Although geographically the (hi)story of Vitra begins in Basel, spiritually it begins in America and arrives in Switzerland in 1957 with the licences to produce works by US designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi and Alexander Girard; and then grows over the subsequent decades under the influence of the close co-operations which thus developed, for all those with George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames. Given this close affinity with and to America it was perhaps
read more
Although Stuttgart based design studio Jehs+Laub are in many respects best known as the winners of the inaugural Moormann Bookinist Cup, they are also one of Germany's most prolific and successful furniture design studios. Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub met while studying Industrial Design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, their friendship developed over the course of a practical semester in New York, led them to complete a joint Diploma Project and ultimately saw the
read more
Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a town famous for some 150 years as a, if not the, centre of American furniture production, it is perhaps not surprising that Tom Newhouse choose to pursue a career in furniture design. Upon graduating in 1972 from the School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Tom Newhouse took up a position as a staff designer with Herman Miller, a situation he himself refers to as a "marvellous beginning", before in 1978 he established his
read more
Whereas the careers of most product and furniture designers follow a very similar path and pattern over apprenticeship, internships and college, Belgian designer Alain Gilles took a "somewhat" different route: a degree in political science being followed by five years working in the Brussels' office of international finance concern J P Morgan, before, aged 32, he began to study product design. And that with a fair degree of success. Since establishing his own studio in 2007 Alain Gilles has
read more
Born in Leverkusen Glen Oliver Löw initially studied Industrial Design at the University of Wuppertal before moving to Milan in 1986 where he completed a Masters degree at the Domus Academy. Following his graduation from the Domus Academy Glen Oliver Löw remained in Milan where he took up a position with Antonio Citterio, becoming a partner in the practice in 1990, and developing a wide range of projects for companies as varied as, amongst others, Vitra, Kartell and Flos. In 2000 Glen Oliver
read more
The question as to what "home" means has never been an easy one to answer, and in our global age of networked, anonymous, communities, our age of refugees and migrant workers, our age of abstract "Homeland Security" agencies, the question has in many ways become even more complicated. The Lamp Heimat (Homeland) by Berlin based designers Birgit Severin and Guillaume Neu-Rinaudo is an attempt to approach an answer. Birgit Severin and Guillaume Neu-Rinaudo met while studying at Design Academy
read more
In the past we've often noted the number of "classic" furniture designers currently working in Belgium, and how in comparison to their near cousins in Holland, Belgium is home to noticeably fewer designers who take a more conceptual, theoretical approach to their work. There are of course exceptions, such as Brussels based designer Thomas Lommée. Following his graduation in 2005 from the Man and Living class at Design Academy Eindhoven Thomas Lommée spent a year in Toronto at the George Brown
read more
Internationally known for its financial district, airport, financial institutions and sausages, Frankfurt am Main is less well understood as a city of design. Or at least not a city of contemporary design. That however wasn’t always the case. The 1920s and 30s saw the likes of Ernst May and Christian Dell help the city develop a reputation as a centre for modernist innovation, while the Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky gave it an internationally renowned kitchen concept in which to
read more
As we've noted in the past, Hungarian architects and designers made a valuable contribution to the development of post war architecture and design. Made. For in recent years a Hungarian accent in the design discourse has been principally notable by its absence. By its stillness. Which of course doesn't mean there aren't Hungarians producing intelligent, interesting, relevant and innovative work. There are. Hungarians such as the Budapest based practice Architecture Uncomfortable Workshop
read more
In addition to the exhibition of their work in Cologne, the A&W Designer of the Year crown also allows the recipient to select one young designer for the so-called A&W Mentor Prize: essentially a chance to invite a young designer whose work they admire to share the spotlight with them. Previous mentees have included Stefan Diez, selected in 2005 by Richard Sapper, Oskar Zieta, selected in 2011 by Tokujin Yoshioka, and the very first mentee, Konstantin Grcic, selected by Achille Castiglioni in
read more
2016 sees the 20th anniversary of German architecture and design magazine A&W's "Designer of the Year Award." Following on from previous recipients including Achille Castiglioni in 1997, Paola Navone in 2000, Gaetano Pesce in 2006 and more recently Werner Aisslinger in 2014 and Michele De Lucchi in 2015 the 20th recipient is Jasper Morrison. And that, joyously, means a Jasper Morrison exhibition during the 2016 Passagen Cologne interior design week. A&W Designer of the Year 2016 - Jasper
read more
We first became aware of Florian Kallus and Sebastian Schneider a.k.a design studio kaschkasch before they were kaschkasch, when they were just Akademie für Gestaltung Münster students Florian Kallus and Sebastian Schneider. Our first contact with Florian was when we saw his project "Table & Lamp" at DMY Berlin 2010. Nothing more complicated than a table, or technically a desk, with a freely positionable and directable lamp attachment, "Table & Lamp" is and was one of those projects that
read more
Cologne isn't a city which creativity only visits every January in the form of the IMM Cologne furniture trade fair and the Passagen interior design week, but is a city in which creativity can be experienced all year round: and no we don't mean Carnival! We definitely don't mean Carnival! Rather genuine creativity of the sort that enriches, advances, challenges and entertains. In addition to being home to seven creative colleges, including the Köln International School of Design, KISD, the
read more
In our post from the exhibition Schrill Bizarr Brachial. Das Neue Deutsche Design der 80er Jahre at the Bröhan Museum Berlin we noted that, for us at least, the greatest legacy of the 1980s post-modern neuen deutschen Design movement is and was the number of protagonists who have subsequently found teaching positions in Germany's leading design schools; protagonists such as Wolfgang Laubersheimer who since 1991 has been Professor of Production Technology at, and since 2013 Director of, the Köln
read more
In our post from the Barbican Art Gallery exhibition "The World of Charles and Ray Eames" we noted the disappointing sparsity with which the otherwise excellent exhibition deals with the private world of Charles and Ray Eames. Arguing that understanding the designer is necessary to fully understanding their work. Charles and Ray are sadly no longer with us to directly answer our many questions; however, in the person of Charles's grandson Eames Demetrios we have an excellent alternative.
read more
The history of furniture design has an unignorable, if subtle and background, Hungarian accent; Marcel Breuer was one of the driving forces at Bauhaus and through his work with steel tubing, moulded plywood and sheet steel he helped advance ideas of contemporary furniture design, and continues to inspire; Paul László was one of the genuine pioneers of American industrial design and contributed to George Nelson's first Hermann Miller collection in 1948; and while Ernő Goldfinger may be best
read more
We were first introduced to the work of Berlin based designer Uli Budde when we saw his "Reading Table" project at Designers Fair 2010 in Cologne. A delightfully simple object Reading Table combines table top and magazine/newspaper storage space in a manner that is as painfully obvious as it genial. An easily accessible, contemporary object the fact that no producer has seen fit to take it into production is one of those design mysteries which often keep us awake at night. Having begun his
read more
Established in Brussels in 2011 by the French born, Belgian based craftsmen Jean Angelats and Jonathan Renou, Ateliers J&J released their inaugural collection in 2013. Presenting a range of domestic furnishing items crafted from bent tubular steel and solid wood Ateliers J&J's Collection 01 did nothing particularly innovative - and did it with a self-assured grace and composure that raised it far above the average and reminded us all just how enriching honestly conceived, well-proportioned,
read more
In our recent review of contemporary Berlin creativity we noted that one of the problems increasingly being faced by Berlin is that of holding on to the ever increasing number of graduates from the city's many design institutions. Thus it seemed apposite to talk to a recent Berlin design graduate about the reality of life as a recent Berlin design graduate. A recent Berlin design graduate such as Gunnar Søren Petersen. Born and raised in Bonn Gunnar Søren Petersen studied Industrial Design
read more
Buildings are, somewhat logically, 3D. Photographs 2D. The challenge of architecture photography is transforming the 3D to 2D in such a way that the building maintains its identity without the photograph becoming incomprehensible. Always has been. Always will be. One of the younger generation of artists to accept the challenge is Leipzig based photographer Margret Hoppe. Born in Greiz, Thüringen, Margret Hoppe studied photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig, graduating
read more
Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Pepe Heykoop first reached an international audience when his flexible chair project, A Restless Chairacter, won the D3 award at IMM Cologne 2009, since then Pepe has gone on to achieve critical acclaim with projects such as the Chaos Chandelier, the Brick Series and the Skin Collection. And through his work for the Tiny Miracles Foundation. Established in 2010 by Pepe's cousin Laurien Meuter, the Tiny Miracles Foundation works with an impoverished inner-city
read more
It is a fact, if not a universally known fact, that the New York Museum of Modern Art's 1940 “Organic Design in Home Furnishings” competition included a category “Furniture for Outdoor Living”. While much of what that now legendary competition instigated remains as relevant and contemporary as ever, the design of outdoor furniture has, regrettably, fallen somewhat by the wayside. A state of affairs ably demonstrated at the catchy titled "spoga+gafa garden fair 2015" in Cologne. Featuring hall
read more
As we noted in our recent review of contemporary creativity in Berlin, the creative landscape in the German capital is not just an eclectic composition of genres and philosophies but for all of nationalities: in addition to a, relatively, low number of native Berliner the Berlin creative community is characterised by a goodly mix of German and international creatives. International creatives such as the Danish architect Sigurd Larsen. Following completion of his studies at the Royal Academy of
read more
As previously reported, the company DMY Berlin GmbH & Co. KG, who for the past decade or so has run the annual DMY Berlin design festival, filed for insolvency in October 2014: the festival itself however continues under the auspices of a new organiser, about:design. “DMY is dead. Long live DMY”, as it were. The 2015 edition of DMY opens for professional, specialist, visitors at 10am on Thursday June 11th, at 6pm that evening to the general public, and runs until Sunday June 14th. Ahead of
read more
