It being early April Milan furniture fair once again stands before us and with it the promise of untold column inches about the latest trends, the hottest young talents, the sharpest suits and the best bars for sharing an Aperol spritz and unsavoury gossip. Or a chance to critically assess the contemporary furniture industry. Yes, we’ve been here a few times in the past, but are always happy to return. There be nothing we enjoy more than biting the hand that feeds us. Among those perennial
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Name: smow introducing Born: Leipzig, 2010 Alma mater: University of life Featured designers: Christoffer Martens Erik Wester Christian Lessing Eva Marguerre My Own Super Studio maigrau Stephan Schulz smow blog: smow introducing? (smow) blog: A series we used to publish in which we featured, younger, less well known, but in our opinion extremely talented and interesting designers and "introduced" them to a wider audience smow blog: "Used to publish", and
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On Friday September 26th the Egon Eiermann Society will present the inaugural "Egon Eiermann Chair" Award at a ceremony in the Neue Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in Berlin. Initiated to recognise those individuals or organisations who have made an especially valuable contribution to the maintenance and preservation of Egon Eiermann's works the first Egon Eiermann Chair will be awarded to Barbara and Eckard Düwal for their restoration of the so-called Wohnhaus Matthies in Potsdam-Babelsberg.
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Back in February the participants of the exhibition "Trading Places. Designers meet the collection" at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden spent two days trawling through the museum's depots looking for objects with which to work. During the tour Daphna Isaacs and Laurens Manders, aka Eindhoven based studio Daphna Laurens, were shown inside a drawer. Walked on. Stopped. Walked back. Looked inside the drawer again and asked Herr Knorr, Head of metal, glass and ceramics at the Kunstgewerbemuseum,
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In the past we have, admittedly, been "somewhat" harsh on Chemnitz. Unfairly so considered some. Many. "C'mon! Chemnitz isn't all that bad!!!!" being the general response. And so we decide to investigate a little more closely, to peer behind our prejudices and explore contemporary creativity in Chemnitz. Beginning with snowboard manufacturer silbærg. Initiated in the context of a research project at the Chemnitz Technical University silbærg snowboards make use of so-called Anisotropic Layer
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Since January 2014 Vienna born designer, curator and author Tulga Beyerle has been Director of the Dresden Museum of Decorative Arts - the Kunstgewerbemuseum. Representing a radical shift in policy by the authorities in Dresden, Tulga Beyerle's appointment promises to transform a previously sleepy, conservative, museum into a new centre for contemporary design in Central Europe. The exhibition programme for 2014 is certainly a confident step in that direction, beginning as it has with
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"Potentially it is the simplest assignments, unencumbered by the complex mix of functional, technical or economic conditions, that allow an especially eloquent architecture" So mused the Sachsen branch of the German Architects Association, BDA, in awarding a "Special Recognition" in the 2013 BDA-Preis Sachsen to the project "Garage in Holzstapelbauweise" by Stuttgart based Reichel Schlaier Architekten. Created for a private client in the village of Marienberg, Sachsen, Garage in
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For us one of the stand-out projects submitted to the 2013 International Marianne Brandt Contest was without question 2tables by Chemnitz born, Dresden University of Applied Sciences educated, Berlin based, designer Anna Albertine Baronius. And no, we're not just saying that because it won the (smow)/USM Haller/Vitra Special Award, that decision was made by forces much wiser than us. We do our thing independently. However just occasionally we all arrive at the same conclusions. As the name
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IMM Cologne kept us busy into February, but the month also saw the opening of an Eileen Gray retrospective in Paris, a visit to the Louis Kahn exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum and the sad passing of James Irvine....
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At the recent Designtage Brandenburg Design Conference Vitra Design Museum Chief Curator Mateo Kries held the opening keyword speech. Under the title "Open Design! Why we need to reinvent design" Mateo Kries extended the thoughts presented in his 2010 book "Total Design" to explore where design is going, what are going to be the important themes in the future, and so by extrapolation explore the contemporary nature of the term "design". For as the spray paint on the walls so often says: "How
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"How did you first hear about kkaarrlls?" It's perhaps not quite a question on a par with "Where were you when Kennedy got shot?" or "How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?", but when asked by Volker Albus, Product Design Professor and Prorector at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe and, together with Stefan Legner, co-founder and "boss" from kkaarrlls, you really have to respond. "Pure chance", being our less than brilliant answer. "Milan 2009, too early for a
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Established in 2010 by the architects Pascale Wakim and Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, Beirut based Carwan Gallery is and was the first contemporary design galley in the Middle East. After neigh-on three years as a Pop-Up Gallery, at the end of June Pascale and Nicolas will formally open their first permanent space in Beirut. Which sounds like confirmation that all is going well. We first came across Carwan Gallery in Milan at MiArt 2013, and were greatly taken with not only the objects
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Since establishing their own design studio in Stuttgart in 1994 Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub have quietly gone on to become two of the busiest and most successful German product designers of their generation. With a client portfolio that includes the likes of Thonet, Wilkhahn, Fritz Hansen, Authentics or Belux Jehs+Laub are just at home with designing office furniture as with domestic furniture, lighting and accessories. And in a career splattered with international awards the highlight
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As part of DMY Berlin 2013 the Belgian design critic, curator, journalist and lecturer Max Borka organised the exhibition "Refugium. Berlin as a Design Principle" in collaboration and cooperation with students from his d- SOAP course at the FH Potsdam. Presenting works by some 50 Berlin based designers Refugium not only presents works by the selected designers but also seeks/sought to explore what characterises the Berlin design community and what makes the Berlin design scene relevant and
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Older readers will be aware that we have often held up the absence of some of Germany's most important designer furniture manufacturers as an unmissable indicator of an inherent weakness in the IMM Cologne brand. Those same readers will therefore understand the confusion we felt on seeing that Wilde+Spieth would, finally, be attending IMM Cologne in 2013. We were delighted they were participating. We however now have one argument less. Based in Esslingen near Stuttgart, Wilde+Spieth were
read moreIn our Orgatec interview with Vitra CDO Eckart Maise we talked about the office system as the central component of the Vitra office furniture philosophy. One designer who has done more than most to establish Vitra's reputation in the office furniture sector is without question Antonio Citterio. Since his first collaborations with the company in the late 1980s Antonio Citterio has worked with Vitra on numerous key projects including the Ad Hoc system, the AC and ID office chair systems and most
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Wandering round the Vitra spaceship at Orgatec there was one product that you simply couldn't fail to notice. On every table, in every Workbay, in every Alcove stood a lamp. A Vitra lamp? Not technically. Technically a lamp from Swiss producer Belux. However since 2001 Belux has been part of the Vitra family and at Orgatec 2012 they made good use of their family connections to unveil the latest addition to their portfolio, U-Turn by ECAL Lausanne graduate Michel Charlot. Older readers will
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Without wanting to sound too much like Dieter Rams, good design really, really doesn't have to be complicated or otherwise outrageous. One of the best examples of this is without question the coat hook system Knax from LoCa. Created by Thomas Harrit and Nicolai Sørensen the idea couldn't be any simpler nor the effect any more liberating. Through the integration of a series of self-retracting metal hooks in a piece of wood one creates a hanging system that takes up virtually no space, even
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Back in January Benjamin Hubert was awarded the A&W Audi Mentorpreis 2012. Presented in conjunction with the A&W Designer of the Year Award the Mentorpreis can in many ways be considered as being the "Young Designer" category. The interesting aspect of the A&W Audi Mentorpreis is that the winner is nominated by that year's A&W Designer of the Year. So in 2012 Patricia Urquiola. After the award ceremony we caught up with Benjamin for a quick chat; however, we very cleverly managed to lose the
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Older readers will remember our post from the opening of the exhibition “Zoom. Italian Design and the Photography of Aldo and Marirosa Ballo” at the Vitra Design Museum back in April 2011. As an exhibition "Zoom" explores the birth of the Italian furniture design myth/legend - a myth/legend established, propagated, and maintained by photos as expressive as they are timeless. In that post we compared the creation of designer furniture legends with the creation of music legends using the example
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Talk to anyone about design and the furniture industry in the UK and you'll quickly come to realise that while the British Isles may be home to an enviable wealth of design talent. It ain't home to that many producers of quality, contemporary furniture. Or at least anymore. Whereas, for example, the early years of "British Design 1948-2012. Innovation in the Modern Age" at the V&A feature regular examples of British produced furniture, the later years are all but bereft of such. Britain
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As reported elsewhere in these pages, there is a great deal of hope in the UK that the 2012 Summer Olympics will provide fresh impulse for the UK design industry. Something we doubt. But then, what do we know. No honestly. What do we know? And so we've taken the opportunity in recent weeks to talk to some people who are much better placed than us to asses the situation, not just in terms of the opportunities presented by the Olympics, but more generally about the state of the UK design
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On May 3rd the exhibition "Bauhaus: Art as Life" opens at the Barbican Art Gallery London. Organised in co-operation with the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau and Klassik Stiftung Weimar, "Bauhaus: Art as Life" presents some 450 works by the likes of as Marianne Brandt, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius et al and is the first major Bauhaus exhibition in the UK since 1968. We'll have a full report on the exhibition shortly. But ahead of the official opening we
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Back in October one of our highlights at Vienna Design Week 2011 was the exhibition kidsroomZOOM! Essentially a mid-town Vienna apartment kitted out entirely in furniture for children, we were not only impressed by the objects on display, but by the concept. Forget adults! We're doin' it for the kids! Being the message we got. And one we wholeheartedly approved of. kidsroomZOOM! originated in Milan, and so this year we not only visited the new 2012 show, but also spoke to curator Paola Noè to
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