When we spoke with Nik Back and Alexander Stamminger aka maigrau back in 2010 they told us that in the context of developing the, then, fledgling companies collection "...on the one hand as designers we naturally want to continue designing products ourselves, but on the other we can also imagine developing products for maigrau in cooperation with other designers."
The new maigrau products being launched at IMM Cologne 2014 perfectly demonstrate this binary approach: two new products from maigrau themselves and one created in cooperation with Vienna based designer Alexander Gufler.
From the two self realised projects the stand out one for us is the coffee table/side table Even. When we first saw it we thought it was a table-cum-storage unit. It's not. It's just a table. And we like that. Everyone it seems is producing storage objects that double as a coffee/side table, which is fine, such objects have their value and we know a few mighty fine examples of the genre. But not everything needs two functions. Constructed from real wood veneered plywood, Even is a solid, weighty object, but not a voluminous one. The streamlining through the non-linearity - trapezium form ? - mean that it appears lighter, smaller than it is, give it a laid back relaxedness that really appeals to us.
The lamp Light appeals to us somewhat less. A dimmable vertical lamp available in a range of sizes and finishes, we can well imagine that it will appeal to a lot of people, it just didn't get our boat rocking.
What in contrast however almost caused our boat to capsize was the chair Nardo by Alexander Gufler.
Whereas maigrau's first external cooperation, the portable storage unit Louis by Anne Lorenz was the development of an existing project, Nardo is a completely new project.
We were first introduced to the work of Alexander Gufler at IMM Cologne 2010 when his diploma project Alex was included in the d3 design talents competition. A delightfully deceptive wooden arm chair, what initially attracted us to Alex was the attention to detail in the form of the object, the matter-of-factness, the directness, with which Alexander realised the construction and the highly accessible aesthetic
Nardo repeats all of those elements in a, for us, much more reduced and somehow warmer, more personal object.
Inspired by the formal clarity of the classic folding chair, Nardo isn't a folding chair, but is a stackable wooden armchair that we can well imagine working in a range of domestic and commercial settings.
All in all a wonderful addition to the maigrau collection.
As indeed are Even and Light.
A few impressions from maigrau at IMM Cologne 2014:
