England An Island; A Notion; A Context According to the Folios of Shakespeare, that most reliable of sources on the (hi)story of England, the (hi)story of furniture design in the lower half of the scepter'd isle begins before the (hi)story of furniture design, almost before the (hi)story of furniture, and in the woodlands of south east England where a rustic chair based on the wheelwrights craft was produced and became known as "Windsor" after the popular actress Barbara Windsor who had
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According to the Greek philosopher Anaximenes of Miletus, air is the source of everything. And whereas in the intervening 2500 years we have come to better understand the true nature, character and properties of air, as the exhibtion Design on Air at the Centre d'innovation et de design Grand-Hornu illustrates, air remains a very potent, stimulating, and protean creative force. Design on Air, Centre d'innovation et de design au Grand-Hornu Omnipresent yet absent, perceptible yet
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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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Visitors to the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig have long been able to rest on Jasper Morrison's Vitra Bench, an object liberally distributed throughout the museum complex. With the exhibition Thingness the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig offers visitors a deeper insight into Jasper Morrison's oeuvre, and creative processes. Jasper Morrison - Thingness @ Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig Born in London in 1959 and a graduate of both Kingston Polytechnic and the Royal
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Thingness. Noun. [ˈthiŋ-nəs] The quality or state of objective existence or reality1 Thingness. Exhibition. [ˈthiŋ-nəs] A comprehensive Jasper Morrison retrospective currently on show at the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin. Jasper Morrison. Thingness @ Bauhaus Archiv Berlin Originally conceived by and presented at the Centre d’innovation et de design, CID, Grand-Hornu, Belgium, Jasper Morrison. Thingness presents a chronological excursion through three decades of Jasper Morrison design. We first saw
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If the Light + Building trade fair in Frankfurt is home to exhibitors the majority of us have never heard of, Passenger Terminal Expo as Europe's leading trade fair for airport infrastructure is home to exhibitors you never knew you were aware of: the developers of airport signage systems, for example, or manufacturers of airport security gates, baggage carousels, airline ticketing systems or self-check in terminals, and of course that sweet female voice who informs you that your gate has
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On February 5th 1916 Cabaret Voltaire opened in Zürich; consequently, 2016 sees the city celebrate the 100th anniversary of arguably Switzerland's most important contribution to global culture - Dada. It is therefore very fitting that 2016 also sees the city host a retrospective of the English designer Jasper Morrison. No. Honest. Jasper Morrison Thingness at the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich Born in London in 1959 Jasper Morrison initially studied Design at Kingston Polytechnic before
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2016 sees the 20th anniversary of German architecture and design magazine A&W's "Designer of the Year Award." Following on from previous recipients including Achille Castiglioni in 1997, Paola Navone in 2000, Gaetano Pesce in 2006 and more recently Werner Aisslinger in 2014 and Michele De Lucchi in 2015 the 20th recipient is Jasper Morrison. And that, joyously, means a Jasper Morrison exhibition during the 2016 Passagen Cologne interior design week. A&W Designer of the Year 2016 - Jasper
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The biggest, and certainly highest budget, new architecture and design exhibition open in May 2015 is without question the World Expo 2015 in Milan which begins on May 1st. Staged under the central theme of "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life" Expo Milan 2015 will feature presentations from some 140 countries in an equal or greater number of pavilions by some of the world's leading architectural practices, and promises to present an unrivalled exploration of future strategies for feeding an
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......and continued over Budapest and on to Berlin - where amongst other delights we partook of the exhibitions Sensing the Future: László Moholy-Nagy, die Medien und die Künste at the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin and Schrill Bizarr Brachial. Das Neue Deutsche Design der 80er Jahre at the Bröhan Museum - and onto Cologne for the Orgatec office furniture trade fair.
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"Marcel Breuer seeing a pair of bicycle handle-bars decided to make chairs using the same industrial process. The new world constructor seeing a pair of bicycle handle-bars decides to use them as they are and save himself the trouble and expense of bending the tube."1 So articulated Jasper Morrison in his 1984 text "The Poet will not Polish" not only the theoretical background to his Handlebar Table, but much more the frustration and alienation being felt at that time by a young generation of
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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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For us one of the highlights of Saloni Milano 2013 was/is Italian manufacturer Mattiazzi. And not just because they have managed to eke a chair out of Jasper Morrison that, in our opinion, is one of his better, and certainly more interesting, of recent years. Established in 1978 Mattiazzi is, if we correctly understand, essentially a network of woodworking facilities in Udine. For three decades the company served as a supplier of wooden parts for other furniture manufacturers before
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At the end of March the V&A Museum London opened the exhibition "British Design 1948-2012. Innovation in the Modern Age", their major summer exhibition and a central pillar of their celebration of all things British throughout 2012. Documenting the story of design in the UK since the last London Olympics, "British Design 1948-2012" begins in an era when Britain as a nation was recovering from the trauma of the Second World War, yet understood that in the rubble of the war lay the chance to
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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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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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Amongst the plethora of new products launched by Vitra at Orgatec 2010 in Cologne was HAL, a new shell chair series by British designer Jasper Morrison. Over a cup of tea we spoke to Jasper Morrison about HAL, Vitra - and what his own office looks like. (smow)blog: Your presenting your new shell chair series HAL here at Orgatec, how long was the development phase? Jasper Morrison: About three years, with a lot of effort going into the form of the shell and the performance of the shell.
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The (smow)blog team outing to the cardboard furniture workshop was coupled with a visit to the current Vitra Design Museum Exhibition: The Essence of Things. Design and the Art of Reduction. We must admit to finding it more than a little ironic that an exhibition on "Design and the Art of Reduction" should be taking place in a building designed by Frank Gehry, especially when Tadao Ando's Conference Pavilion is only some 10m away. And after the long journey to Weil am Rhein this thought
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You know how it is. You arrive early in the office..... Make a coffee..... Turn the computer on........ Check out the tabloid press websites..... And break gently into the day with stories as irrelevant and vacuous as they are compelling. It's just a comfortable and familiar way to start the day. This morning was different. The story had all the makings of normal tabloid nonsense: a pop star, a footballer's wife and a party guest list that you suspect had been thrown together by a tired and
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When asked by the (smow)boss yesterday why we appeared to be doing so little work, quoting Dieter Rams we replied with a tired repetition of one of our favourite design related jokes: "Less, but better" "Good design is honest" replied (smow)boss with an irritating accuracy. "Good design is unobtrusive" we muttered under our breath, before skulking off to the warehouse. This coming weekend the Dieter Rams retrospective "Less and More: Das design ethos von Dieter Rams" opens at the Museum
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On Saturday 20.03.2010 the latest Vitra Design Museum exhibition "The Essence of Things. Design and the Art of Reduction" officially opens. An exhibition very much after our own hearts. "The Essence of Things. Design and the Art of Reduction" explores the logic that "it is in the nature of human beings to seek the simplest solution" Although admittedly this is a logic that - despite its logic - all too many designers somehow manage to ignore, there are thankfully enough examples of good,
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We're indebted to Dave Report for drawing our attention to the forthcoming Jasper Morrison exhibition in Stockholm. Organised by the Hallwyl Museum in conjunction with Forum, (the magazine for Scandinavian Architecture, Interiors and Design), the exhibition features jugs, jars and pitchers selected by Morrison. Which might not sound like the most fascinating of exhibitions; but just as with "Take a seat!" exhibition at Museum Les Arts décoratifs in Paris the exhibition offers visitors a
read moreToday is World Usability Day. We do admit to be being more than a touch sceptical about the motivations that lead people to establish events such as "Global Avocado Day", "Bulgarian Aramaic Appreciation Week", or indeed "World Usability Day", but we can't help agreeing with the preamble to their charter. (Without endorsing the charter, per se): Human error is a misnomer. Technology today is too hard to use. A cell phone should be as easy-to-use as a doorknob. In order to humanize a world that
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On 03.11.1989 the Vitra Design Museum opened. On 09.11.1989 the Berlin Wall "fell". Coincidence? Almost certainly. But while the Vitra Design Museum may not be able to claim responsibility for the end of the DDR, it can look back on a remarkable 20 year history and proudly profess to have helped popularise designer furniture and furniture designers. Initially established as a location where Vitra chairman Rolf Fehlbaum could display his extensive collection of contemporary designer
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