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Nordic models + common ground.

Home eventsNordic models + common ground.

Nordic models + common ground.

Oct 31, 2010 | events |
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a show of about thirty designs for buildings, furniture, lighting, clothing and other disciplines opened on thursday at scandinavia house in new york. 29 Oct 2010 – 9 Mar 2011.
above: helen & hard ( norway ) 2010 shanghai expo finnish pavilion “power by nature”

Called Nordic Models + Common Ground: Art and Design Unfolded, the exhibition was organized by Norsk Form—the Foundation for Design and Architecture in Norway– in collaboration with The American-Scandinavian Foundation, which is celebrating its centennial.

The exhibition was designed and curated by the architecture firm Snøhetta in collaboration with Situ Studio.

The show is hosted by Scandinavia House  on Park Avenue in Manhattan, practically in the shadow of Grand Central Station, which is a sometimes overlooked refuge for arts and culture from the Nordic countries. (Nordic seems to be the term used to include the Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden together with Iceland.) With a lively restaurant and a shop including designs from the area, Scandinavia House also hosts shows and speeches, films and concerts.

The firm Snøhetta is based in Oslo and New York and is known for its designs for the Alexandria Library in Egypt and the Museum Pavilion of the New York World Trade Center site.

Craig Dykers, one of the principles of Snøhetta, was on hand at the opening. He explained the “unfolding” aspect of the title, showing how each of the pieces of display furniture had been created from a single standard piece of plywood, sliced on angles and hinged. “It’s a living hinge,” he said, pointing out how it turned in either direction. The blonde, bare plywood evokes familiar memories of Scandinavian design, notably Alvar Aalto.

“We wanted to arrange it,” Dykers explained, “so that wherever you stand in the gallery you can look around and see an echoing idea.” So hanging lamps pick up on hanging clothing  and carbon fiber chairs by Mathias Bengtsson suggest building designs. Wry ceiling lamps called Uggi, by Fanney Antonsdottir and Dogg Gudmundsdottir of Iceland, use the dried bodies of cod fish for their shades.



above: mathias bengtsson ( denmark ) spun chair 2002 – lighter than macbook air



above: fanney antonsdóttir and dögg guđmundsdóttir ( iceland ) dried codfish 2001

The fish not only make a little joke about the region but, as deployed, pick  up on the fish-scale-like shingles used to cover the Shanghai expo pavilion by JKMM of Finland. The shingles are made of recycled bottles and other plastic; a sample of them are displayed on the wall beside a huge images of the spherical pavilion.

above: jkmm Architects (finland ) 2010 shanghai expo finnish pavilion “kirnu”

The show emphasizes the egalitarian qualities shared by the area’s cultures, Dykers said, and there is also a kind of democracy of parts at work in many of the designs. Repeated elements work together in a city shelter structure, a dress, a chair—even in a necklace called Butterfly Disguise II by Liv Blavarp of Norway, of disc like forms of maple, wenge, ebony and reindeer horn.


above: liv blåvarp ( norway ) butterfly disguise II, necklace 2009



above: helen & hard ( norway ) 2010 shanghai expo finnish pavilion “power by nature”



above: daniel rybakken ( norway ) night shot of daylight entrance 2010

“The show is the first in a series of programs marking the ASF’s centennial,” said the Foundation’s president Edward Gallagher.

Resources:
american-scandinavian foundation
scandinavia house
scandinavia house facebook
jkmm architects
mathias bengtsson
gudrun lilja gunnlaugsdóttir
helen & hard
daniel rybakken

<a href="about phil patton

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Phil Patton

about Phil Patton

Phil Patton is a contributing editor at Departures and Esquire magazines, a contributing writer at Wired and an automotive design writer for The New York Times. He was a regular contributor to The New York Times House and Home section and, in 1998, originated the “Public Eye” column. He has written many books including: Made in USA: The Secret History of the Things That Made America (Grove-Weidenfeld, 1992), which was named a New York Times notable book of the year; Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile (Simon & Schuster, 2002); Michael Graves Designs: The Art of the Everyday Object (Melcher, 2004); and Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51 (Villard, 1998). He has also written for Art in America, ARTnews, Connoisseur, Geo, Harper’s Bazaar, Men’s Journal, The New Republic, New York Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Travel + Leisure, Traveler, The Village Voice and Vogue. Patton was Editorial Consultant on the Guggenheim Museum’s “Motorcycle” show in 1998 and Consulting Curator for the “Different Roads” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1999. In 2000 he was consultant and contributor for “On the Job: Design and the American Office” at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

view all entries by Phil Patton.

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