A couple of years ago N.W.A. frontman Ice Cube shot a short celluloid tribute to Charles and Ray Eames. Without even having to use his AK ... We didn't think anything more culturally acontextual could happen to the pair. And now ? On Thursday March 7th the exhibition "Eames by Vitra" opens at the Wasserschloß Klaffenbach in Chemnitz. A Charles and Ray Eames exhibition. In Chemnitz. The story of Charles and Ray Eames as furniture designers starts with their collaborations with Hermann
read more
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 more
In 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
read more
There are few things more pleasing in the world of furniture design than seeing a designer successfully replicating a winning form in a new object from another product genus. Seamlessly translating an idea developed for one project into a new context. A particularly good example of such a translation can be seen in the PS 07 bureau by Berlin based Delphin Design for Müller Möbelfabrikation. If we're honest, when we saw the PS 07 on the Müller stand at IMM Cologne 2013, although we noticed a
read more
As already said, we sadly won't make it to Stockholm Furniture Fair and Design Week this year. However, we still wanted to bring you a bit of Scandinavian design flair. Albeit Scandinavian design flair with a very strong Breton accent. Back at Orgatec 2012 one of the more surprising new product series on show was the so-called "A-Collection" by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for HAY. A truly delightful family of simple wooden objects, the collection principally surprised us because we had never
read more
In March 2012 we wrote about the Depot Basel show "Seats" which included a section devoted to the "Take a Seat" project run by Zurich based design studio Aekae in co-operation with the Zurich cafe "Z am Park" In essence "Take a Seat" involves commissioning contemporary designers to "re-work" four Horgenglarus 1-380 chairs. The results are then used for 6 months in Z am Park before being auctioned off to the highest bidder. The interesting aspect, or one of the interesting aspects, of the
read more
As we've said before, and will never tire of repeating, the Thonet back catalogue harbours an unparalleled treasure trove of design classics. And certainly enough interesting and challenging designs to keep half-a-dozen contemporary furniture companies in business for the next decade or two. Fortuitously just as Iceland's fisherman don't try to maximise profit by catching as many fish as possible as quickly as possible, so to do Thonet choose not to raid the archive every couple of months in
read more
It being January, IMM Cologne once again provided the backdrop for the presentation of the A&W Designer of the Year Award. Following on from Tokujin Yoshioka in 2011 and Patrica Urquiola in 2012 the 2013 accolade went to everyone's favourite Bretons Ronan And Erwan Bouroullec In addition to the undoubted kudos of winning, as part of the award the Brothers Bouroullec are also being honoured in an exhibition at the Kölnischer Kunstverein. Featuring an overview of their more recent works the
read more
In our interview with Michel Charlot about his lamp U-Turn for Belux he told us that "I like it when people look at an object and find it “normal”, but that is something which is quite difficult to achieve...." Such an object is without question Stool 60 by Alvar Aalto. As so to help explain the complexity hidden in the simplicity, and celebrate the object's 80th anniversary, the Ungers Archiv für Architekturwissenschaft are staging an exhibition during IMM Cologne 2013 devoted to this
read more
On December 15th 2012 Ray Bernice Alexandra Kaiser Eames would have celebrated her 100th birthday. Born in Sacramento California, Ray Kaiser attended the May Friend Bennet School in Millbrook before in 1933 she moved to Manhattan where she studied painting under the tutorship of the German Abstractionist Hans Hofmann; and consequently found herself at the centre of the burgeoning abstract art scene in late 1930s New York. A highpoint of which was her participation in the inaugural American
read more
In 1956 Arne Jacobsen was commissioned to create the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen; a contract he took on with great gusto and which, true to his understanding of an architect being responsible for the complete composition, saw him not only create a building, but all the fixtures and fittings. Right down to the bath plugs. While the most famous furniture pieces from the SAS Royal project are without question the Swan Chair and Egg Chair, those who take the time to investigate a little deeper
read more
After long, sober, consideration we have decided to end the "Christmas is coming.... " project. Simply put, in the wake of last years "Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat… if Verner Panton had ever visited us, that is where he would have sat" we couldn't see where to take the concept. We had reached a creative zenith. Mount Olympus was behind us, a distant speck on a snowy, cloudy horizon and ahead a sorry, meaningless, desert of repetition, emotional contortion and former East
read more
As you know we don't generally react to, or even read, unsolicited PR E-mails. And so no one is more surprised than us to find us posting about StickBulb by RUX Design. A product we have only seen on a website and in a pdf. email attachment. While the "Big Bang" series dosen't really get our boat rockin' - for us there is somehow something too cluttered and needlessly obtuse in the construction and form - the "Torch" series is a joy to behold. We obviously can't comment on the quality of
read more
At Orgatec 2012 Augsburg based Müller Möbelfabrikation introduced their new WORKSPACE product range(s). Developed in cooperation with Andreas Struppler and Sebastian Frank from Munich based Struppler Industriedesign, WORKSPACE is technically two ranges - WORK and SPACE, or "Labor et Spatium" for any scholars of historic furniture design who may be reading - that combine to create a modular office furniture system. WORK is represented by two height adjustable desks, one electronic the other
read more
Those of you who actually read what we write rather than simply enjoying our genre redefining photography * will know that we regularly bemoan the lack of design coverage in the serious print media. All too often it seems "design" is something to be entrusted to blogs featuring sugar sweet hymns to our cuddly, snuggy-wuggy world and all backed-up by Gaussian heavy, focus soft photos. Or worse, instagram photos. And so we raise our hats and our flagons to the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine for
read more
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
read more
Cork. At the moment there is simply no getting away from it. A couple of weeks ago Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec unveiled their Cork Desk for Vitra at Orgatec. Back in April we had Cover by Daphna Laurens at Dutch Invertuals in Milan. And last year at Dutch Design Week we marvelled at Tiago Sá da Costa's Corkmatters Lamp exhibited as part of the Made Out Portugal #4 show. Might not sound like much, but given that before Eindhoven 2011 the last serious cork product we can remember seeing was
read more
In February 1991 the grand doyen of Italian design Ettore Sottsass approached Vitra CEO Rolf Fehlbaum with a suggestion for a joint project looking at the nature and being of life and work in the office. The project wasn't aimed at developing office furniture, simply exploring the microcosmos "Office" in its multifarious facets. Rolf Fehlbaum willingly agreed and together with Michele de Lucchi, Andrea Branzi and James Irvine, Sottsass and Vitra set off an exploratory journey: researching,
read more
In addition to works by individual designers and artists Grassimesse 2012 also presented the results of the research project "Ü60 Design: Design for Tomorrow" No-one denies that our society is getting older and that in the coming decades an ever greater percentage of the population will be Ü60, so 60+ What is often forgotten is that the future 60+ generations will be different from the current 60+ generations and so the needs in the future are not the same as those at the present. Similar.
read more
Anyone who had anything to do with the UK childrens toy market of the 1970s - either as a user (child) or consumer (adult) - will be well aware that no matter how hard you try, how hard you push them and how devilish you are, Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. Stand-up by Thorsten Frank applies a similar logic, albeit in the more urbane world of furniture. The concept isn't new, indeed it could even be said that stools that rock and flow with your body are a fully established furniture
read more
Established in 1996 by three friends with a shared passion for classic metal furniture, Müller Möbelfabrikation has grown steadily over the last decade and a half into one of Europe's most interesting contemporary furniture manufacturers. They don't do anything especially revolutionary, and there is certainly no danger of them ever redefining the fabric of furniture design. However, they are currently producing some of the most interesting, brash and accessible furniture on the market, and
read more
Was it not Pulp who in 1995 prophesied that the world would soon be dominated and controlled by mis-shapes, mistakes and misfits: the great silent majority who feel themselves intimidated by their alleged imperfections and deviations from society's norm. If only they could realise that they were so numerous, that they have something to offer and that society's imposed ideas of perfection were our modern golden calf, their future would be so promising..... Under the title "Misfits Revisited"
read more
Ask the person next to you to quickly sketch a "Bauhaus Chair" And? What have they drawn? We're guessing the result is relatively quadratic, reduced and, assuming the person next to you is au fait with the works of Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer et al, it will have at least one semi-circular bracket, either on the back or under the seat. And it almost certainly closely resembles the Spaghetti Chair by Giandomenico Belotti for Alias. A chair that, ironically, is born of a tradition at contrast to
read more
Imagine you spent your entire career researching and developing modular building systems. Imagine you gave the world radical new approaches to construction design and helped introduce the use of computer technology in architecture. And then imagine that most people only know your name in connection with one office furniture system. An office furniture system that you developed once as part of one contract for one company based in one small village in Switzerland. A system that despite its
read more
