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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In his Ron Arad monograph Restless Furniture Deyan Sudjic notes that the Sticks & Stones furniture crusher Arad developed for the exhibition Nouvelles Tendances staged by the Centre de Creation Industriel Paris in 1987 was itself only saved from the crusher through the post-exhibition "intervention of a friendly Swiss furniture manufacturer."1 While all Swiss furniture manufacturers are friendly, one particularly friendly Swiss furniture manufacturer springs to mind whenever the discussion
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The inescapable chill in the morning air and the deep-seated boredom in the eyes of school aged children can only mean that summer is, ever so slowly, coming to an end. And just as spring beckons life to return in the natural world, so to does autumn herald a revival of activity in the unnatural world of museums and galleries. Consequently, whereas in August we only managed to find three architecture and design exhibitions to recommend, for September we have seven! A Magnificent Seven who
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As with so much of Ron Arad's commercially available, serially produced, furniture designs the story of Tom Vac starts a long, long way away from the domestic conformity one has become accustomed to seeing them in. In this case the story begins on a street corner in Milan. In 1997 the Italian architecture and design magazine Domus launched a PR campaign which involved asking contemporary designers to create an installation which embodied the fundamentals of the magazine. The first commission
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There are a thousand good reasons to avoid travelling through Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport. And a couple of very good reasons. The public transport connections, for example, between Israel's only relevant international airport and Israel's only relevant metropolises are so arduous and poorly co-ordinated it makes one long for the days of The Crusades, when reaching Jaffa or Jerusalem from Europe involved little more taxing than travelling for eight weeks by horse and sailing ship. And then
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A common misconception is that the term "designer" in "designer furniture" means "exclusive". It doesn't. It just means that a designer has invested time in creating a product that does something new or which represents a further development of existing concepts. Designer furniture is however meant to be used everywhere, everyday, by everyone. Such as the Tom Vac by Ron Arad for Vitra. You could just use it in your dinning room or on your balcony. Or.....
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On March 4th 2012 the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig opened the final part of their permanent exhibition. An exhibition very close to our hearts. Now you know us, we 've nothing against baroque or ancient Japanese furniture and objects. But our hearts do beat a little faster when we get to the late 19th century. Mies van der Rohe bending metal. Alvar Aalto bending wood. Verner Panton bending plastic. Axel Buether bending light. It's all there in “Art Nouveau to Present” Plus a
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In addition to showing "From Aalto to Zumthor Furniture by Architects" the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln is also showing off it's new acquisitions: 10 early Michael Thonet stools and a rare work from Jacob and Josef Kohn. Plus 2 monumental pieces of modern abstract metal furniture: "2 R Not" by Ron Arad and "Bell Metal Horse Chair" by Satyendra Pakhalé The Thonet chairs are currently being displayed in a special showcase that wonderfully portrays the development of Michael Thonet's work.
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This year we are finally going to make it to Design Basel. In the past something else always seemed to get in the way; be it illness, other appointments or a feeling deep in our stomachs that it was all just a touch too elitist and too far removed from the world of the normal designer furniture customer to justify the trip. But this year we're healthy, free and a little older and wiser. It in its 6th year Design Basel features exhibitions from 43 international design galleries showing an
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For people who spend most of their working lives sat at desks, publishers and authors have a frightening disregard for comfort when it comes to chairs. Or at least they do if the furniture we saw at the 2010 Leipzig Buchmesse was a measure of the industry norm. Cheap folding chairs, cheap copies of designer furniture classics being presented as originals and general cheap tat as far as the eye could see. Fortunately one or two of the exhibitors seemed better informed. Below a few snapshots
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When we were still young, fit and healthy, towns and cities existed. Just existed. These days in order to exist a city needs to be the city of something. And so as one drives along a German motorway, every ten metres or so comes a large brown sign announcing the next conurbation as "Chemnitz - City of the Modernity", "Pied Piper City Hameln" or "Prien am Chiemsee - City of the criminally lazy taxi drivers". Not wanting to be the outsider in this age of claims making, Weil am Rhein has
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The end of January sees the inauguration of the new Design Museum in Holon, Israel. We were planning heading on over, until we read that the "Design Museum Holon's permanent collection ... will be unveiled in five to seven years" So we'll probably wait until the collection is in before booking our flights. But given that the permanent collection is still half a decade away, and that no temporary or travelling exhibitions have been announced.... why the official inauguration? The answer is
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Since Saturday the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York has been showing their new exhibition Ron Arad: No Discipline. Until October 19th visitors have the opportunity to view a varied selection of Arad's work. Or in the organisers words: "...celebrate the designer’s interdisciplinary and “no-disciplinary” spirit. Physical concepts are traced through works in different materials and scales, and objects are grouped in families based on a shared form, material, technique, or structural
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It's Dumfries Show on Saturday. That won't mean much to the most people, but for us it is a sure sign. Winter is coming. We know, we know. Barely have we got use to remembering to take our sunglasses to work, buying ice-creams for lunch or waking up at 5 am because we forgot to shut the curtains - again - than the Dumfries Agricultural Society hold their annual show. And after the Dumfries show the evenings get shorter with increasing rapidity and before you know it the ground will be brown
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One of the reasons we never pursued a career as film reviewers is that writing in the dark is so difficult. Compared to those notes that we write in darkened cinemas the Rosetta Stone appears as if it was set in Helvetica 8. And so it is that from our trip to "Objectified" at the IFC Centre in New York, the only words we can clearly read are "organic popcorn". It was, and it was lovely. Fortunately we know people who can read our hand writing and they have now finished the translation
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The (smow) blog has more than once suggested that designer furniture is more than just a comfortable place to sit of an evening or a convenient ledge on which to place your coffee while reading the paper; and that a well constructed piece of quality designer furniture can be a real investment. Proof of this theory, if it were needed, can currently be found at the TEFAF Maastricht - one of the world largest and most important art and antique fairs. For the first time in its 34 year history the
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Last week the (smow)team made their annual pilgrimage to the CeBIT communications and IT trade fair in Hannover – not as exhibitor but as curious visitors and passionate techies. And while we looked for ways to improve our on-line service and to offer even more features, we found our attention being continually attracted – and occasionally astounded – by the furniture behind and around the stands. And over the course of the visit we had plenty of time and opportunity to draw up a list of our
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The evenings are getting longer and the rain is a little warmer: Spring is unquestionably approaching. And with the rising sap many an idle thought will undoubtedly turn to romance and the city of all hopeless romantics, Paris. And for those of you planning making a short trip to the French capital this spring we at the (smow)blog would like to recommend a couple of exhibitions that could appeal. Until March 16th the Centre Pompidou is showing an exhibition from the British/Israeli designer
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