Budapest Design Week 2024 Compact: Alfréd by Szebedy Vajk When we first approached Alfréd by University of Óbuda student Szebedy Vajk at 360 Design during Budapest Design Week 2024 we interpreted it as an abstracted giraffe. It certainly wouldn't be the first time an animal had served as the basis for a piece of furniture design. Indeed shortly after meeting Alfréd we met the giraffe-esque library ladder 3½ by vondingen at Grassimesse Leipzig. Others would at this point speak of a t****
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Budapest Design Week 2024 Compact: Konyky by Natalia Filonenko for Donna According to our dictionary 'Konyky' is Ukrainian for 'Grasshoppers'. It might not be, our dictionary could be wrong. We suspect it is. But if it is correct, it's a curious name for Natalia Filonenko's stool/table/pouffe for Kyiv based manufacturer Donna. Surely Lobzyk, jigsaw, or Holovolomka, jigsaw puzzle, make more sense. For that is essentially what Natalia has done, transformed a random piece of a jigsaw puzzle
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Budapest Design Week 2024 Compact: Uniqueness in Mass Production by Fehérvári Panna Nóra Before we go any further.... Uniqueness in Mass Production isn't the name of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, MOME, Budapest graduate Fehérvári Panna Nóra's lamps. Panna calls them MushLume, for understandable, and highly enjoyable, reasons, but sadly MushLume is the name of a Brooklyn, New York, based manufacturer of lighting crafted from mushroom mycelia, and so it's unlikely to remain their
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Budapest Design Week 2024 Compact: Pulse by Hevesi Annabella for Self and Scope The publicity for 360 Design, the central showcase of Budapest Design Week 2024, that Hungarian Fashion and Design Agency, HFDA, showcase that was a component of Budapest Design Week before the HFDA took over the organisation of Budapest Design Week and it exponentially increased in stature, involved numerous objects by Budapest based designer Hevesi Annabella1, not least the sofa Dedas, a work we're most partial
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Much as with the narrator of Half Man Half Biscuit's 'I was a teenage armchair Honvéd fan' we've also long "dreamt about a love affair in far-off Budapest". Unlike said narrator however our ongoing yearning doesn't revolve around a football club in the Kispest district of the city whose black an red was once worn by the likes of Grosics Gyula, Kocsis Sándor, Bozsik József or Puskás Ferenc, but revolve around design. Nor are we hankering after a golden age of either Hungarian football or
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As many of our regular readers will be aware, we don't like food design. We would say "we can't stomach it", however, that would draw more attention to the subject than it could ever deserve. We're particularly wary of Spanish food design, and the connections that invariably raises to some of the most senseless, egoistic and narcissistic episodes in the recent history of cuisine. Even writing that sentence brings us out in a rage. That said, we've long sought a chance to view the exhibition
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Established in 1998 by the artist couple Anna and István Regős as a gallery/shop in the cellar of their house in the Hungarian town of Szentendre, since 2013 Palmetta Design have operated a second gallery in Budapest where, in addition to offering a selection of international design items for sale, they present a regularly changing programme of art and design exhibitions. For Budapest Design Week 2014 that of course meant a design exhibition and specifically "Entrance Hall" a showcase of works
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In 2010 the spectacularly sinister sounding Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities launched a programme to help promote products made in workshops employing persons with disabilities; and since 2013 the Segítő Vásárlás label - Design that Helps - has been coordinated by the Salva Vita Foundation. In June 2014 the Salva Vita Foundation organised a "Design Date" event which brought participating workshops and Hungarian design studios together with the aim of fostering new co-operations and
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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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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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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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