Nils Holger Moormann presents Salone di Aschau 2024

Ciao Salone!

Servus Salone!!

Amongst the European designer furniture publishers Nils Holger Moormann has long stood out from the crowd, and that primarily because Nils Holger Moormann has never sought the crowd, has always done Nils Holger Moormann’s thing, not the crowd’s thing, and who in doing such has very much, and very justifiably, attracted a crowd lot of individuals.

Thus while other furniture publishers dance to the tune of the international trade fair crowd, Nils Holger Moormann organise their own trade fair.

Ciao Milano!

Servus Aschau!!

For all that Nils Holger Moormann [person] was never one to follow the established paths and routes, even preferring to sleep in his own camper-van than in the hotels of the international designer furniture circus, over a great many years Nils Holger Moormann [manufacturer] did make the compulsory April pilgrimage to the crowds of Milan, once even roping us in to helping construct the stand, little knowing how technically incompetent we are. That taught them.

And then in 2013 Nils Holger Moormann [manufacturer, posthac ‘Moormann’] acted very much in the manner of Nils Holger Moormann [person, posthac ‘Nils’] and turned their back on the crowds of Milan. A decision that was very brave then, being as it was a period when being absent from Milan was to be absent from the international furniture market.

But then Moormann and Nils never needed the crowds, Moormann and Nils have long embodied and expressed the position of a George Nelson that if you do that which you believe in you’ll find your public: don’t chase the crowd, let individuals find you. Nelson in following his beliefs not only gave Charles and Ray Eames the platform they needed but for all enabled Herman Miller to play a leading role in defining furniture positions and interior expressions in the second half of 20th century America; Nils in doing what he believed in enabling a carrying through of the positions and attitudes of late 1980s neues Deutsches Design into the calm technocracy of the 1990s and further into the visuals obsessed 21st century, without his eponymous company ever resembling a pastiche of times past but always standing self-confidently as a future oriented challenge to the present. While having fun. A lot of fun. And in doing so offered an alternative to the marketing led monotony of the crowd that a George Nelson saw coming in the late 1940s. Even if, yes, there were brief moments of playing to that crowd: we still recoil with horror at the thought of the ‘special edition’ colours of Harry Thaler’s ever joyous Pressed Chair. That ‘look at the new colours!!!’ all furniture manufacturers disingenuously present as ‘design’ in order to distract a more than willingly distracted crowd from their lack of ideas.

A distraction Moormann didn’t need because ideas aren’t something they’ve ever lacked.

The Moormann Age having seen, for example, the creation of a cargo bike to allow for a low-impact delivery of Axel Kufus’s FNP shelving system; Nils’ reimagining of the interior of a camper-van, Nils’ argument that the interior of a camper-van isn’t a cold functional space but a warm rational space; numerous reimaginations of functional space as a component of an endless functionless space, including the development of Walden, a garden shed that questions not only the difference between a country house and a garden shed but why we acquiesce to the selfish spatial demands of the country house. And a Walden, or essentially a Walden, that once stood in the grounds of the Spinnerei in Leipzig.

Or who can forget the 2011 Bookinist Cup, that famed Hölle von Aschau. OK we can’t actually remember large parts of it, but that’s another story, a cupboard not needing to be opened…. Will however never forget getting a train from a very warm early autumn Vienna and arriving in, essentially, a blizzard in a subzero Aschau in Chiemgau. And being forced to buy a hat. From Tchibo.

And now with Salone di Aschau Nils Holger Moormann stage their own (mini) design fair/festival, or “happening” as they unfortunately insist on calling it.

Whereby Moormann aren’t the first furniture manufacturer to organise their own fair/festival/”happening”: in 2020, for example, Vitra broke away from Orgatec to establish their own mini office furniture festival, or Summit, on the Vitra Campus, a decision that Covid more or less derailed, and decision to do their own thing we still take the credit for. Or at least try to, our telling of the (hi)story of the Vitra Summit rarely being accepted outwith our office. But we’re sticking to our telling.

Salone di Aschau does however promise to be a very different type of event. Not because we didn’t propose it, but because Moormann is a very different type of company. A company with a very different definition of ‘corporate’.

A free event open to all, or at least all who can make it to the Voralpen charm of Aschau in Chiemgau for a day/weekend in mid July, Salone di Aschau is, will be, curated by Sindelfingen based studio/practice Haus Otto a.k.a. Patrick Henry Nagel and Nils Körner who have invited a mix of manufactures, brands and projects to Aschau including, for example, Farm, a project initiated by Haus Otto which brought/brings creatives together on a farm at Rimpertsweiler in deepest Baden-Württemberg and uses the farm, uses the concept of ‘farm’, as the basis for developing not just projects but positions on art, design, society, the planet, ‘farm’; or Mettmann, near Düsseldorf, based cutlery/teapot/kitchenware manufacturer Mono, a company whose design story starts in 1959 with Peter Raacke and which after contributions from a myriad designers is being continued today by Mark Braun; or students from Konstantin Grcic’s Masters Class at the HFBK Hamburg whose reflections on Wanderstock, Hiking Pole, one suspects will be more conceptual than practical, but no less informative for the fact; or Berlin based Bottone a.k.a. Michele and Daniele Luciano Ferrazzano who present their designs not only as physical objects but also as sounds. If the Ferrazzano brothers and/or their furniture will provide a musical interlude, we no know. Do however know that as Salone di Aschau draws to an end Sianza from Munich based community radio platform Radio 80000 will provide the musical accompaniment to the setting of the sun.

A mix that will also include Nils Holger Moormann. Obvs.

And a mix that offers the kernel of a new genre of design fair/festival/”happening”? A mix that offers a revolution in furniture trade fairs akin to that that Nils demands in design, and thereby enables the more responsible, design focussed, international furniture trade fair community we all need?

That remains to be seen. We’re making no predictions in advance. Ain’t our thing.

And regardless of whether it is or isn’t Salone di Aschau certainly sounds like being a highly entertaining, instructive and stimulating, and highly fun, day out in southernmost Bavaria.

Sounds like being a confirmation of the fact that while a Salone Milano may need the likes of Moormann, a Moormann doesn’t need a Salone Milano.

Confirmation that a Nils Holger Moormann needs to do its own thing. And why we should all be very thankful that they, and he, do just that.

Salone di Aschau 2024 will be staged around the Nils Holger Moormann HQ, An der Festhalle 2, 83229 Aschau im Chiemgau on Saturday July 13th. On Sunday July 14th there is a communal hike planned up Kampenwand (1669 metres) with a “How to Hum” seminar at the top led by BNAG a.k.a. Oliver-Selim Boualam & Lukas Marstaller.

Accommodation may or may not be available at the Moormann Berge, you’ll have to ask, but space for camping is apparently available.

Full details can be found at www.moormann.de