On account of other commitments we sadly had to cancel our trip to Karlsruhe, and so the (smow)summer tour 2010 started at Bauhaus University Weimar.
Or better put start on a wonderful summers evening at Bauhaus University Weimar.
Over the years and the trade shows Bauhaus University has always been the university that has left us feeling a little bit under-nourished: the few tasty morsels on display whetting an appetite that couldn't be satisfied by the remaining works.
For all the "My Bauhaus is better than yours" exhibition tends to lean more towards art than design. It may be that those students who are attracted by Weimar do have artistic leanings; but one needn't automatically bring that into the furniture design. Or at least not so prominently.
And so we were glad to see one of the few "product" products from "MBIBTY 2009" now being produced by the Bauhaus Univeristy Transferzentrum: Birdhaus by duunddu Design.
Proof that at least "My Birdhaus is better than yours"
Furniture per se was relatively thin on the ground at Summaery 2010, something which given our past experiences didn't actually disappoint us - and indeed those chairs that we did see belonged to the category "Seen the same a thousand times, ain't going to waste our time again"
A further disappointment was the project which had set itself the goal of designing furniture for prison cells. As one of our crew rightly commented it all just looked a little like "Inspired by I***" Not just in form and quality, but also in materials and colour. In addition, is your average career criminal really going to "feel" the green of the shelves or care that the coat hook looks like tree branch? The ones we know certainly wouldn't.
But enough moaning, for us Summaery 2010 was a wonderful exhibition that inspired and amused as much as it questioned and irritated.
Among the high-points for us were "Tischzeug" by Viola Ahrensfeld, "R2B2" by Christoph Thetard and "The Knife" by Mareike Hornof.
Tischzeug is one of those almost obscenely obviously products that you know you've actually developed yourself a thousand times - yet only subconsciously.
Or at least it is if, like us, you focus on the plate and the plate alone.
A plate that fits over the corner of your laptop and as such solves that eating/typing problem.
So simple, so well executed.
Equally simple is The Knife by Mareike Hornof. Not a product, The Knife is a beautiful piece of criticism on the design industry and the completely over saturated "design" market.
On the left had side of the table a knife; on the right hand side a collection of objects, found in almost every home, and which can all be replaced by a knife.
Yes the pizza cutter is a nice idea; but is it necessary? Do they have to be produced? Or could we just all use a knife?
Indeed The Knife caused us to consider if the current Vitra Design Museum exhibition "The Essence of Things. Design and the Art of Reduction" didn't need a 13th thematic section "Reduction by not producing but rather using that which already exists"
All in all Summaery 2010 provided a wonderful overview of the past years work in Weimar and as we headed back to Leipzig the warm glow in our souls was matched only by the sunset over the Thüringer Wald.
A few more of our impressions from Summaey 2010 can be found on (smow)flickr
And from Weimar the (smow)summer tour 2010 continued on to Halle and Burg Giebichenstein.
