schwarz auf Weiss by Jenni-Fee Hahn. Modern communication is all well and good. It's quick, it's easy, it's universal. But we all know it is also, as Blur so very nearly put it. Rubbish. It doesn't satisfy us. It doesn't motivate us. It doesn't inspire us.
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When we mentioned it last year it was just intended as a cheap pun. But slowly we can see a lot of sense in changing the name of the annual end of year exhibition at the Bauhaus University Weimar to Autumnery. For as with Summaery 2011, Summaery 2012 wasn't. And although we had the feeling that this years show was less extensive than last years, we still found plenty to distract us from the unseasonal weather. Among the highlights for us were the results of the classes "Falter" which
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