In our recent post from Florence we reported on the attempts being made there by the local authorities to help support and advance the local craftsfolk.
Since 2008 the Chambers of Commerce from five of Florence's nearish neighbours have followed a different, though just as valid path towards achieving the same. Under the title "Rethinking The Product" the Chambers of Commerce from Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato and Terni pair young designers with local businesses and set them specific challenges.
For the 2013 edition the designers were asked to create an object using the combined materials and experience of two companies. The result is thirty prototypes that can be viewed in a curiously fascinating exhibition in Berlin until Friday December 13th.
So until tomorrow.
Two days isn't a lot of time for an exhibition, but what you gonna do?
The first thing that grabs you when you enter the exhibition is the truly grotesque decadence on show. And not always in the positive sense we normally use such a phrase. Many of the works are obviously in denial that Pop Art and Post Modernism ever occurred, are living in a more conservative age when furnishings was about status and show. Anyone, who like us, is forced to endure the cheaper end of Milan's hotel spectrum during Milan Design Week will be familiar with the sentiments, aspirations and perversions expressed in many of the objects.
We believe the problem is marble. Marble as a material simply cannot be ignored, it always has something to say.
But sadly very few designers, anywhere, not just in relation to Rethinking The Product, seem able to teach marble a new language or even to help it expand its vocabulary. And so marble remains the brash beast it always was.
We once wrote that in terms of the local product design industry, cork was Portugal's greatest hope. Many of the young designers who have recently started working with cork are using it in ways that their parents generation couldn't have envisaged. Its not all good. But a lot is. And ultimately it is the experimentation that counts.
One could apply similar sentiments to marble, and so it would have been good to have seen the material being used in new, innovative ways. Rather than just shouting its provenance across the room.
Fortunately Rethinking The Product isn't all marble and decadence, there are some genuinely fascinating projects on display.
Among those that really caught our attention were Fishtail by Francesco Bigagli, a truly improbable combination of carpet and metal furniture. Now obviously no one really wants a metre high piece of aluminium sticking out of their carpet. Apart from the practical inconvenience it is downright dangerous. We've all come back from the pub a later later than planned and, to avoid waking the family, skulked through the flat in the dark. And stubbed a toe on the coffee table. That hurts. Try walking into a meter high piece of aluminium sticking out of your carpet. You'll be off work for a month.
However there are other possible applications, other ways of applying such an idea. Possibilities that one should seriously consider and investigate. In our post on the OMA Tools for Life collection Knoll unveiled at Milan Design Week 2013 we commented that the chair "11 Floor Seating" was the sort of object we need in a society where tablets and similar mobile devices are becoming more popular and so the search for new seating styles more important and urgent. Fishtail reminded us a lot of 11 Floor Seating.
The bedside lamp Sogni d'oro by Simona Atzori is pure genius. The one-off switch is controlled by the weight of a book. Lift your book up to start reading, the light comes on. Place your book down, light goes out. Its the sort of contraption that could keep Homer Simpson amused for hours. If it is practical in a daily use situation is admittedly questionable, but the idea is enticing and we hope that designer and producer get the opportunity to develop it further.
Elsewhere we were very taken with the felt "curtains" FanTaVolino by Lorenzo Stoduti, simple objects which transform any table into a children's wonderland, the vintage television inspired unit RiVintage TV & Wine by Eleonora Sassoli and Valeria Della Dora had a warming kitschness about it, while Terra Luna by Alessia Bettazzi and Pierluigi Percoco is the first lamp we've ever seen that promises to protect us from nuclear radiation and earthquakes. Something which of course makes it the perfect companion piece to the Eames plastic armchair in the 1950s "Mars resistant" fibreglass.
As many of you will know we are huge fans of Vienna Design Week Passionswege programme, not least because it proves that cooperations between established, traditional businesses and young creatives can produce truly wonderful results.
In many ways Rethinking The Product demonstrates that the path to a useful conclusion of such a project is long and rocky. Which is what ultimately makes the exhibition so interesting.
Viewing Rethinking The Product we were greatly reminded of the Transalpino "Made in Between" exhibition that debuted at DMY Berlin in 2011; with the proviso that we found the results of Transalpino a tick more matured, more fully thought through. Objects such as Schnittlampe by Dominik Hehl, Put Table by Steffen Schellenberger or Gefäß mit Halskrause by Valerie Otte showing a little more genuine innovation. And on a side note a few of the objects from Transalpino can currently be viewed as part of the Geblüt exhibition at Villa Schöningen Potsdam.
However the rawness of the works on show at Rethinking The Product not only opens up the design process, making it visible and comprehensible, but also shows the limits of manufacturing. A combination that allows one to understand what is possible and so to take an idea that obviously isn't working and transform it into something that does.
And that is always a truly magical moment in any creative process.
As we say, Rethinking The Product is sadly only being shown for two days. It really deserves longer.
If you happen to be in Berlin in the next two days, Rethinking The Product can be viewed at Berliner Freiheit Gallery, Berliner Freiheit 2, Potsdamer Platz and we can thoroughly recommend dropping by. And if you can't make it all products can be viewed at www.rethinkingtheproduct.com
