The history of furniture design is famously also a history of experimentation, re-configuring, re-thinking and often of designers changing materials in the course of product development. Charles and Ray Eames' plastic chair family famously began life as a steel chair family, Harry Thaler's aluminium Pressed Chair for Moormann began life as a wooden chair, and in contrast the first USM Haller units were wood, before the switch to steel. And so the fact that Budapest based designer András
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In comparison to the annual IMM Cologne furniture fair the corridors and halls of the Messe Cologne always seems curiously empty at the biennial Orgatec office furniture trade fair. Until that is one reaches the Vitra stand. And the crowds. The almost congenital attraction of Orgatec visitors to Vitra is unquestionably related to the high-calibre roster of international designers responsible for the Vitra office programme. At Orgatec 2014 that programme has been extended by, amongst other
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It is very rare that one comes across an object where a manufacturer has combined two independently developed products into one. And even rarer that we like such an object. Our natural resistance reaction is to say, No. No. Not on our watch. Begone. We were however instantly taken with the so-called Blumenampel Edition by Zascho Petkow and Birgit Severin for Berlin based Atelier Haussmann. Possibly because initially we didn't know its provenance. That only became clear in conversation with
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Ever since Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec released their Alcove Sofa for Vitra in 2006 ever more furniture objects have appeared on the market which promise the owner the opportunity to create flexible room partition solutions. To create rooms within rooms and provide a place in which to separate yourself from a home that is becoming ever more an office. To find safety in the midst of the unending data, information and sensory flood. Or just amongst the kid's mess. And with very few exceptions,
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At an otherwise disappointing presentation of projects by students from the TU Graz Institute of Spatial Design during Vienna Design Week, a genuine stand out project was the valet Servant by Katharina Wernig. Brazenly contradicting the position we took with Fidelio by Christian Spiess that a chair is the most natural form for a valet, Katharina Wernig has opted instead for a side table-cum-valet. Or at least side table-cum-semi-valet. For while in our book a valet must include an option for
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Much like crisps, cardboard furniture is something with which we have a very troubled relationship. However whereas with crisps the problem is saying no: with cardboard furniture it is saying yes. We know that cardboard furniture makes sense, or at least can make sense. We even once developed our own cardboard chair, the (smow) chair But most cardboard furniture simply doesn't appeal to us. There is invariably something about the form, the construction or a pig ugly aesthetic we simply
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Just to be clear: Despite posting twice about them in little over week, we're not paid to do PR for Budapest based architecture/design collective Architecture Uncomfortable Workshop. We've never even met AU Workshop. Nor spoken to AU Workshop. Nor had Email contact with AU Workshop. However, during our 2014 Danube Design Voyage we have been introduced to numerous examples of the collective's work. And have generally been very impressed with what we have seen. Such as their table which was
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At Bratislava Design Week 2014 Jakub Pollág and Václav Mlynář a.k.a. Studio deFORM re-premièred their Transmission light family; "re-premièred" because although initially created in 2012 for Prague based Kavalierglass, since earlier this year the lamp family have been part of the portfolio of another Czech glass manufacturer, Lasvit. Constructed from a series of concentric glass structures which become ever more elongated as their diameter shrinks, the Transmission lamps present an
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In 2014 the exhibition "madeinhungary" celebrates its 10th anniversary. What began as a presentation of contemporary Hungarian product design hosted as part of the Budapest "Home Trend" trade fair has existed since 2013 as an independent event staged during Budapest Design Week. And has slowly evolved into a sort of annual family get together for the Budapest design community. For the 2014 edition organisers, curators and project initiators Szilvia Szigeti and Tamás Radnóti have compiled a
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For some 200 years Wiener Silber Manufactur have produced the finest silverware. Exquisite cutlery, table services, coffee pots and sugar bowls designed by both the firm's own craftsman and also developed in co-operation with external designers: works by leading protagonists of the Wiener Werkstätte such as Josef Hoffmann or Kolo Moser being joined over the decades by designs from and by the likes of Oswald Haerdtl, Otto Prutscher, Gregor Eichinger or Claesson Koivisto Rune. Yet regardless of
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Whether 'tis nobler in the muscles to suffer The slings and arrows of short telomeres, Or to rise up against a sea of troubles, And by standing, extend them? In addition to articles on the wonders of handmade Swedish butter, the problems of supermarket etiquette and ill thought through editorials on the Scottish referendum, the English newspaper "The Guardian" occasionally publishes readable articles, one such being Dr Luisa Dillner's recent "Is sitting down bad for my health?" Citing
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According to Christian Holmsted Olesen, Hans J. Wegner's famous JH540 Valet Chair with its coat hanger shaped backrest and pop up seat almost never saw the light of day. Following its presentation at the 1951 Copenhagen Carpenters Guild Exhibition Wegner decided he didn't actually like the four legged chair after all, and announced that it shouldn't be produced. However King Frederik IX had seen it, was fascinated by both concept and design and demanded that it be produced. He wanted one. He
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In context of Cape Town's tenure as World Design Capital 2014 Franco-Austrian design and architecture studio Celia-Hannes spent six weeks on the Cape of Good Hope working with local residents and craftsman on questions surrounding contemporary living conditions and furniture. The first results of the cooperation are being presented during Vienna Design Week 2014 at design gallery harald bichler_rauminhalt. And no, it wasn't some neo-colonial "white man come help" project, or at least wasn't
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"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers" exclaims Anne Shirley in Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables, "it would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?" Yes Anne, it would. Yet while Ms Shirley turned her youthful attention to decorating her bedroom with the brightly coloured maple branches so prevalent on Prince Edward Island at this time of year, our joy is found in the new architecture and design exhibitions opening in the
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In our post from the launch of the Tools for Life collection by Rem Koolhaas and OMA for Knoll during Milan Design Week 2013 we noted that the highlight for us was the so-called "11 Floor Seating" legless chair. For all we commented that with ever more time, professional and personal, being spent working with tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices, the requirements of chairs was slowly evolving and that there would be an increasing need for high-quality furniture which allows one to,
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Time was when the candlestick maker was an important profession. No candlestick. No light. Or at least no secure light. These days with our fancy electric lighting candlesticks tend to be reduced to one of those quaint historical artefacts. Something every designer and craftsman tries at least once in their career, but a relatively safe place where they can experiment and try things out without necessarily having to produce anything good. No one is going to judge you by a candlestick. A
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As we've often noted in these pages, the future will be analogue. That's not to say that we will turn our backs on all our modern technology, but much more as technology takes over ever more aspects of our daily lives and as we understand what technology can do and how best to harness it, not only will we be freed to concentrate on those things which genuinely matter to us but we will have ever more freedom to organise and lead our lives as we want, freed from the conventions and constraints
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Everyone knows Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto. Everyone knows his flowing, free-formed buildings and his moulded plywood furniture. What is there new to learn? What is the point in another Alvar Aalto exhibition. What indeed................................ Born in Kuortane Finland on February 3rd 1898 Alvar Aalto began studying architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology in 1916, graduating in 1921 and established his own architectural practice in Jyväskyla in 1923. In
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As we recently noted, summer is slowly giving way to autumn and with it the realisation that long sunny days lounging in gardens or on poolsides will slowly give way to long sunless days in office chairs. Autumn 2014 also means for us Orgatec, Europe's largest office furniture trade fair, and an invariable flood of "new" office chair "designs." Consequently, it should come as no surprise that we recently took our copy of Jonathan Olivares' A Taxonomy of Office Chairs from the (smow) bookshelf.
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As has oft been noted in these pages, the years following the Second World War were years of quick, radical, fundamental social, cultural and economic change. Changes from which the then fledgling furniture design industry greatly benefited: and from which it continues to benefit with many of the popular mass market designs created back then becoming the design classics of today. The design week having not yet been invented and those furniture trade fairs that existed being very much the
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For a man who is universally lauded as one of the most important Danish designers of the 20th century, there is an inexplicable scarcity of reliable, independent information on Poul Henningsen. At least in languages other than Danish. Even the British Library in London, the self proclaimed keeper of the "world's knowledge", can only offer a couple of non-Danish language texts. Library shelves around the globe however buckle under the weight of Danish language works by and about Poul
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By way of an addendum to our "Five New Design Exhibitions for September 2014" post, until November 2nd the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden are presenting the exhibition Okolo Offline Two - Collecting. Organised by the Kunstgewerbemuseum in collaboration with Depot Basel, "Okolo Offline Two" follows on from the exhibition Okolo Offline held at Depot Basel in April this year. As with Okolo Offline One the central pillar of Okolo Offline Two is formed by the Prague based creative collective Okolo and
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The inescapable chill in the morning air and the deep-seated boredom in the eyes of school aged children can only mean that summer is, ever so slowly, coming to an end. And just as spring beckons life to return in the natural world, so to does autumn herald a revival of activity in the unnatural world of museums and galleries. Consequently, whereas in August we only managed to find three architecture and design exhibitions to recommend, for September we have seven! A Magnificent Seven who
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No sooner had we published our post on the innovative high-tech world of silbærg snowboards, than we received information on a fascinating project producing older than old skool skateboards. Initiated by Royal Academy of Art, The Hague graduate Bastiaan van Druten, Woody skateboards are created from elm trees which had to be felled in Amsterdam and Utrecht "...because of disease or because they were in the way of capitalism" Which is a turn of phrase almost as exquisite as the skateboards
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