As we've already admitted the first time we saw a Dutch Invertuals exhibition we didn't hang around very long. Since then however we have matured a lot and the show has become a regular feature of our visits to Eindhoven and Milan. Simply put, one always finds something challenging, exciting and beautiful at a Dutch Invertuals show. And invariably something you don't really understand, no matter how often it is explained to you. But that itself is for us reason enough to go. In 2012 Dutch
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As tradition demands the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln (MAKK) have organised a furniture themed, special exhibition to coincide with the Cologne Furniture Fair. Under the title "Von Aalto bis Zumthor: Architektenmöbel" ("From Aalto to Zumthor: Furniture by Architects") the MAKK is presenting over 120 examples of furniture designed by professional architects. As older readers will have long since accepted, the "Furniture Architect" is a pet subject of ours. Not just because the architects
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On December 17th 1961 the New Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche in Berlin was officially consecrated. Designed by Egon Eiermann the new church was and is a very self-confident, modern replacement for the Old Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche; a building that to the regret of many Berlin residents fell victim to an allied bombing raid in 1943. In keeping with all his projects up to that period Egon Eiermann didn't just create the building but also designed the furniture and fittings for the new
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Away from the race track a real highlight of "Die Hölle von Aschau" was the Concours d'Élégance. Ahead of the event Moormann sent out miniature Bookinist kits to their clients, partners and chums with the request that they be "pimped" and returned. If we're honest we don't think that they expected to get that many back. And so they were genuinely all the more impressed with not only the response but the very high quality of the responses. From a Gingerbread Bookinist over Popemobiles and
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When is a lounge chair not a lounge chair? When it is a loving eulogy to the noble art of sailing. Designed by Linda Steen and Lena Axelsson and produced in Norway by Hødnebø, the Spinnaker Chair wonderfully mixes the classic form language of the lounge chair with upcycled sail canvas. Held on a powder varnished spring steel frame the canvas is stretched over three carbon ribs to provide maximum support and comfort. Foam and cospoflex cushions is a range of fabrics provide that final touch
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One of our favourite projects during Vienna Design Week was the Passionswege project "The Swing" by Warsaw based Beza Projekt at Atelier Telliez. Philippe Telliez is a "tapessier" - a profession that can only be truly described in paragraphs, but essentially is an upholsterer who primarily works with wall hangings, tapestries and the like. Anna Łoskiewicz and Zofia Strumiłło-Sukiennik from Beza Projekt combined this "hanging" aspect with the materials Atelier Telliez's use on a daily basis
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Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Commissioned to undertake a Vienna Design Week Passionswege project with Viennese hat maker Mühlbauer Hutmanufaktur, Slovakian designer Tomas Kral focused on the visual - and in many languages linguistic - closeness of a lamp shade and cap visor to create a delightful series of hat themed table lamps. All the lamps have a ceramic base; and the shades are created from "normal" hat making materials using "normal" hat making processes A real fun
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Back in the summer we ran a highly entertaining "Summertime in Dark Lime" Panton Chair Cocktail competition. The judging was certainly highly entertaining. The winner was Italian designer Alessandro Barison aka abitudinicreative Chatting with Alessandro after his cocktail “Spritz Upgrade” was selected the winner, we discovered that while he was a student at the Scuola Italiana Design (SID) he had taken part in a workshop cum competition that involved redesigning - or better put - extending
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The final stage of our 2011 autumn tour took us to Neue Räume Zurich, Switzerland's largest designer furniture trade fair. And quite possibly Switzerland's most bemuddled designer furniture trade fair. We do appreciate that the organisers are trying to make Neue Räume all things to all men, and offer a wide range of products, producers and design directions. And we really liked what the organisers were trying to do. But somehow squeezing so much into such a relatively small space just
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"Wooden spoon for pickled vegetables by John F. Kennedy" ? ? ? John F. Kennedy. Green Mountain Woodcrafters, Vermont. And no relation of Teddy or Robert. Still cheered us up. From March 20th until April 25th 1951 Stuttgart hosted the first post-war exhibition of modern American home furnishings and appliances in Europe. Organised by the New York Museum of Modern Art under the title "Design for Use, USA", the exhibition featured a cross section of American domestic design. And a Who's
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Twenty four hours before Sebastian Vettel sealed his second F1 drivers title in Japan, Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub were securing victory in an event that stands a vertical cliff face higher than F1 on Mount Motor Sport and to which Vettel himself hopes to ascend, once he gets a bit better at driving: The Bookinist Cup. For many the Bookinist was developed as an armchair in which one could sit and read; surrounded by your favourite literature. This however is one of the crueler droplets in the
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Once a month we visit a trade fair. We don't always want to - but we always have to. We look at furniture. We think up some cheap jokes. We take some out of focus photos. We come home. But what is actually involved in organising a trade fair stand? How important are trade fair stands? Is our weak humour and poor photography disrespectful? In an attempt to try to answer these and similar questions we helped Moormann with the construction of their stand at Milan 2011 Although "helped" is
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Da vi for nylig var på en lille rejse fik vi øje på en ægte Eames fiberglasbænk fra Herman Miller i en lufthavn. Tager man stedets ret begrænsede faciliteter i betragning, forekommer betegnelsen 'lufthavn' faktisk noget optimistisk, og vores hektiske fotografering af bænken og Herman Miller-klistermærkerne resulterede også i en del latter fra folk omkring os - altså folk, som bruger deres tid på at fotografere fly!! Herefter, da vi var faldet lidt ned efter den hektiske fotografering,
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Among the new Vitra products launched in Milan one of the most eye-catching was Waver by Konstantin Grcic. Following an initial cooperation in the form of a Vitra Edition project, Waver is Konstantin Grcic's first commercial product for Vitra. Created for outdoor use Waver borrows heavily from the visual aesthetics of "lifestyle" sports to create a product that not only goes its own way formally but is also remarkably comfortable. In the second part of our interview with Konstantin Grcic we
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As you know we are big fans of Brooklyn designer Jason Miller. And of the from Jason Miller established lighting company Roll and Hill. Launched in January 2010 as a high end manufacturer of contemporary lighting, Roll and Hill currently features the work of 6 design studios and aims to bring an "American perspective" to the international lighting market. In Milan Roll and Hill presented their second collection, or at least the first part of the second collection. A further two pieces will
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The story of Azucena begins in Milan in 1947 when a group of young Milanese architects decided to start producing their own furniture and fittings for their buildings. Working with a mix of industrial and artisan suppliers to create a collection of modern, and at times highly experimental items, Azucena were one of the first "designer furniture" companies to emerge in Italy. And arguably Europe. However, whereas many of those companies who came after them have gone on to achieve global
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At the 2011 Milan Furniture Fair Vitra are presenting a range of new products from designers including Konstantin Grcic, Antonio Citterio and Barber & Osgerby. Ahead of the official launch we caught up with Vitra Chief Design Officer Eckart Maise to discuss the new products and the Vitra Home Collection in general. (smow): Herr Maise, before we discuss the new products, and maybe as a little helpful background. How does a company like Vitra develop a collection? Do you go to a designer and
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One of the most famous - and arguably professionally relevant - phases in Verner Panton's life was his journeys through Europe. Following his graduation from Copenhagen Art school Verner Panton gave up his position with Arne Jaobsen, converted his VW bus to a basic mobile studio and set off on a series of tours throughout Europe during which he made contact with numerous designers and producers. While its probably fair to say that this experience alone didn't shape his future work - the
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Richard Lampert is no newcomer to the world of kids designer furniture: products such as the Eiermann Children's desk - a reduced, child friendly version of the Egon Eiermann table frame - or the Turtle kids swivel chair by Peter Horn having become established family favourites. However, irritated by the general lack of high quality, designer furniture available for children, Richard Lampert decided to initiate his own range - with the help of a wonderful array of young international design
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The Vitra stand at Orgatec 2010 was dominated by the work of two design studios: Antonio Citterio and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. In addition to presenting new variations of their Alcove Sofa and Playns workstation, Vitra also unveiled the Bouroullec's new Communal Cells modular partition/interior architecture system and their High Meeting Table Apart from discussing the brothers forthcoming yacht project, we also talked about, the new Vitra products, what the Bouroullec's own office looks
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Although the public face of Vitra is unquestionably their "Home Collection", for decades the backbone of the company has been their office furniture division. Consequently a central feature of Vitra's daily work involves developing new approaches to office design and attempting to predict what will be important for office workers in the coming years. In 1991 Vitra commissioned the designers Michele de Lucchi, Ettore Sottsass and Andrea Branzi to develop some plans for future office design.
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In the history of (smow)blog only two designers have contacted us to comment on our comments. The first was Brooklyn based Jason Miller and the second was SintLucas student Vivienne van den Dungen. Writing about a stool she was exhibiting at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven we commented that : "Our one complaint would be that the current version doesn’t really seem to know what it is: the higher component being to short to be a back rest and to narrow to be used for holding, for example, a
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Drawers! And we don't mean that as an insult. If there is one thing we really, really miss it's desks with drawers. Back in the day, all desks had drawers. Then, probably due to flexible office design where no one has a fixed desk, drawers started to vanish from desks. Regrettably. And so it was with a small scream of delight that we saw Ragna Gutschow's desk at Grassimesse 2010. Sadly we didn't get to speak to Ragna and so we don't know any more than we liked it. And not just on
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(smow)chair All this looking at, talking about and writing about other people's design, has left us yearning to get on with completing our own furniture project: (smow)chair. As already stated, the basic form and idea were developed in the (smow)warehouse here in Leipzig. The hard work was then done at the Vitra Design Museum Cardboard Furniture Workshop in Weil am Rhein. In conjunction with every exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum a programme of events is organised that aims to expand
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