(smow) blog compact Bratislava Design Week Special: Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava Studio of Industrial Design

Having announced in our introductory Bratislava Design Week post that we are in favour of a global network of regional design weeks that focus on local designers, we did of course start our coverage of Bratislava Design Week 2014 with a product designed by a Swiss designer and manufactured by an Austrian company.

In our defence Fidelio by Christian Spiess was being displayed as part of the exhibition “Work is all around” and as such was in Bratislava because curators Lubica Husta and Viera Kleinova felt it fitted in with the exhibition’s theme. And not because either Christian Spiess or manufacturer Hubert Feldkircher had booked a stand.

Bratislava Design Week 2014 did however, naturally, also feature a lot of native talent, including a very nice showcase by students of the Bratislava Academy of Fine Arts and Design’s so-called “Studio of Industrial Design”

Realised in conjunction with Czech Republic manufacturer TON the project, if we correctly understood it, asked students to develop new chair designs using bentwood rods, and three chairs in particular appealed to us.

The Splita Chair by Eduard Herman takes chair construction with bentwood rods to the extremes of material frugality, employing as it does a lovely and deceptively simple wood splitting technique to create a backrest and four legs from one wooden rod. And in doing so creates a chair with a delightfully familiar yet fresh form. Our principle concern is the question of the load bearing capacity and durability of the structure; however, one shouldn’t forget we are dealing here with student prototypes and that should there be any problems further development will solve them. Hopefully.

Although Michael Thonet did develop and produce a large number of rocking chair designs, as far as we are aware they are all relatively ornate pieces and we can’t recall anything quite as charmingly reduced as that created by Vlasta Kubušová. Although not a “proper” rocking chair in the biblical sense, the chair does have enough of a curve at the front and back to allow a little bit of movement. And obviously it would be very interesting to see how far one could push the design and if one could create a “full rocker”. We’re less convinced by the quadratic seat, for us that needs a little bit of rethought, but on the whole a very satisfying concept.

Jozef Minarik’s design also needs a new seat, urgently, one that does justice to the weightless, volumeless, form language his design bestows the chair. As with Spilta Chair we’re not convinced that the joint will withstand long-term use, but as with Eduard Herman’s design we understand that we are dealing here with a student project prototype and hope that further development will prove our fears ungrounded.