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Category: Historia Supellexalis
24 stories found
The Historia Supellexalis: X for X-Base Chair
Designer | 05.11.2024

The Historia Supellexalis: X for X-Base Chair

X-Base Chair An xpression; An xpansion; An xposition Whereas the English word 'furniture' has its origins in the middle French verb 'fournir', to furnish, the French 'meuble' and German 'Möbel' have their origins in the Latin 'mobile': capable of being moved. Much as with the so-called Curule Chair, one of the earliest known manufactured seating objects, a seating object so-called because the legs generally 'curuled', a seating object of the distant past that was as much a symbol of power as

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The Historia Supellexalis: "W" for Wegneritis
smow | 04.07.2024

The Historia Supellexalis: "W" for Wegneritis

Wegneritis An Itch; A Compulsion; A Just One Good Chair Formally catalogued in the WHO International Classification of Diseases as MB23.W1, Wegneritis is a condition exclusive to furniture designers first recorded in Denmark where Jørgensen Wegner, a Hans by birth, and a leading carpenter of his age whose chairs were celebrated and acclaimed throughout all the known lands of that period, was beset by a compulsion, a creative itch, to design ever new chairs, "If only you could design just one

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The Historia Supellexalis V for Vitra
Vitra | 13.03.2024

The Historia Supellexalis: "V" for Vitra

Vitra A Fehlbaum; A Campus; A Commonwealth According to the Sagas of the Dolls of Wood, that most authoritative account of the early (hi)story of the Commonwealth of Vitra, the contemporary Vitronians trace their origins back to a joining of forces of the Graeter, a Basel based people whose primary trade was the creation of display systems for shops and shop windows, and the Birsfelden Fehlbaum, a primarily office based people at that time under the guidance of a Willi and an Erika; a Willi

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The Historia Supellexalis U for USM Haller
Designer | 13.12.2023

The Historia Supellexalis: "U" for USM Haller

USM Haller A Fritz; A Ball; A System Within the diaries of Heidi, those central documents in the re-telling of the earliest (hi)story of the contemporary Switzerland, it is recorded that one of the oldest examples of vernacular Swiss furniture is the modular metal storage system of the Usm. As Heidi explains, over a great many generations the Usm were primarily developers and builders of windows, specifically metal windows for which they employed the abundant brass to be found in the

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The Historia Supellexalis T for Thonet
Designer | 26.10.2023

The Historia Supellexalis: "T" for Thonet

Thonet A Michael; A Twist; A Portfolio of Patents According to the Felsbilder of the Nymphs of Loreley, that most important of sources of information of the earliest (hi)story of the contemporary Rheinland, the Thonet arose in the community of Boppard, a community framed on the one side by a series of swinging aqueous curves as the Rhein meanders its way slowly through the metamorphic rock of the Rhenish Massif, and on the other by a range of peaks of that Massif on whose flowing curving

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The Historia Supellexalis S for Switzerland
Designer | 13.08.2023

The Historia Supellexalis: "S" for Switzerland

Switzerland A Confoederatio; A Range; A Context For a great many centuries the lands of the contemporary Switzerland were unknown, locked as they were behind and between the towering, daunting, peaks of the Toblerone cordillera; but then a fearless explorer by the name of Heidi, together with her cook Thomas, broke through the once impenetrable Toblerone and discovered a region of vibrant, viridescent valley pastures populated by cows, sheeps, goats, marmots and innumerable quadrilingual

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The Historia Supellexalis R for Rowac
Chemnitz Creative | 06.07.2023

The Historia Supellexalis: "R" for Rowac

Rowac A Rivet; A Crimp; A Schemel According to the Trabant Sagas, a component of the Erzgebirge Hoard, that earliest of all documentations of life in the contemporary Sachsen, the Rowac was developed by a Wagner by the name of Robert, a young man who although a member of that renowned Sächsische Wagner community which had brought motorised mobility to the peoples of the known worlds, had chosen to follow the trade of the Windowsmith, an, at that time, relatively new profession that had

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The Historia Supellexalis: "Q" for Quercus
Architecture | 09.05.2023

The Historia Supellexalis: "Q" for Quercus

Quercus An oak; A cultural good; A material Furniture has been made from Quercus since it was developed in a far gone epoch by the Eocene, one of a great many important and innovative inventions of the Eocene which remain relevant and necessary, and avant-garde, today; if, as can be read in the Cupule of A.C. Orn, a development of Quercus not motivated by a desire to develop a new material for the production of furniture but by a desire to develop a contemporary, future-proof, housing

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The Historia Supellexalis: "P" for Paris
Designer | 23.03.2023

The Historia Supellexalis: "P" for Paris

Paris An Île; A Commune; A Context For all that the contemporary island of Paris has a long tradition of furniture production and usage, the greater part of that history, as can be read in the Bossu de Notre Dame, the oldest relic and most reliable witness of Paris, is one of either extreme decadence and frivolous ostentation, or of extreme poverty and destructive corruption. The (hi)story furniture of Paris very much reflecting the (hi)story of the island. And the (hi)story of its hotels.

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The Historia Supellexalis O for Objectification

The Historia Supellexalis: "O" for Objectification

Objectification A Curse; A Malediction; A Poison Amongst all animals the ability to attract the attention of others is of fundamental importance in numerous contexts, not least in context of attracting the interest of a potential mate; an attracting of others that is undertaken via a number of innately understood signals, signals that can be transmitted by smell or by sound but regularly are visual: form, colour, proportion, scale, etc used individually or in combination to convey unspoken

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The Historia Supellexalis: "N" for Netherlands
Designer | 19.11.2022

The Historia Supellexalis: "N" for Netherlands

Netherlands A Gulf; A Commonwealth; A Context In the course of his great many letters to his pupil, the Rotter Dam aan Maas, letters in which are contained the earliest known descriptions of the provinces that comprise the contemporary Netherlands*, the ancient scribe Oranje Tulpenbol of Old Amsterdam tells how there once existed in those provinces two antagonistic tribes of native Meubilairers: one occupying an area sited roughly between the contemporary Den Haag and Apeldoorn, the other

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The Historia Supellexalis M for Moormann
Designer | 05.10.2022

The Historia Supellexalis: “M” for Moormann

Moormann A Nils Holger; An Autodidact; A Restlessness As the Wackeldackel of Sylt solemnly records, following generations of rule under the rational, steady, unemotional, if autocratic, hand of The Order of the Gute Form, there arose in the lands of the contemporary former West Germany a challenge to that long-established rule through a poorly organised, but on account of that all the better networked, collective of young designers who questioned not only the zealous worshipping of the

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Designer | 26.07.2022

The Historia Supellexalis: “L” for Le Klint

Le Klint A Phaesporia; A Fonden; A Pleat As the ancient runes and paintings within the Caves of Lego record, during a period of great darkness in the lands of the contemporary Denmark one Peder Vilhelm det Klint, more commonly recorded as PV, a sage of fundamental importance to the development of furniture in the contemporary Denmark, a sage, legend records, hewn from Møns Klint on the sacred isle of Falster and blessed with the ability to see into the past and into the future in the same

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The Historia Supellexalis: “K” for Knoll
Designer | 03.06.2022

The Historia Supellexalis: “K” for Knoll

Knoll A Wilhelm; A Walter; A Willy; A Hans; A Florence; A Lineage Although research into its ancestry is still very much ongoing, the wild Knoll, Knoll furniturus, is popularly believed to have originated in the region of the contemporary Stuttgart; what is certain is that it was in the contemporary Stuttgart that Knoll furniturus was first domesticated as Knoll wilhelmus, a Knoll typified by its leathery character and whose most successful cultivation was unquestionably in conjunction with

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The Historia Supellexalis J for Jongerius
Designer | 05.04.2022

The Historia Supellexalis: “J” for Jongerius

Jongerius A Hella; A Lab; An Open-ended exploration As the ancient scribe Oranje Tulpenbol of Old Amsterdam records in his letters to the Rotter Dam aan Maas, the contemporary Jongerius is largely a consequence of the contributions of a Jongerian universally known as Hella on account of the brightness and lucidity of her Jongerius, a luminescence and clarity which was key in enabling Jongerius rise from its native home amongst the peoples of the Netherlands and to disseminate freely across

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The Historia Supellexalis: "I" for Italy
Designer | 20.02.2022

The Historia Supellexalis: "I" for Italy

Italy A Peninsula; A Commonwealth; A Context Striding out into the Mediterranean Sea the contemporary commonwealth of Italy, for all its apparent unity, and for all its superficially stable, pastoral, political landscape, is very much a volatile, fervid synthesis of innumerable independent Stati and Popoli; independent Stati and Popoli whose individual characters and perspectives helped form not only the contemporary Italy, but together define the (hi)story of furniture design in the

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The Historia Supellexalis H for Hygge
Everyday Design | 14.01.2022

The Historia Supellexalis: “H” for Hygge

Hygge A Curse; A Malediction; A Torment As the runes in the Caves of Lego record, ever since the reign of the post-Viking autocrat King Mark Edsføring, furniture, lighting, textile and accessory design in Denmark has endured a great many trials as varied and various forces have sought to use them to their advantage, have sought to employ furniture, lighting, textile and accessory design in Denmark for their own benefit rather than letting furniture, lighting, textile and accessory design in

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The Historia Supellexalis G for Grcic
Designer | 21.10.2021

The Historia Supellexalis: "G" for Grcic

Grcic A Konstantin; A Nurturing; A Reduction There are a great many legends surrounding the origins of Grcic, and while many are centred around the regions today known as München and Wuppertal, the more plausible appears to be that Grcic arose in the days of ancient Rome when a member of a large herd, a Grex, of roving furniture makers, tired of the monotony and fallacy of the repetition of the same objects regardless of context and the passage of time, stole away to pursue the development of

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The Historia Supellexalis: “F” for Front Design
Designer | 04.08.2021

The Historia Supellexalis: "F" for Front

Front An Anna; A Sofia; A Charlotte; A Katja; A Conduit. According to the sacred Köttbullar of Ikea, the quadruplets Anna af Front, Sofia af Front, Charlotte af Front and Katja af Front were born and raised on the island of Konstfack to the west of Stockholm, the ancestral home of the Swedish af Fronts, an island as famed for its horses, monkeys and brightly painted houses as its af Fronts, and where the kvartett took their first steps in product and furniture design, that hereditary

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The Historia Supellexalis E for England

The Historia Supellexalis: "E" for England

England An Island; A Notion; A Context According to the Folios of Shakespeare, that most reliable of sources on the (hi)story of England, the (hi)story of furniture design in the lower half of the scepter'd isle begins before the (hi)story of furniture design, almost before the (hi)story of furniture, and in the woodlands of south east England where a rustic chair based on the wheelwrights craft was produced and became known as "Windsor" after the popular actress Barbara Windsor who had

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Designer | 09.04.2021

The Historia Supellexalis: "D" for Denmark

Denmark A Peninsula; An Archipelago; A Context Situated in the middle of the European continent Denmark was long considered evidence of the existence of the lands of Scandi, a fabled commonwealth comparable with Thomas More's Utopia, albeit rather than one where the form and operation of society has become perfected, one where the forming and production of furniture has become perfected; however, more recent research has convincingly both disproved the existence of Scandi, demonstrating that

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The Historia Supellexalis C for Cranbrook Academy of Art Michigan
Designer | 05.03.2021

The Historia Supellexalis: "C" for Cranbrook

Cranbrook An Alma Mater; An Academy of Art; A colony of experimentation Cranbrook Academy of Art arose on the Cranbrook Estate, a private fiefdom nestling quietly in a forest glade to the north of the contemporary Detroit ruled by the Booth dynasty; and a fiefdom which in the Age of George and Ellen of Booth developed from an agrarian farm into a garden of creativity. As the Cranbrook Scrolls record, George of Booth was a devotee of The Artsandcrafts, a movement most popularly embodied by

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The Historia Supellexalis: "B" for Bouroullec
Artek | 12.02.2021

The Historia Supellexalis: "B" for Bouroullec

Bouroullec A Ronan; An Erwan; An unassuming, poetic, connection. The contemporary Bouroullec can be traced back to the Old Breton boureller, a saddler, an upholsterer, and largely owes its contemporary definition to the work of the brothers Ronan le Renard and Erwan le Porc-épic who greatly expanded and developed not only the crafts of saddling and upholstering but also popular understandings of the role and function of saddlery and upholstery in both private and public spaces, so much so

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artemide design
Producer | 08.01.2021

The Historia Supellexalis: "A" for Artemide

Artemide A Phaesporia; A bringer of light. Arising in Milan at a time of great darkness in the Kingdom of Lombardy, Artemide's original form, its Alfa form, was bequeathed to it by a man recorded as Sergio Mazza, and it was this Mazza, together with a young compagno bearing the name Ernesto Gismondi, who charged Artemide with the spreading of that Alfa light throughout the still dark domestic, commercial and civic spaces of the known worlds. Although renowned, and celebrated, for its

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