The nature of product design, and for all furniture design, being what it is, we all have a predisposition to categorise products and objects.
Chair. Table. Lamp. Tea pot. For example.
Yet, quite aside from the fact that we all invariably use products for purposes other than than that intended, the chair as the makeshift step ladder, the wine glass and makeshift candle holder or the Biro as makeshift knife, why should a product only have one function?
Can it not have two or more without adversely affecting the form and usability? Would we all be horribly confused by a product which stood "in between" various functions and uses?
Taking such considerations as there starting point Karoline Fesser, Kai Linke & Thomas Schnur have followed on from the success of Objects for the Neighbour in 2013 and 2014's Objects and the Factory, by inviting a selection of young international designers to create a work around the subject "Objects in Between"; the results of the designers deliberations are currently being presented in a very engaging exhibition in Cologne.
As ever with such "Objects" projects, all designers were free to interpret the brief in their own way: and as ever all did.
Some such as Karoline Fesser with here project Hide, Thomas Schnur with Station or Miriam Aust and Sebastian Amelung a.k.a Aust & Amelung with their tellingly named Table and Bowl, created objects which deliberately set out to combine numerous functions in objects that remain as reduced and unobtrusive as possible.
Others such as Kai Linke with his project T(ubo), Torsten Neeland with VOID or Meike Langer with Assemblage took what one could term a more theoretical approach and respectively explored the subjects of in between sitting and lying, in between two walls of glass and in between design and architecture.
In addition, Laura Strasser's Porcelain Butler project with its porcelain table top-cum-tray sits nicely in between tableware and a table, Amaury Poudray's Wood and Wool in between functional and decorative, between design and handwork, while with her side tables Mars and Pluto Joa Herrenknecht has created objects where copper and silver mesh are fixed within, in between, acrylic glass to create an almost textile like surface. Or at least textile like surface effect.
The exhibited furniture objects are nicely complimented by a series of photos by Sven Lützenkirchen depicting apartment block lobbies - a location which of course stands exactly between outside and inside.
What is particularly appealing about the combination of photos and objects is that it is at first disarming; you expect to find the objects in the photos, think the photos are somehow part of the presentation strategy. And when you realise that is not the case your reaction is, "well OK, but we could well imagine them in that location". A situation which for us stands as testament to the mature nature of the works displayed, despite the fact that they are largely still in development.
Quite aside from the individual qualities of one or the object on display the real joy of Objects in Between comes from the realisation that good product design needn't start with the aim of creating a product for a particular category, but of creating something for a particular function and/or a particular space.
Not least because at the end of the day it is going to be misappropriated anyway......
Objects in Between can be viewed at Körnerstraße 48, 50823 Köln until Sunday January 25th and fuller details can be found at http://objectsinbetween.com
