The last time we visited the premises of Vienna shoemaker Rudolf Scheer & Söhne it was for the presentation of Antoinette Bader's LacesLamp project during Vienna Design Week 2010.
Since then little has changed in the way Rudolf Scheer & Söhne make their shoes, but a lot has in terms of the space. Situated next to the company's main premises the so-called SHEER-Raum has been transformed from the dust and brick building site of then into a sensitively decorated and organised sales space.
And a very fitting location for Prague based Studio deFORM's Vienna Design Week Passionswege project.
Just as it was back in 2010 for LacesLamp.
Taking their inspiration from Rudolf Scheer & Söhne's long experience of working with leather, Jakub Pollág and Václav Mlynář a.k.a. Studio deFORM have created two new product lines to help both demonstrate the company's expertise and also allow customers to experience leather in new ways.
The principle object of the project is a leather lounge chair, an object which to be perfectly honest doesn't really get our boat rocking. Resembling Finn Juhl's Chieftain Chair meets one of the many high sided chairs on the market today, we appreciate what deFORM are/were attempting, but for us it all looks somehow, unnecessary. Too much and too incoherent. Not unattractive but just doesn't speak to us. Or at least not in a language we can understand.
The accompanying mirror family is a different kettle of fish altogether.
Essentially little more than a mirror attached to a piece of high quality leather, in addition to the scale and intensity of the works - they feel important which of course means by extrapolation that what they reflect is important - the real beauty of the mirrors is the way the glass is stitched onto the leather; the seam running round the outer-edge of the mirror being not just a fine detail, but more a confirmation of the attention with which the objects have been produced. Your guarantee of the objects quality.
As with BCXSY @ J.L. Lobmeyr, Studio deFORM's Passionswege project won't set the world a light, is however a truly delightful project which once again perfectly demonstrates what can be achieved when craft and design meet as equals.
