"Rare is the human backside that hasn't found solace and support in Mr. Day's most famous creation", thus, with just a touch of music hall sauciness, begins Bruce Weber his obituary to the British designer Robin Day in the New York Times from November 20th 2010, before continuing, "a molded polypropylene shell fastened to an enameled bent tubular steel base that has become familiar seating in schools, churches, offices, auditoriums, home patios, kitchens, dens, bedrooms and basements around the
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Floris Wubben is a rare and precious being. Floris Wubben is a contemporary Dutch designer who didn't study at Design Academy Eindhoven. When we ask him how such a situation can arise, why he didn't attend Eindhoven, he smiles and replies that we're not the first to ask him that, everybody it seems wants to know. An indication of just how rare and precious a being he is. Floris Wubben does of course have his atelier in Eindhoven. Anything else would be far too absurd, if not illegal, and
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It was invariably more through good fortune than good planning; however, at Milan Furniture Fair 2015 Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's principle manufacturers were all sited next to one another. Good for Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec as it meant they didn't have so far to walk to get to their numerous appointments. And good for everyone else as it allowed for a very easy overview of the brothers' latest works. Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's highest profile new launch at Milan Furniture Fair 2015 was
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Back in the hazy mists of 2014 the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts, Leipzig presented Sitting – Lying – Swinging. Furniture from Thonet, an exhibition which provided a leisurely stroll through 150 years of Thonet chair design and helped explain the evolution of the company's designs over the decades, including why Thonet lost their way in the 1980s and how from the late 1990s onwards they regained their position as one of Europe's leading contemporary furniture producers. And an exhibition
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Upon seeing Rui Alves's Bridge armchair prototype at IMM Cologne 2015 we commented on the unfamiliar, and for us not instantly accessible, overproportioned upholstered seat and backrest...... Before realising in context of both the Pocket Chair by Jesper Junge and the Lenz Lounge Chair by Bartmann Berlin, Silvia Terhedebrügge & Hanne Willmann, that possibly Rui was just riding the Zeitgeist a lot better than us and that the overproportioned aesthetic had a contemporary relevance we were unaware
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For reasons far too abstract, intangible, and potentially libellous, to go into, we didn't report on the inaugural presentation of USM's new Privacy Panels staged during Orgatec Cologne 2014. Fortunately, and no doubt buoyed by the success of the Cologne presentation, USM are also presenting the Privacy Panels in Milan. When Fritz Haller developed his modular office furniture system for USM it's ability to divide internal spaces in a responsive and functional yet reduced and unobtrusive
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For us one of the few genuine joys of Milan Design Week is observing visitors to the furniture fair perching on the simple metal benches to be found on the peripheries of the exhibition halls, benches which resemble safety barriers more than public seating Our joy stemming not from the irony that they find themselves surrounded by chairs in whose collective development millions of Euros have been invested, but because it is the most poetic reminder that a chair is a purely functional object.
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As we've often noted in these pages the eastern German town of Chemnitz markets itself as the "City of Modernism", which as we've equally often noted in these pages is a bit of an over optimistic claim. For just as a swallow doesn't make a summer so being the birthplace of Marianne Brandt and possessing an Erich Mendelsohn department store building doesn't make you a "city of modernism" Which isn't to say that Chemnitz isn't without its cultural relevance: historically through works such as,
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Following the necessary disruption of their permanent exhibition to accommodate the recently ended exhibition Sensing the Future: László Moholy-Nagy, die Medien und die Künste, the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin have taken the opportunity afforded to redesign their exhibition concept. And in doing so have allowed a very welcome fresh wind to blow through their museum. Bauhaus Archiv Berlin: Sammlung Bauhaus Presented under the title Sammlung Bauhaus - The Bauhaus Collection - the new permanent
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In our 5 New Design Exhibitions for January 2015 post we noted with dismay, and an unmistakable hint of accusation, that System USM Haller appeared not to be included in the exhibition SYSTEM DESIGN. Über 100 Jahre Chaos im Alltag at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln. We were wrong. Of course System USM Haller was included in the exhibition. Anything else would have been absurd. And while the actual object on show is and was a less than ideal example of the genius of the system, the essay
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Throughout 2015 some thirty European museums and cultural institutions will mark the 125th anniversary of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh's death with a series of exhibitions, events and cultural exchanges. As previously noted, just as we have an innate mistrust of "lifetime achievement awards" for the living and lively, so to do we find "celebrating" deaths somewhat macabre. Especially in the case of Vincent van Gogh given the gory and tragic circumstances of his passing. But we famously don't
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Established in 1993 with a primary focus on producing the designs of Egon Eiermann, including most famously the re-edition of Eiermann's 1953 table frame, Stuttgart based furniture manufacturer Richard Lampert have quietly developed over the intervening twenty plus years into one of Germany's most distinctive and idiosyncratic furniture producers, and a manufacturer with a portfolio that effortlessly mixes contemporary design with older, established, pieces. Often in the same object. Whereas
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In our post on Rui Alves's Bridge Chair prototype from IMM Cologne we noted that, although generally approving of the piece, it wasn't as instantly accessible as much of Rui's work. It took us a little bit of time to find our way into it. One possible reason is and was what we referred to as the "deliberately overproportioned upholstered seat and back rest", and the associated unfamiliar but not unappealing form language with its vague reminiscence of Finn Juhl or Hans J Wegner, yet clearly
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Contrary to popular legend, a change is not as good as a rest. It's better. For whereas after a rest one just carries on ploughing the same furrow, change means new experiences and the gorgeous, invigorating, uncertainty of not knowing where the new path will take you. After neigh on 18 years of producing refreshingly individual objects from sheet steel, and sheet steel alone, in 2014 Augsburg based Müller Möbelfabrikation began a flirtation with wood in context of their Stack sideboard/room
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If you're of a certain age, and of a certain background, you'll be familiar with the Roland TR-808 drum machine. If not, introduced in 1980 the Roland TR-808 was one of the first programmable drum machines, was, as such, a major influence on the development of electronic music in the 1980s..... and is infamous for sounding absolutely nothing like real drums, far less real percussion. Consequently, on account of its universally acknowledged auditory failings, the TR-808 was only produced for
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While the old adage "you are what you eat" can't be true, if it were we'd be a slovenly pile of beer and crisps, it is very true that you are how you cook. Cooking has largely developed with cultures, the way similar foodstuffs are prepared and cooked, for example, varying from region to region, and regardless of how technologically advanced society inevitably becomes, cooking will, we suspect, remain largely resistant to change. Cooking systems will evolve and adapt, but cooking processes
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We remember very clearly the first time we saw the work of Berlin design studio llot llov: it was at Designers Fair Cologne 2010, back in the day when the exhibition was held in the fading glory of the so-called Rheintriadem. Walking down a corridor, invariably trying to decide what we wanted for lunch, we glanced, more or less unconsciously, into one of the rooms and there hanging in the corner, radiating an unmistakable self-confident grandeur, was the macramé "flower cocoon" Lucille.
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In our post on the Drawers Table by 45 Kilo for My Kilos we noted "any product that can appear as fresh, contemporary and universally deployable six years after its release as it did on day one is, as a general rule, good." And what about a table which appears as fresh, contemporary and universally deployable 61 years after its release as it did on day one? Such is the case with the ess.tee.tisch t-6500 from Swiss manufacturer Horgenglarus. Originally launched by Horgenglarus in 1954 as the
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Parallel to the exhibition MAD ABOUT LIVING – 24 Designers from Brussels, Cologne is hosting an exhibition which nicely highlights one of the major differences between Belgian designers and their Dutch colleagues in terms of designing furniture and other domestic products Whereas Belgian designers simply produce furniture, Dutch designers produce concepts. OK we're generalising, and to be fair we do know a lot, a few, some, Dutch designers who produce perfectly "normal" furniture. But for the
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Presumably for reasons of brand unity the German Design Council's D3 Design Talent Contest for young designers has been renamed the Pure Talents Contest: a name that connects it with the very successful Pure segment - Pure Village, Pure Editions, Pure Startup - Cologne Trade Fair introduced to IMM furniture trade fair a couple of years ago, and also creates a nice link between those, generally, more contemporary producers in the Pure segment and the, generally, more contemporary young
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If we're correctly informed, and let's be honest we're not always, 2014 saw the Belgian General Consulate in Cologne host their first Passagen Design Week exhibition with an excellent showcase of new and less new works by Atelier Bonk and Cas Moor. Buoyed by the success of that experience for Passagen 2015 the Consulate is hosting the exhibition MAD ABOUT LIVING - 24 Designers from Brussels. Organised by the Brussels regional creative promotion agency, MAD Brussels, and staged in the fire
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As regular readers will be aware, for us there are two characteristics which define a proper desk: drawers and an endlessly large surface area on which to spread out and indulge in your work/life balance. Characteristics perfectly embodied by Drawers Table by design studio 45 Kilo for Berlin based brand My Kilos. What however is particularly pleasing and endearing about Drawers Table is that despite its wonderfully spacious dimensions, the well thought through design and carefully reduced
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Much as we tend to shy away from "Designer of the Year" awards, the presentation of German architecture and design magazine A&W's Designer of the Year award is always an early highpoint of the Passagen Cologne Design Week. Principally because it invariably results in a compact yet informative exhibition from and about the selected designer. An exhibition that is perhaps never independent nor critical, but which always provides an accessible overview of the designers oeuvre. Following on from
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Our favourite Portuguese designer TM Rui Alves is making his IMM Cologne début this year, with a new prototype under his own name and an old smow blog favourite being launched by Danish manufacturer Menu. Premièred as "Tailor Sofa" at Salone Satellite 2013 and now renamed Lounge Sofa by Menu the work initially caught our attention on account of being a "deliciously effortlessly reduced down piece [which] combines a turned wooden frame with a pressed felt seat to create a sort of simplified
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