Ever since Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec released their Alcove Sofa for Vitra in 2006 ever more furniture objects have appeared on the market which promise the owner the opportunity to create flexible room partition solutions. To create rooms within rooms and provide a place in which to separate yourself from a home that is becoming ever more an office. To find safety in the midst of the unending data, information and sensory flood. Or just amongst the kid's mess.
And with very few exceptions, apart from Ronan and Erwan's original all have been soulless, characterless and singularly uninspiring.
Lola Women’s Boudoir by Prague based designer and architect Helena Dařbujánová is anything but.
Presented as part of the "meed – Meeting of Central European Designers" exhibition at Budapest Design Week Lola Women’s Boudoir has all the controlled conservative sylvan charm of a rural Victorian cottage. Albeit with an uncompromising 1950s bus station aesthetic.
Yes. That does make sense.
What makes less sense, at least to us, is the fact that Helena Dařbujánová positions Lola Women’s Boudoir as a life long companion, as a place to play and worry in as a child, to relax and unwind as a growing adult and finally to find peace and reflection as a senior citizen..... but only for women.
?
Or better put.
????
We know many women who feel at home in their garages tinkering with their cars and building model sailing boats; and we also know many men who like nothing better than curling up with a good novel and a cup of green tea. Some even in the company of a cat. And some who even shed a soft tear when the novel gets sad and starts to mirror their own hopeless downward social trajectory.
So no, we're not having any of this gender politics nonsense.
What particularly attracts us to the object is the fragility of the work; the moulded plywood frame and stainless steel legs confer the work a vulnerability that belies its robust and sturdy construction. This feeling of exposure also contrasting nicely with the textile arguments most "escape booths" employ to temp us in.
And we know we'd feel more comfortable in Lola Women’s Boudoir than in most of the padded textile options on the market. There is a certain reassurance in its honesty. You simply trust it. And trust protects better than padding. And certainly more durably.
Thus in addition to the obvious domestic and office uses, we can also well imagine Lola Women’s Boudoir working perfectly in any café, hotel lobby, or wherever people meet for a long heart-to-heart and a shared piece of cake.
Or indeed any 1950s bus station.
