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Designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec hit the ground running early on in their career, snagging commissions from Cappellini, Issey Miyake, Vitra and later Magis, for whom they’ve designed two furniture collections including the Pila chair and Pilo table which debuted in Milan this week. It’s almost impossible to say that it resembles their other projects because with a portfolio that includes store design and iPad apps along with furniture, lighting and housewares their work is so diverse it defies categorization. The common link would be craftsmanship and intention of design, which the designs speak to:
“With Pila, our intention was to design a chair that would be brought down to its minimum, using the least quantity of material and assembling items. The plywood seat and back parts of the chair are supported by four very thin sticks in solid wood which are maintained together by a structure in injected aluminum that is almost invisible. The back of the chair, like the blade of a knife, subtly comes into the main frame while guaranteeing high support resistance. We wanted this chair to be as light as possible, to almost float in the space as if it would stay on its feet by magic.
“Pilo answers the same quest for lightness and additionally proposes an open system that allows to compose a table that goes with one’s needs and wishes. Pilo is a table reduced to its minimum: solid wood feet that support a wooden top thanks to discreet and strong aluminum connections.”
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Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken and Anna Lindgren of the Swedish design studio Front recently created the Collage chair for artisan furniture manufacturer Gemla. Front combed through Gemla’s archives for inspiration and came up with a collage, so to speak, of the company’s history of products.
Once you look you can see many different chair designs at work here. The legs and rounded back bar remind me of classic midcentury cane chairs, but the shortened backrest recalls a lounge or side chair, while the webbing is reminiscent of vinyl pool furniture. Clearly, the Collage chair, with its supple, dyed leather and handcrafted wooden base is a far cry from patio seating. And unlike other furniture manufactures, Gemla has an in-house team of woodworkers and craftsmen that make their pieces. Collage is not for sale directly from the site. Rather, it’s made to order to enable the client to choose their own colors and materials
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Before Harry Bertoia made his eponymous furniture collection for Knoll in the early 50s, he was an artist and jewelry maker. He even made the wedding bands for Charles and Ray Eames. But once his gridded metal collection became a hit at Knoll he’s been known first and foremost as a furniture designer.
The most famous of the five pieces he made is, of course, the Diamond chair, a chair that’s more sculpture than traditional seating. In fact, Bertoia noted that “If you look at these chairs, they are mainly made of air, like sculptures. Space passes right through them.” As one of the most important pieces of furniture designed in the 20th century, it’s the Cooper-Hewitt’s Object of the Month for April.
Made from welded steel in polished or satin chrome or bonded rilsan, it’s scratch, chip and chemical resistant. Some of the pieces in the collection include cushions, which are affixed with snaps or feature stretched fabric, pulled taut across the entire front. I wish I could sit in one all month long, but until I upgrade my simple wooden Adirondack deck chairs to something of the midcentury variety, I will continue to gaze longingly at Bertoia’s masterpiece from afar. [ harrybertoia.org ]
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Much of Berlin-based furniture designer Johanna Dehio‘s work is inspired by make shift structures. Wandwinkel, or Wall-Angles, is a two-legged side table that “requires only the correct inclination and support of a wall.” Similarly, Kleiderstiele, or Clothing-Sticks, is a coat rack that’s really more like experimental furniture; Hangers are attached to long rods that lean up against the wall, pinning your jacket there until you need it again.
One piece that doesn’t require ample wall space is Dehio’s clever Hockberbank, or Stool-Bench. It does, however, require a little user participation. The system consists of several wooden planks with circular cut-outs that fit over stools. If you only need seating for two, simply take the two-seater plank and stack the other stools. If you need four, or want two three-seater benches, just make the combinations and store the rest of the system. The planks are so lovely you don’t even need to tuck them away in your closet. If Dehio’s other designs are any indication, I’d suggest leaning them against the wall.
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Patricia Urquiola‘s Vieques collection isn’t her first line of furniture for Spanish retailer Kettal. Her Maia collection, an outdoor series, won the AD Architectural Design Award in 2008. With Vieques, Urquiola continues to pursue her interest in combining new technology with traditional craftsmanship.
“I like finding the most suitable material for each project,” Urquiola says. “Working on technologically developed materials using craft techniques, or using an industrial process on a material from the past.” For Vieques she strove to “maintain the lateral aluminum double moulding, but with a seat and back similar to taut netting, a soft and pleasant grid, in three dimensions, which we have achieved after two years of research.”
Yes, you read that correctly. Urquiola spent two years researching and developing a totally new, revolutionary 3D fabric called Nico d’Ape, available in a rainbow of colors for the Vieques indoor/outdoor collection.
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Gum Design is an Italian studio run by designer Laura Fiaschi and architect Gabriele Pardi. Together, they have created a diverse portfolio that includes architecture, exhibition spaces, graphic design, housewares, art direction and furniture, the most recent example of which is Mastro, a beautiful work table created for the Italian furniture company De Castelli. The table isn’t available on De Castelli’s site or Fiaschi and Paridi’s, so as far as I can tell the plans are drawn but the table has yet to be built.
The work surface is made of solid iron that’s been acid-etched and bent on the sides to create slotted rails for two firwood trestles to slide in and out of. Personally, I would leave this table assembled all year long. I think it makes a great transitional piece, working as both a work and dining surface, but its space-saving design makes it ideal for temporary projects that require a little extra work space.
In an interview, Fiaschi spoke about her emotional approach to design. You definitely get the sense of the handmade, personal involvement in all of Gum Design’s objects, including Mastro.
“In all areas of creativity you can find excellent things and banal things which seem to dominate thinking in general when it is linked to the function, to the use of things; while we believe that there are other “features”. Let’s talk about emotions and feelings that can involve men and women in their everyday relationships. We think that the products can contain and reveal emotions, lead by their users by their hands towards new experiences, and create a significant relationship.”
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The Paredes Center of Furniture Design in Portugal recently named the GVAL chair the First Prize Winner in the Making Chairs category of their Art on Chairs exhibition. The theme this year is “an idea for the world on a chair,” which is so open-ended and vague I’m not sure it’s even worth it to name a theme at all. Still, their intentions to scout new talent is nobel, and the four designers responsible for the GVAL chair – Vanessa Moreno, Gustavo Reboredo, Louis Sicard and Nenad Katic – couldn’t be more deserving. They used layered sheets of plywood to echo the imagery of tree rings. I’m not sure that really comes off, but the patterns of the wood are so gorgeous and the colors are so rich I’m not sure I even care. The best part are the two two ottomans nestled inside the hollow chair, making it a 3-part piece and storage unit in one.
From their studio, OOO My Design:
GVAL is a product that brings surprising and playful use to an object as ordinary as everyday’s chair. In doing so, it pays homage to the most archetypical of all production materials, wood, in its most natural form: a tree. The shape of the chair and the texture of alternating sheets of plywood is inspired by pattern of tree rings, which in a way represent tree’s memory: each ring usually marks the of one year in the life of the tree.
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29 march noon cst | double cabines | george nakashima | 1973 | click > enlarge
The 2012 auction season opens with our bi-annual Modern Design sale featuring works by renowned designers of the 20th century. Sale highlights include an impressive selection of American mid-century design with works by George Nelson & Associates, Charles and Ray Eames, Greta Magnusson-Grossman and Isamu Noguchi. Works by Pierre Jeanneret, George Nakashima, Guido Gambone and a collection of designs from a home and interior in Glencoe, Illinois by Jordan Mozer all figure prominently in this auction.
duchamp sofa | jordan mozer | 1994
waikiki lounges model c4720 | walter lamb | 1952
Modern design features nearly 250 works of exceptional design. Each item will be featured in our award-winning, full-color auction catalog as well as presented in our online preview at [ View lots ] Gallery preview will open 22 > 28 March, open Monday – Saturday 10 am – 5pm and Sunday by appointment | 1440 West Hubbard Street Chicago | 312 563 0020 [ wright auction ] [ auction begins 29 march 2012 | noon cst ]
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Not since Josef Alber’s brilliant Bauhaus-era nesting tables have I seen a similar design that does it better, and while nothing really tops Bauhaus for me, Rotterdam-based designer Reinier de Jong’s REK coffee table comes awfully close. Like Alber’s design, REK offers an elegant, space-saving solution. It’s three tables in one, which basically triples your available surfaces for when you have guests over. When company leaves, it tucks away neatly into a central cube-like shape.
“REK is a coffee table that grows with your coffee needs. When you have visitors, just get some chairs and extend the table any way you like. Built-in stops make sure you will not extend the sliding parts too far.
The top and two sides of REK are white HPL and the edges are finished with your choice of solid wood: oak, berch or beech. The end grain side of the wood is beveled in order to get a grip: A subtle detail. The dimensions of REK table obviously vary with its configuration: 60 by 80 cm in collapsed state, its maximum lenth is 170 cm and its maximum width is 130 cm.”
de Jong’s other furniture is surprisingly different, like the bright yellow, Beetlejuice-esque Volt table and the fire engine red Keer chair. He does offer one other design in the REK line, a bookcase that, like the coffee table, expands and folds away depending on how large your library is.
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1952 harry bertoia side chair / 1956 warren platner dining table
Beginning Friday, those in the market for a designer original can get 15% off the Knoll Space collection. More than 100 midcentury designs will be on sale, including furniture by Harry Bertoia, Isamu Noguchi, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Eero Saarinen. The sale runs through 23 September – October 3. You can check for Knoll retailers at [ knoll space ]
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