Milan Furniture Fair 2018, at least amongst those more design led manufacturers, is/was largely about consolidation, largely about new materials, new colours, slight changes to existing objects, with one or the other family proudly presenting their latest members. Which is no complaint, far from it, Milan's speciality traditionally being the new for the sake of the new, that misguided belief that one has to present something new every year. You don't. Present something new when you've got
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Backrests appeared to be a major feature of those new products Konstantin Grcic presented at Milan Furniture Fair 2017. Or perhaps better put, from those new product we saw by Konstantin Grcic, we interpreted the backrest as being central components. But it wasn't all about backrests, a few thoughts on new products for Magis, Plank, Flos and Mattiazzi. Noctambule by Konstantin Grcic for Flos, as seen at Milan Furniture Fair 2017 Monza Bistro Chair for Plank Although an addition to the Monza
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We round up our Milan 2014 coverage with a company we admire, but about whom we find it all but impossible to write. Because their products and their collection so rarely change. Ever since commencing with the commercial production of the modular USM Haller furniture system in 1969 USM have done little else. Save the introduction of the USM KITOS system in 1989. But that's it. That's all they do. Which is also one of the principle reasons we admire them. They do what they do, do it well
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Milan is awash with churches. Milan is awash with monasteries. Basilica. Friaries. And other suitable locations for submitting penitence. We go to Salone Satellite. Last year you may remember we had to apologise to Karolin Fesser for our failure to publish a post on the from Karolin co-curated Objects for the neighbour exhibition. Not that we were obliged to publish anything on the exhibition; it was just so good it deserved one and we were negligent in not doing such. This year it was
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One of the stand out objects for us in the Young Perspectives exhibition shown in Boffi's Cologne flagship store during Cologne Design Week 2014 was the clothes stand Blanche by Frankfurt based Meike Langer. And so it was a real joy not only to be reacquainted with Blanche in Milan, but to see Blanche's new shoes. Or more precisely put, new foot. Crafted from ash and steel tubing Blanche has an abstract trombone feel about it and is, in many ways, a refinement of the excellent Beaugars
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One could be facetious and say that organising an exhibition looking at "the creative potential triggered by crises in the history of Italy" is akin to organising an exhibition presenting an unbroken chronology of Italian creative potential since time immemorial. But that is exactly what the Triennale Design Museum Milan have undertaken for their seventh edition. Under the title "Autarky, Austerity, Autonomy" the Triennale Design Museum have, however, chosen to focus on just three periods of
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If we're honest, we really, really, should have seen it coming. We didn't. Having been acquired in 2013 by Vitra, Artek have now begun working with leading designers from the Vitra roster. Specifically, in Milan Artek launched a new chair from Konstantin Grcic and new colour and textile schemes from Hella Jongerius for the classic Alvar Aalto 400 and 401 armchairs and Stool 60. We just hope no-one is tempted to over egg this particular pudding. In the Milan press release Artek CEO Mirkku
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In design the term "readymade" is used to refer to products created by giving existing objects a new function; generally a new function far, far removed from the original. Examples of the genre include the Mezzadro stool fashioned from a tractor seat by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Jasper Morrison's 1983 Handlebar Table or David Olschewski's Clothes Peg Lamp, an object that never reached the fame of the previous two examples. But which is and was every bit as interesting. Berlin
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"We are red, we are white, we are Danish dynamite!" So sang the Danes their national football team to victory at the 1992 UEFA Euro tournament. Another example of "Danish Dynamite" is/was on display at Ventura Lambrate as part of the Design School Kolding's Milan 2014 show. If we were slick professionals we'd now say something along the lines of, and it isn't red and white. But green!!! Created by Interaction Designer Alexander Muchenberger and essentially nothing more technically advanced
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Preparing for his solo exhibition "Pinned Up at the Stedelijk, 25 years of design" clearly helped Marcel Wanders tackle, and defeat, his inner demons. We can find no other explanation for the transformation from the darkness of Moooi's 2013 Milan show to the lighter, happier, untroubled, feel of 2014's. The formats were and are essentially the same, both based around room contexts backdropped by large format photos of heavily stylised spaces, but whereas last year's presentation was a
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"Modern office chairs can be like machines, very technical. We wanted to create something a little softer, more human." So explains Ronan Bouroullec the background thinking to the new Uncino chair by the brothers Bouroullec for Italian manufacturer Mattiazzi. According to Ronan the path from the commission from Mattiazzi for an office chair to Uncino was "quite slow", but was obviously worth it, resulting as it has in a truly fascinating and engaging object. Available in either a static
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Exhibitions in which designers present objects that inspire them are nothing new. But are by their very nature exhibitions that are always new. No two being the same. A fact that always makes them worth visiting. During Milan Design Week the Kaleidoscope Project Space is showing "Source Material", the latest such exhibition. Presenting objects submitted by 45 creatives from across a range of genres, Source Material claims to be an exploration of how the creative process is both "informed by
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As regular readers will be aware, unlike The Kinks we are no dedicated followers of fashion. Millinery is another matter altogether. There is little that excites us quite as much as a good hat. And so we were obviously instantly taken by what we took to be an over sized Fes on Cologne designer Thomas Schnur's stand at Salone Satellite. It was of course not a Fes but "Felt Stool", one of Thomas's newer projects. And a project that is exactly what it claims to be. A stool made of felt. Not
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Older readers will remember how last year one of the Vitra Senior Manager's quoted from this blog in his pre-fair pep talk to the assembled Team Vitra. Having reached the zenith of our careers we contemplated retiring. Fortunately we didn't. For at Milan 2014 Vitra have re-issued objects from a collection of Alexander Girard furniture designs that featured in our July 2012 "Lost Furniture Design Classics" post. OK not the furniture pieces we referred to, but objects from the same
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"With Milan design week, as with life", we noted in our Milan Design Week 2014 preview, "the best, most interesting, most enjoyable discoveries are invariably to be made on the by-ways. And often as the result of spontaneous, unconsidered, chance, decisions." And so it came to pass. On the Sunday before Milan design week we were busy completing all those important, unacknowledged, thankless, tasks without which this all wouldn't be possible, when by pure chance we walked past the Milan
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Many people, if not peoples, could currently be forgiven for reacting somewhat sceptically to the notion of a “Happy Future”. With their exhibition “Happy Future” Dutch design collective Dutch Invertuals take on this scepticism and aim to show that the basic ingredients for such are there; we just need to identify and use them correctly. Established in 2009 Dutch Invertuals is a loose collective of designers, largely but not exclusively with a Design Academy Eindhoven background, who
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As a general rule May doesn't exist for us... it is just a fluid continuation of April. And of Milan. May 2013 was no different, did however end with a delightful Oskar Zieta show in Berlin......
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The biggest April fool is.... us, for always going to Milan! That said, as ever, we did find a few gems amongst the senseless corporate trash..... And after Milan we had the joy of viewing the latest addition to the Vitra Campus, the Factory Building by SANAA......
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Probably on account of all the wood, upcycling and back-to-basics on show at Milan Design Week 2013, Granoff Sofa by Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) alumna Scot Bailey, Taylor McKenzie-Veal, Ian Stell and Yumi Yoshida stood out like a burger bar in Rovaniemi on Christmas Eve. An unexpected, inignorable and ultimately very welcome delight. And that despite, or better put because, we completely misunderstood what was on display. Created for the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts at
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As it was our first event of Milan Design Week 2013, we're honouring Artemide with the first post from Milan Design Week 2013. And in specific Empatia by Carlotta de Bevilacqua and Paola di Arianello, for us the stand out object in the Artemide 2013 collection. It will sound like damning Carlotta and Paola with faint praise when we say that the overwhelming majority of the new Artemide products are architectural lighting - all technically very interesting, just architectural lighting - and
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Before Milan Design Week and Furniture Fair really get started we took the opportunity to relax a little and to visit Milan's contemporary art fair, MIART, and for all their new "Object" section devoted to contemporary design. Curated by Michela Pelizzari and Federica Sala "Object" presents 10 design galleries from Italy, France, Israel and the Lebanon. Ten international galleries presenting an equally cosmopolitan pallet of objects, ranging from limited edition pieces from the 1950s over the
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At Fuori Salone Milano 2011 we helped Moormann construct their stand. And of course took the opportunity to chew the fat a little with company founder and eponym Nils Holger Moormann. Variously described as being an autodidact, pioneer or provocateur, for us Nils Holger Moormann is simply pleasant company and the guarantee of well considered and soundly opinionated discussion. In the course of the Milan interview we covered the new products, the current state of the furniture industry and,
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Sometimes its hard to remember that Milan isn't just about showing off how clever you are. Its also about furniture. Consequently an interesting barometer for us is what catches the attention and fancy of the (smow)team. What do they want to see in the (smow)collection. What do they find good. What do they find interesting. They are often wrong. But it's still good to know. And yes, we know design is also subjective. On Facebook we have posted a gallery of some of their Fuorisalone Milan
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Last month we posed the question "Is Milan design Week still relevant?" And Antje was kind enough to join our debate. Thank you! We assume everyone else found the question so obviously correct that you didn't feel the need to answer. And yes, of course we are going this year. As our old nan used to say - "It's like an away match in Zwickau on a fine November evening. Not going is not an option!" In addition to perusing the newest products, ideas and concepts we have a top series of
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